Another Membership Success

[harrylamb]

France has mandatory membership at a cost of 100 euros

I do not think this is true. I have been a member of a French club for about eight years. The current membership fee is 69 Euros. Of that

26 Euros goes to the French Chess Federation
18 Euros goes to Burgundy
25 Euros goes to The club

You can see the details at http://www.esbarres-bonnencontre-echecs.new.fr/ - if you click on tarifs on the left

If you compare it with the price of English chess it is probably cheaper because the club pays travel expenses for all it players for away matches. It pays petrol costs and autoroute toll fees from Esbarres (the village it plays in) to the wherever the match is. These can be quite high as clubs are often are often over 100miles apart.

Esbarres chess club as is normal in France get a large (to English eyes) grant from the local authority and many clubs have their own premises which seem to be paid for by the local authority.

[Ben Purton]

The French love tax

[IM Jack Rudd]

Quite obviously a ban on non-members stops people playing.

Not half as much as people think it will, though.

A couple of weeks ago, some guy (henceforth referred to as Steve P) came into the Barnstaple club and started playing a friendly game with one of the members. Shortly afterwards, Steve C (our Devon League match captain) came in, desperately seeking players to make up the eight he needed for the upcoming match against Tiverton. He spotted someone he hadn't asked, and soon Steve P was signed up to play against Tiverton the following Saturday.

The following night it occurred to Steve C that Steve P probably wouldn't be an ECF member, and wasn't sure whether he'd be happy to be asked to pay £13 to join the federation. But it turned out he needn't have worried; Steve P was happy enough to join the ECF, and pay for it himself.

(He's probably now going to play in our Summer championship as well, so he'll get nine or so games out of his £13 rather than just the one, but he wasn't averse to the principle of having to pay the membership fee to play league chess.)

[harrylamb]

They also love representation

[William Metcalfe]

I was only repeating what i was told last night by somebody who has spent the last 6 months living and playing chess in France.He was in the south of France so maybe prices vary from area to area

[Roger de Coverly]

I was only repeating what i was told last night by somebody who has spent the last 6 months living and playing chess in France.He was in the south of France so maybe prices vary from area to area

The impression I was given, was that because of the tax break, it was the accepted practice that those who could afford to do so would make a voluntary donation to the local club, a sort of platinum membership if you like. In a number of cases, this is how French clubs could afford to bus in ringers from outside France.

[Reg Clucas]

I was actually always relatively glad that this wasn't graded because I can't take chess at all seriously over the summer

This highlights another aspect quite unrelated to game fee/membership matters. There may be people who are not keen on having their games graded when played under the time limit of 30 moves per hour.

[Sean Hewitt]

The Stockport league introduced an extra division for next season so that lower graded players could get regular games. This is an excellent initiative. The proposer of the new division commented that the new ECF membership scheme allowed the league to be graded for free.

It is pleasing to see the scheme encouraging more chess being played - just as predicted.

[Roger de Coverly]

The proposer of the new division commented that the new ECF membership scheme allowed the league to be graded for free.

Surely he is misleading both himself and the league. It's free only if all the participants are already ECF members. Otherwise it will be £ 12 or £ 13 a head to take part.

[Sean Hewitt]

The proposer of the new division commented that the new ECF membership scheme allowed the league to be graded for free.

Surely he is misleading both himself and the league. It's free only if all the participants are already ECF members. Otherwise it will be £ 12 or £ 13 a head to take part.

Have you checked how many players in the Stockport league are members?

[Roger de Coverly]

Have you checked how many players in the Stockport league are members?

Wasn't the context that you were attracting new players ? If so, then they wouldn't be members.

Otherwise you are getting more games to be played, but at what cost? Did supporters of membership really want it to be compulsory to be an ECF member to play one game in the National Schools.

I've thought that for leagues with unsatisfied demand, which is not the case in areas already with multiple leagues or multiple clubs, that a form of Vice Presidency would be ideal. In other words the league pays an agreed sum per year to the ECF covering its own voting membership of the ECF and giving rights to have games it organises graded. It leaves itself free to determine how to recoup the cost, whether by charging team entry fees or individual participation fees.

[Sean Hewitt]

Extremely distressing news from the grading data released today.

The number of standard play results per month has increased 4.75% this season, having been static for the last 5 years.

The number of active players (those who played 1 game or more) has decreased by just 71 when compared to 2011. (2012 was a 13 month grading year, which makes meaningful comparisons difficult.)

The number of players with a published grade is [oddly] identical to 2011 at 10105.

So, membership appears to have significantly increased games played per player without having had any detriment on participation. Who'd have thought it? Though, didn't someone on here say that that's exactly what would happen?!

[Roger de Coverly]

Extremely distressing news from the grading data released today.
The number of active players (those who played 1 game or more) has decreased by just 71 when compared to 2011. (2012 was a 13 month grading year, which makes meaningful comparisons difficult.)

As someone who claimed that the introduction of membership would increase the number of players, this has been proved wrong and the numbers have declined. What is the count both of games and individuals playing at least one game? If the ECF have avoided driving low volume players completely out of chess, arguably that was by not enforcing compulsory membership and setting up the £ 2 per game and £ 6 per Congress concessions. The Farthing paper regarded the £ 2 per Game as a temporary measure. Is that still the case?

Did you also notice that the count of players with a rapid-play grade had reduced from 4685 to 4268? That's a 10% reduction, reversing a three year increasing trend (3801, 4134, 4685). That also is to be expected given the number of junior events this would cover and extent of the price increases demanded of junior organisers.

[Sean Hewitt]

Extremely distressing news from the grading data released today.
The number of active players (those who played 1 game or more) has decreased by just 71 when compared to 2011. (2012 was a 13 month grading year, which makes meaningful comparisons difficult.)

As someone who claimed that the introduction of membership would increase the number of players, this has been proved wrong and the numbers have declined.

I've said that membership will increase retention of players because players will play more games. I've been proved exactly right that players played more games. What you will see next is that fewer players will give up playing year on year, so we will start to see an increase in active players in future years.

On the other hand you said that we would see swathes of players leaving the game, and that players would not play more games. You've been proved wrong on both counts. No doubt you will finally admit that.

[Roger de Coverly]

What you will see next is that fewer players will give up playing year on year, so we will start to see an increase in active players in future years.

You will only see an increase in active players if you can recruit new players. It's my case that compulsory membership puts barriers in the way of participation of new players. This seems admitted even by the ECF with its granting of membership waivers to some 4NCL participants, the proposed concessions in the National Schools and the exemption from annual membership for some Congress entrants.

I don't buy into the argument that being required to be a member reduces drop out rates. I would have thought it to be the contrary, that the ECF's demand for payment every September could trigger a decision just not to bother for the sake of a handful of games. A more logical correlation between activity and cessation is that a player cutting down on the number of games is approaching the stage where they might stop completely.