Finance Meeting

[John Upham]

However I guess the ECF should be looking at online payment for all these items

I managed to renew my membership via BACS which was some kind of victory. Maybe once the use of cheques is stopped in England the web site will be enabled for on-line renewals?

The ECF might set a record for being the last organisation to implement this?

[Michele Clack]

I think it would be a bit rich to ask clubs to take on collection of fees for the ECF, since it is club chess that is the most likely to be adversely affected by a membership only scheme.

What about people who aren't in any clubs?

[Alex Holowczak]

I think it would be a bit rich to ask clubs to take on collection of fees for the ECF, since it is club chess that is the most likely to be adversely affected by a membership only scheme.

What about people who aren't in any clubs?

Why is it any difference if the clubs are asked to collect instead of the leagues and congresses, as is the case now? People who don't belong to clubs would play in congresses, so would be able to pay at those. I guess you'd need a further way to catch county-only players.

Clearly two things have to be carefully thought about:
(1) How do we get efficient payment? Having online payment for this is absolutely essential, if at all possible. Buy a membership from the shop, or something.
(2) How do we police it? A membership system needs to be designed that can make policing effective. For me, this means anything that the Board comes up with needs to have links to the grading database, which is the most developed tool English chess has at the moment with regard to policing this sort of thing.

I'm particularly interested in (2), naturally. A few thoughts are flying through my mind:
(1) Who should be penalised for non-payment? The leagues? The clubs? The congress organisers? I.e. whose responsibility should it be to ensure that non-members don't play in something?
(2) Do we maintain an efficient enough contact-base in order to chase up non-payments? Two grading lists per year is a timely aide to this. By January, you're likely to have a list of the majority of league players who're playing that season, so that provides an opportunity - and contacts via the grader - to chase up payment.
(3) Can there be efficient enough Grading-Office communications in order to ensure the Office gets all the information it needs? Any rules that are devised need to be something that can be programmed into the grading software to inform the office. Of course, such programming will need time and willing volunteers to do the work.

I'm sure wiser heads than mine are considering exactly these things already.

[Roger de Coverly]

I.e. whose responsibility should it be to ensure that non-members don't play in something?
(

The ECF's mission statement starts

The Objects of the English Chess Federation [“the Company”] are:

 To encourage the study and practice of chess in England

[Alex Holowczak]

I.e. whose responsibility should it be to ensure that non-members don't play in something?
(

The ECF's mission statement starts

The Objects of the English Chess Federation [“the Company”] are:

 To encourage the study and practice of chess in England

The ideal way to do that would be to charge £0 - or even pay people money - in which case, we have no ECF, and nobody to "encourage the study and practice of chess in England". Do you not realise that?

[Richard Bates]

I think it would be a bit rich to ask clubs to take on collection of fees for the ECF, since it is club chess that is the most likely to be adversely affected by a membership only scheme.

What about people who aren't in any clubs?

Why is it any difference if the clubs are asked to collect instead of the leagues and congresses, as is the case now? People who don't belong to clubs would play in congresses, so would be able to pay at those. I guess you'd need a further way to catch county-only players.

Who collects from people who don't play any chess?

Many people play for several clubs, but aren't necessarily members of specific clubs. If they are all expected to collect then people will end up becoming members several times over. Suppose a player manages to play games for several clubs without being a member. Unless you have some sort of "pay to play" fee to be paid in place of membership the only realistic solution is for all those players games to remain ungraded.

[Alex Holowczak]

Many people play for several clubs, but aren't necessarily members of specific clubs. If they are all expected to collect then people will end up becoming members several times over. Suppose a player manages to play games for several clubs without being a member. Unless you have some sort of "pay to play" fee to be paid in place of membership the only realistic solution is for all those players games to remain ungraded.

I'm quite comfortable with the concept of the non-members not appearing with grades. I think their games would need to be graded (need to check practicalities with RJH), but either way, I'm happy with an acceptable solution technology-wise. However, I'd still rather have some sort of measure to chase up the misplaced £18. Experience with Game Fee suggests people don't mind paying it, but they're just slow to get around to it (not realising the constitutional implications), or don't know that they have to. So with a gentle prod, money might come flooding in. We want people to become members, not sanction them for not becoming members.

[Roger de Coverly]

The ideal way to do that would be to charge £0 - or even pay people money - in which case, we have no ECF, and nobody to "encourage the study and practice of chess in England". Do you not realise that?

I've long had the opinion that the best you can hope for of the ECF (and the BCF before it) is that it maintains a status of "mostly harmless". In other words it tries not to get in the way by creating artificial barriers preventing games being played and competitions taking place.

Up to a point it succeeds. By the standards of some sports, new events can be established very easily. You don't have to ask permission. For example that county associations might have sanctioning power to "recognise" new Congresses.

Suppose that county associations had the power to suspend players for taking part in competitions against non-members.

As it stands at the moment, the ECF has relatively few sanctions to prevent chess being played. Chess competitions well pre-date grading so even that's not really a deterrent.

In the absence of grants or sponsorship, the ECF has to raise sufficient money to exist and do the things you expect a national chess body to do, such as arrange international teams. Chess in England though could continue even if the ECF didn't.

[Angus French]

I'm sure wiser heads than mine are considering exactly these things already.

I am sure you are right.

[Roger de Coverly]

By January, you're likely to have a list of the majority of league players who're playing that season, so that provides an opportunity - and contacts via the grader - to chase up payment.

January 2013 would be the first major crunch time, because the ECF would not have received all the league Game Fee payments usually due in December.

I'm not sure who's doing all the chasing though, it's supposed to be cheaper to collect than Game Fee.

[Alex Holowczak]

By January, you're likely to have a list of the majority of league players who're playing that season, so that provides an opportunity - and contacts via the grader - to chase up payment.

January 2013 would be the first major crunch time, because the ECF would not have received all the league Game Fee payments usually due in December.

I'm not sure who's doing all the chasing though, it's supposed to be cheaper to collect than Game Fee.

We don't know yet. Let's wait and see.

[Andrew Farthing]

I've posted a short report on the decisions made at Saturday's meeting in my blog http://englishchess.org.uk/farthing/.

Clearly, some of the decisions have already been discussed at length on the Forum, so they won't be new. The full Minutes will be published shortly, but I need to write them first! I should be able to do this over the Easter weekend as a break from getting crushed in the U175 section at Exmouth.