What is the history of the ecf office

[Carl Hibbard]

But it should be regarded as equally unacceptable for the ECF office staff to ridicule contributors to this Forum.

I have allowed it a little in order to balance things out but yes I continue to follow the debate closely

[John Upham]

Quite right, Carl. But it should be regarded as equally unacceptable for the ECF office staff to ridicule contributors to this Forum.

Can I do that on their behalf?

[Roger de Coverly]

What other national body would ask you to guess how much you should pay it like the ECF does with game fee.

The concept of making a payment on account for an unknown future liability is a normal commercial and business practice. One obvious example is tax returns. From the ECF's viewpoint it gets the money in earlier, thus improving cash flow and avoiding overdrafts.

Thinking back to the early days of Game Fee nearly twenty years ago, I recall that it was linked to a complete rewrite of the grading system. In fact the original system design was that the two would be integrated. There was even a director who had both Game Fee and Grading in his job title. What happened was that the Game Fee implementation was to a fixed timetable and when the grading developments suffered a resource and time overrun, the linkage at computer level between Game Fee and grading data was discarded.

Given that the results submission system is now stable, is it not time to design and write the program which could produce a corporate membership and rating fees Invoice as a spin off from submission of results? It would be even simpler if the system was reformed to follow the same concept as used by Chess Scotland, namely that rating fees are not directly rebated for individual members.

[Alex Holowczak]

What other national body would ask you to guess how much you should pay it like the ECF does with game fee.

British Gas? Indeed, most gas companies make an estimate on how much you've used, and then make any deductions from future bills. You can opt to have a meter fitted though, and you pay a fixed amount depending on the meter.

There you go then. A "real-world" equivalent to Game Fee and Membership.

[William Metcalfe]

Thanks Alec and Roger but the tax man and British gas can work out exhactly how much you owe them down the line.The ECF has no way of working out exhactly how much game fee you owe them.

[Adam Raoof]

Thanks Alec and Roger but the tax man and British gas can work out exhactly how much you owe them down the line.The ECF has no way of working out exhactly how much game fee you owe them.

I am not sure that is true. I run lots of events every year, and I am too lazy to work out what I owe. I send a sum every month 'on account' and forfeit the early payment discount as a result. At the end of the year the Office adds up every graded game played, deducts the pre-payment, the amount due for DMs discounts, and sends me a bill for the rest!

[Alex Holowczak]

Thanks Alec

People usually manage to get that bit of my name right.

[William Metcalfe]

opps Alex i am so used to typing in a team mates name called alec so i appologise for my error

[Roger de Coverly]

The ECF has no way of working out exhactly how much game fee you owe them.

As Adam points out, all you need to do is to count the number of games played and subtract the number of games played by direct members where a rebate is due. The ECF ought to have both pieces of information available to it. Whether this is processed in the most expedient manner is another issue - one that the Farthing review may be looking at.

[Alex Holowczak]

opps Alex i am so used to typing in a team mates name called alec so i appologise for my error

No problem.

[William Metcalfe]

Like i said before Cleveland went the game fee route last season it was a real pain having direct members and MO members playing in a game fee league the ECF never sent cleveland a fully itemised game fee bill we had to do all the work.
So can the ECF work out a game fee bill or can it not if it can not how does it know its getting the correct amount paid to it.
At least with membership everything is up front and easy for local leagues to run.

[Roger de Coverly]

the ECF never sent cleveland a fully itemised game fee bill we had to do all the work.
.

If Cleveland want to have a complex method of charging clubs the entry fees for its competitions, then it's their fault if it's difficult. I'd guess that as far as the ECF is concerned, the bill is simply (amount of game fee) * ( number of games in Cleveland minus number of games rebated for direct members if any). That said, someone from Manchester commented that their league has the IT skills necessary to bill clubs an exact amount for the Game Fee arising from their matches.

Down south, we just do club entry fees as x per club plus y per team and set x and y to broadly equate to the Game Fee bill.

At least with membership everything is up front and easy for local leagues to run.

Again the south would disagree with you - as we don't need to investigate whether someone is a member of something before we permit them to play in the leagues. The Chess Scotland system would be even simpler whereby a league pays a membership fee based on its size and gets grading for its own events as a benefit of membership. In Scotland though, congresses pay a grading fee even if 100% of the players are Chess Scotland members.

[William Metcalfe]

Lmao Roger Cleveland did not have a complex method are you saying it should have banned clubs from its competitions because they were MO members.

[Roger de Coverly]

Lmao Roger Cleveland did not have a complex method are you saying it should have banned clubs from its competitions because they were MO members.

I'm simply saying that you shouldn't devise a method of recouping fees from clubs if you don't have the IT expertise or support to calculate it properly.

Having thought about it, is the process really that complicated?

step 1 - count number of games played
step 2 - count number of games played by MO members
step 3 - subtract step 2 from step 1
step 4 - multiple step 3 by game fee amount.

[David Clayton]

At least with membership everything is up front and easy for local leagues to run.

Again the south would disagree with you - as we don't need to investigate whether someone is a member of something before we permit them to play in the leagues. The Chess Scotland system would be even simpler whereby a league pays a membership fee based on its size and gets grading for its own events as a benefit of membership. In Scotland though, congresses pay a grading fee even if 100% of the players are Chess Scotland members.

We find the simplest calculation for leagues is for clubs to play only ECF members (direct or via MO). No calculation, minimal league fees (less than £5 per team per year).

Regards

David