Question about membership

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John Upham
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Question about membership

Post by John Upham » Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:32 pm

HJCA has received an invoice from ECF for the HJCA Congress of October 2017.

If I was to encourage all the non-ECF members referred to in the invoice to become Junior (SIlver) members would that then affect the amount of the invoice?

Thanks !
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IM Jack Rudd
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Re: Question about membership

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:42 pm

As I understand the rules, no. You can retroactively become a member only for bronze-level events.

Andrew Zigmond
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Re: Question about membership

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:55 pm

Am I missing something here or is this just a case of the ECF billing a graded event for the relevant fees in accordance with what is now an established policy? I saw the contempt with which a suggestion that this should be raised with the ECF office was treated on a near identical thread.
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John Upham
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Re: Question about membership

Post by John Upham » Wed Jan 03, 2018 1:07 pm

Andrew Zigmond wrote:
Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:55 pm
Am I missing something here or is this just a case of the ECF billing a graded event for the relevant fees in accordance with what is now an established policy? I saw the contempt with which a suggestion that this should be raised with the ECF office was treated on a near identical thread.

Yes, I would agree.

It was remiss of me not to encourage membership for those who were non-members : my mistake.

I will remember for the 2018 event !
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Roger de Coverly
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Re: Question about membership

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Feb 06, 2018 10:52 am

Andrew Zigmond wrote:
Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:55 pm
Am I missing something here or is this just a case of the ECF billing a graded event for the relevant fees in accordance with what is now an established policy?
It appears the ECF have backed down on the price hike for junior events.

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/pay-to-p ... urnaments/
Last April, the Federation’s Council, its governing body, switched away from Game Fee for junior tournaments to ‘Pay to Play’ fees. This was set at £3.75, half the ‘open age’ rate, from 1st September 2017.

The Federation’s Board has reviewed the early effects of this change and has some concerns about its impact on certain events attracting high numbers of very young players. Although other factors have contributed, in particular it seems that the expected take up of free Junior Silver membership, available for a player’s first year of ECF membership, has been far lower than anticipated. As a result some junior events have incurred high ‘Pay To Play’ costs.

The Board now considers that the ‘Pay to Play’ should be adjusted to better reflect the intentions of the changes for 2017/18 rates. For 2017/18 the junior ‘Pay to Play’ the amount will be £2.00 rather than £3.75. This £2.00 figure is close to the £1.80 that would have been payable for a typical 6-round junior rapidplay event operating under the former Game Fee.
Weren't these concerns expressed and dismissed at the 2017 Finance Meeting?

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Re: Question about membership

Post by Angus French » Tue Feb 06, 2018 1:03 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Tue Feb 06, 2018 10:52 am
It appears the ECF have backed down on the price hike for junior events.

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/pay-to-p ... urnaments/
Last April, the Federation’s Council, its governing body, switched away from Game Fee for junior tournaments to ‘Pay to Play’ fees. This was set at £3.75, half the ‘open age’ rate, from 1st September 2017.

The Federation’s Board has reviewed the early effects of this change and has some concerns about its impact on certain events attracting high numbers of very young players. Although other factors have contributed, in particular it seems that the expected take up of free Junior Silver membership, available for a player’s first year of ECF membership, has been far lower than anticipated. As a result some junior events have incurred high ‘Pay To Play’ costs.

The Board now considers that the ‘Pay to Play’ should be adjusted to better reflect the intentions of the changes for 2017/18 rates. For 2017/18 the junior ‘Pay to Play’ the amount will be £2.00 rather than £3.75. This £2.00 figure is close to the £1.80 that would have been payable for a typical 6-round junior rapidplay event operating under the former Game Fee.
Weren't these concerns expressed and dismissed at the 2017 Finance Meeting?
In answer to Roger's question: I don't recall that concerns were expressed and dismissed at the 2017 Finance Council Meeting.

The Board, for reasons I don't understand (as many if not most juniors start playing graded chess in tournaments rather than leagues; Silver membership applies to the former, Bronze to the latter), proposed a reduction of the Junior Bronze fee from £11 to £9.50 (this was the figure on the Agenda; the Finance Director's budget, however, was based on a 50p increase to £11.50). At the same time, the Board proposed an increase in the Junior Silver fee from £16 to £17. Thus the proposed Junior Silver Pay-to-Play fee (calculated as the difference between the Bronze and Silver membership fees) was £7.50, an increase of £2.50. The proposals were approved at the Finance Council meeting - in April 2017.

A month later the Board decided - see the May 2017 Board Meeting minutes - to overturn Council's decision and its own recommendation and reduced the Junior Silver Pay-to-Play fee from £7.50 to £3.75. Some discussion of this decision can be found here. Note: the first paragraph of the new announcement is misleading: it wasn't Council which set the fee to £3.75, it was the Board that did this, overriding Council's earlier decision and the Board's earlier recommendation.

Now the Junior Silver Pay-to-Play fee has been further reduced to £2.

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Re: Question about membership

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Feb 06, 2018 1:27 pm

Angus French wrote:
Tue Feb 06, 2018 1:03 pm
Now the Junior Silver Pay-to-Play fee has been further reduced to £2.
Essentially it's a per head fee to allow non-members to participate in graded chess. It will be recalled that under the Game Fee regulations, the rapidplay rate was half the standard rate and the junior rate a third of that. So when the adult Game Fee was 60p, the fee for a rapidplay junior event was 10p per game or in effect 50p or 60p a head for a tournament. If there are a 100 participants that's £ 50 or £ 60 per tournament. Replace Game Fee with per head membership for adults at £ 12 to £ 19 and the equivalent junior amount becomes £ 2 to £ 3 if kept in the same proportions, expensive to collect at an individual level. Hence the problem and why Junior Organisers are apt to kick up a fuss when they belatedly realise that the cost of running tournaments has been increased.

The discussion seems to have taken place unofficially on this forum, rather than at the ECF Council meeting.

E Michael White
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Re: Question about membership

Post by E Michael White » Tue Feb 06, 2018 3:21 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Tue Feb 06, 2018 1:27 pm

Essentially it's a per head fee to allow non-members to participate in graded chess. It will be recalled that under the Game Fee regulations, the rapidplay rate was half the standard rate and the junior rate a third of that. So when the adult Game Fee was 60p, the fee for a rapidplay junior event was 10p per game or in effect 50p or 60p a head for a tournament. If there are a 100 participants that's £ 50 or £ 60 per tournament. Replace Game Fee with per head membership for adults at £ 12 to £ 19 and the equivalent junior amount becomes £ 2 to £ 3 if kept in the same proportions, expensive to collect at an individual level. Hence the problem and why Junior Organisers are apt to kick up a fuss when they belatedly realise that the cost of running tournaments has been increased.

The discussion seems to have taken place unofficially on this forum, rather than at the ECF Council meeting.
My view is that any fees for juniors playing in, essentially what are adult chess circles, should pay 20% of the adult fee. I base this entirely on my experience when I joined a League Club as a teenager around 1960 (that's years not FIDE); the adult annual chess club fee was £1.25 and the junior fee 25p (or 5 bob). It worked for me, the adult members and it worked for other juniors, attracting about 5 junior members out of a total membership of about 45. I realise we are not discussing the same type of fees here but I would apply it across the board as it would save time currently wasted discussing the level at council and board meetings.

I would even recommend applying a 20% principle for entry fees to essentially adult tournaments such as U150, which should entitle juniors to only 20% of any prize they win. Of course I would allow juniors to pay the full entry fee for entitlement to 100% of any prize they win.

I'm expecting Brian Valentine to reply naming 20% as the EMW ratio.

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