ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Debate directly related to English Chess Federation matters.
Roger de Coverly
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Oct 05, 2012 12:28 am

Sean Hewitt wrote: Despite your assertions to the contrary, this is not denied by anyone as far as I'm aware. .
The current President of the NCCU is one such denier. The original marketing of the NMS was something of a con, in that it told potential members that joining the NMS would save their clubs Game Fee. This was true, but failed to point out that the amount saved in Game Fee was less than the cost of NMS membership. How else was it that the ECF got more income from the MO than it did from Game Fee? There were no dramatic increases in the numbers of players, so increased income can only come from increasing the take from existing players and events.

There was little take up of MOs outside a few areas because it was quite obvious that it would cost the "average" player more and would potentially discourage new players. Equally this viewpoint was denied as not being correct.

Sean Hewitt
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by Sean Hewitt » Fri Oct 05, 2012 12:36 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Sean Hewitt wrote: Despite your assertions to the contrary, this is not denied by anyone as far as I'm aware. .
The current President of the NCCU is one such denier. The original marketing of the NMS was something of a con, in that it told potential members that joining the NMS would save their clubs Game Fee.
I thought we were talking about the here and now of the ECF Universal Membership rather than the past history of the NMS? Has anyone suggested that the new membership scheme is not seeking to raise more revenue from players this year than membership and game fee combined did last year? If they have said that, I've missed missed it. My point is that had game fee been retained, it would similarly have had to raise more revenue from players. Do you deny that that is the case?

Roger de Coverly
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Oct 05, 2012 12:48 am

Sean Hewitt wrote: My point is that had game fee been retained, it would similarly have had to raise more revenue from players. Do you deny that that is the case?
I'm sure that's the case. Do you think it was an appropriate time to cut the price of league participation to existing Direct members and to recoup the resulting shortfall from juniors and "ordinary" club members? The ECF CEO seemed to think so, ignoring the evidence that the reason why "Gold" membership cost more than twice "Bronze" membership was the ECF's own policy of increasing the cost of "Gold" membership at a faster rate then "Bronze" membership, coupled with a refusal to allow "pay to play" for participation in FIDE rated events.

As far as the relationship between Game Fee and MO costs is concerned, it ought to be proportionate. Thus if Game Fee is 40p and MO is £ 10, then if Game Fee has to be 80p, MO should be £ 20.

(edit) Was not the marketing message of the MO system that it was cheaper than Game Fee to club members? What persuaded Leics and Norfolk to adopt it? Had taking the ECF to the financial cleaners been an objective, it would have been worthwhile for players forced by the 4NCL or e2e4 to become members to attempt to do this through an MO rather than directly in order to get a cut price offer. (/edit)

Bill Porter
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by Bill Porter » Fri Oct 05, 2012 11:00 am

Bill Porter wrote:I'll confine myself to refuting the rest of your post as effectively as you did mine.
Again you ignore the point.
Bill Porter wrote:
Bill Porter wrote:( I am assuming other costs have not changed. )
I was not aware your club had taken the opportunity to ( in effect ) increase its subscription by the amount it was saving in game fee hence I made the above explicit assumption.
Sean Hewitt wrote:No one in our club has begrudged the extra £1 per month that membership has cost them.
More seriously, I accepted the above statement as true without seeking a more reliable source.
I assume the correct version is "No one in our club has begrudged the extra £1 per month that the backdoor increase in club subscriptions has cost them."
If I have been misled by other incorrect statements by yourself, please let me know in your usual courteous fashion.
I note that you have deleted your attempt to refute the above post and have used the same method I used in "I'll confine myself to refuting the rest of your post as effectively as you did mine."
It's of course not very effective but it was adequate for me to use with someone whose idea of debate is to ignore, misunderstand or accept any given point whenever expedient.
On the plus side you are discrediting the ECF membership scheme more than I ever could.

Sean Hewitt
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by Sean Hewitt » Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:26 pm

Bill Porter wrote:I note that you have deleted your attempt to refute the above post and have used the same method I used in "I'll confine myself to refuting the rest of your post as effectively as you did mine."
Bill - again you are totally wrong. I have not deleted any posts that I have made. Indeed, I don't think it's possible to do so.
Bill Porter wrote:On the plus side you are discrediting the ECF membership scheme more than I ever could.
If you think so. The fact of the matter is that take up appears to be strong. This is good news for the ECF.

Sean Hewitt
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by Sean Hewitt » Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:29 pm

Bill Porter wrote:I assume the correct version is "No one in our club has begrudged the extra £1 per month that the backdoor increase in club subscriptions has cost them.".
Assume what you like. I wouldn't want you to let the truth get in the way of your diatribe.
Bill Porter wrote:If I have been misled by other incorrect statements by yourself, please let me know in your usual courteous fashion.
You've not been misled by my statements. The problem is that you're either too quick to jump to the conclusion that you want, or you're just not bright enough to understand them - I'm not sure which.

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Carl Hibbard
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by Carl Hibbard » Fri Oct 05, 2012 6:22 pm

A rather childish comment added by Sean :roll: was in fact deleted by me as it was not appropriate

Let us hope we can keep to the point :!:
Cheers
Carl Hibbard

John Townsend
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by John Townsend » Tue Oct 09, 2012 11:22 am

Sean said:
What utter twaddle. Assuming for the moment that your premise is correct that such players exist as "exist as members in most clubs" then they have presumably paid a membership fee that did not put them off joining. That aside, such players do not need to "pay £12 for one game of chess"; they pay £2 - precisely £1.42 more than they did last season.
My calculator makes that an increase of 244.8%. Is it based on inflation, or growth rate in the economy, or what?

Sean Hewitt
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by Sean Hewitt » Tue Oct 09, 2012 1:29 pm

John Townsend wrote:My calculator makes that an increase of 244.8%. Is it based on inflation, or growth rate in the economy, or what?
It's based on a fundamental change to the ECF funding model, from a per game basis to a per head basis.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Oct 09, 2012 1:45 pm

Sean Hewitt wrote: It's based on a fundamental change to the ECF funding model, from a per game basis to a per head basis.

The effect of which is to increase disproportionately the amounts paid to the ECF for some players particularly for players only taking part in internal club competitions. Is that point now accepted by all ?

Compare the costs of an internal five round standard play tournament for ten players, not playing anywhere else. Under last season's rules, it would have cost the club 5*10*20p, in other words £ 10. Under the current rules it would either be 5*10*£2, £ 100 or if the individuals became ECF members through the website, 10*£12, £ 120. £ 130 if members otherwise. Andrew Farthing wrote that it wasn't the intention of the ECF to offer financial disincentives against the playing of chess. Do you think he was right?

Michele Clack
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by Michele Clack » Tue Oct 09, 2012 2:40 pm

Yes I am confident that Andrew was right. For every club that thinks like Roger's example I suspect there will be a multiple of clubs who will now be able to have their club competitions graded who couldn't afford it before. A club in the position of having a lot of players who don't play League Chess but want to play in the Club competition could simply run their competition ungraded. After all if the players are not playing League chess then they don't really need a grade.

David Gilbert
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by David Gilbert » Tue Oct 09, 2012 2:55 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Sean Hewitt wrote: It's based on a fundamental change to the ECF funding model, from a per game basis to a per head basis.

The effect of which is to increase disproportionately the amounts paid to the ECF for some players particularly for players only taking part in internal club competitions. Is that point now accepted by all ?

Compare the costs of an internal five round standard play tournament for ten players, not playing anywhere else. Under last season's rules, it would have cost the club 5*10*20p, in other words £ 10. Under the current rules it would either be 5*10*£2, £ 100 or if the individuals became ECF members through the website, 10*£12, £ 120. £ 130 if members otherwise. Andrew Farthing wrote that it wasn't the intention of the ECF to offer financial disincentives against the playing of chess. Do you think he was right?

Yes, it looks as though Andrew was right doesn't it? People are joining the ECF in their thousands presumably because they want their games graded - or their Treasurers are telling them to join or else! There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that many Clubs who did not submit games from their internal competitions before, will do so in future because it is becoming a 'free' good when all the entrants are ECF members. You might therefore expect the annual number of graded games to rise in 2012/13. Going forward it seems unlikely that any Club will run an internal 10-player competition where all the competitors are non-ECF members. However, should that arise, and this also applies if all 10 players are ECF members, Clubs have the same choice they have had before of submitting their games and paying game fee or not submitting them.

At my Club there is 100% take-up of ECF membership - so this is not an issue for us. For as long as I can remember we have submitted the results of two internal competitions for grading - averaging around 50 games in total. From this season the Club will make a small saving because we won't have to pay any game fee on League matches or internal competitions and we can put that saving back into improving our equipment or reducing annual subscriptions (or maybe better biscuits).
Last edited by David Gilbert on Tue Oct 09, 2012 2:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Alan Walton
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by Alan Walton » Tue Oct 09, 2012 2:56 pm

michele clack wrote:Yes I am confident that Andrew was right. For every club that thinks like Roger's example I suspect there will be a multiple of clubs who will now be able to have their club competitions graded who couldn't afford it before. A club in the position of having a lot of players who don't play League Chess but want to play in the Club competition could simply run their competition ungraded. After all if the players are not playing League chess then they don't really need a grade.
Michele, you hit the nail on the head here

All Roger's examples have come under the assumption that players just play internal club tournaments, I would suspect that the vast majority also play league games, and now being able to run internal congresses totally free of charge is a good barrier to break and get more players playing competitive chess

David Gilbert
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by David Gilbert » Tue Oct 09, 2012 2:56 pm

Snap Michele!

Bill Porter
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Re: ECF membership & clubs' internal games.

Post by Bill Porter » Tue Oct 09, 2012 3:12 pm

Alan Walton wrote: being able to run internal congresses totally free of charge is a good barrier to break and get more players playing competitive chess
How does requiring £2 minimum per graded game or £12 for ECF membership for "internal congresses totally free of charge" instead of the club paying 20p(?) game fee "get more players playing competitive chess"?