Compulsory Membership?

[Roger de Coverly]

I found a letter about GMan in the February 1976 issue of BH Wood's Chess. Whilst most of us were more interested in the headline news of Tony Miles' GM title, Messrs Furlong and Tennant-Smith wrote at length about moral obligations and outright falsehoods. In response BH commented "That the formation of a new chess Association should involve moral issues is absurd".

What I hadn't realised was that they signed themselves as representatives of "Manchester and District Chess Association". So the creation of Greater Manchester as a county involved an internal fight within Manchester.

[David Sedgwick]

But the SCCU seems to be an altogether different case. It seems to me at least, from a distance, to have retained some vigour and purpose; and to have retained the confidence of the players.

Wow - Thanks, David.

I don't always agree with what you say and that applies to some of your posts on this thread. But on this occasion I'm genuinely appreciative.

[Roger de Coverly]

It is the small number who play congress's or operate at higher levels that need a national/regional structure.

The ECF's attempt at budgeting the revenues from its scheme reckoned 1200 Gold and 3000 Silver from a total of 9450 adults. So it's assuming nearly 45% playing either the 4NCL or at least one Congress. Presumably it derived the totals from the grading records, but it doesn't otherwise analyse the player count. The Junior Silver total is best ignored as many one day junior events are structured as individual competitions.

[Sean Hewitt]

It is the small number who play congress's or operate at higher levels that need a national/regional structure.

The ECF's attempt at budgeting the revenues from its scheme reckoned 1200 Gold and 3000 Silver from a total of 9450 adults. So it's assuming nearly 45% playing either the 4NCL or at least one Congress. Presumably it derived the totals from the grading records, but it doesn't otherwise analyse the player count. The Junior Silver total is best ignored as many one day junior events are structured as individual competitions.

Last time I looked at the stats, just over 50% of players played 4NCL or at least one congress per year.

[David Sedgwick]

I can only speak personally, but the SCCU is a very useful tier of administration. Maybe it's just the fact that several key SCCU personnel are generally very active and well informed. The website is always up to date with information about county chess, results, contact details of captains. It has useful, informative and humorous summaries of Council meetings.

The Unions also play an important part in the democratic structure of the ECF, bringing together counties and other organisations in their regions. The SCCU always discusses what is coming up on the Council agenda, putting items on the agenda etc and I would hope that other Unions would be doing likewise. The SCCU has also been very lucky in having some long serving officers who have done a great job over the years.

Some ten years or so ago, John Saunders famously described the SCCU as the organisation that exists to tell you what's going on in the BCF.

That role has been made far more difficult with the abolition of Union representation on the Board when the ECF was established. I fought against that to the end and I still think I was right to do so. I'm convinced that under the old Board structure the Chess in Schools fiasco would have been ended much sooner (the SCCU did it's best to bring that about anyway) and the legal action against FIDE wouldn't have been kept secret for almost a year.

However, that's water under the bridge.

All the Unions need to address their relevance within the ECF of today, particularly with the likely restructuring of the ECF Council in consequence of the Universal Membership Scheme.

A recent example of how a Union can still have an impact is the issue of Junior Membership / Game Fee. Neill Cooper initially raised his concerns at SCCU level and won over a number of sceptics (me, for instance).

[Sean Hewitt]

A recent example of how a Union can still have an impact is the issue of Junior Membership / Game Fee. Neill Cooper initially raised his concerns at SCCU level and won over a number of sceptics (me, for instance).

We may need to wait a while [i.e. until the new budget is published] to see if that's a good example or not. That particular decision may yet have serious repurcussions.

[Paul Cooksey]

I think the people involved in the SCCU are generally well respected, since they are involved in organising chess rather than suing each other. But I doubt many ECF members chose the SCCU as their representative body, if they had the choice. (I was disappointed this thread got so little interest. I was pleased with the idea at the time)

The SCCU may continue to have a useful role organising county chess, but I not convinced it should have a role in the democratic process, as Mike suggested. I'm not completely in the OMOV camp, but the decision making process David refers to is not ideal in my view, even if the decision was correct (which as Sean says remains to be seen).

[David Sedgwick]

A recent example of how a Union can still have an impact is the issue of Junior Membership / Game Fee. Neill Cooper initially raised his concerns at SCCU level and won over a number of sceptics (me, for instance).

We may need to wait a while [i.e. until the new budget is published] to see if that's a good example or not. That particular decision may yet have serious repurcussions.

I've already commented that I'm totally convinced that the changes will increase, not reduce, the ECF's revenue. If that's not borne out by the new budget, it means that the forecasts in the original budget were grossly inflated.

[Sean Hewitt]

A recent example of how a Union can still have an impact is the issue of Junior Membership / Game Fee. Neill Cooper initially raised his concerns at SCCU level and won over a number of sceptics (me, for instance).

We may need to wait a while [i.e. until the new budget is published] to see if that's a good example or not. That particular decision may yet have serious repurcussions.

I've already commented that I'm totally convinced that the changes will increase, not reduce, the ECF's revenue.

I'm equally convinced, based on the numbers presented, that the changes can only lead to a reduction in ECF revenue. But this is a different discussion.

[Ian Thompson]

You could add that they act as the awarding body for regional titles.

You're not kidding.

Roger's additions, whilst true, don't add up to much.

You may think that, but those of us who have our names on a union championship trophy, with no realistic prospect of ever getting a national title, think they are worthwhile.

[Ian Thompson]

The SCCU had managed to beg or borrow some computer time and much of the consolidation work to produce the published local SCCU list had been computerised since the seventies.

It probably helped that the Director of Grievson Grant responsible for their computer systems was a keen chess player, as was one of their computer programmers who did the development work and ran the programs.

[Angus French]

A recent example of how a Union can still have an impact is the issue of Junior Membership / Game Fee. Neill Cooper initially raised his concerns at SCCU level and won over a number of sceptics (me, for instance).

We may need to wait a while [i.e. until the new budget is published] to see if that's a good example or not. That particular decision may yet have serious repurcussions.

I reckon the £2 game fee charge for standard play games played outside of Junior-only competitions is likely to have a more serious impact.
Does anyone know when a revised budget - and also minutes for the Finance meeting - might appear?

[Ian Kingston]

You could add that they act as the awarding body for regional titles.

You're not kidding.

Roger's additions, whilst true, don't add up to much.

You may think that, but those of us who have our names on a union championship trophy, with no realistic prospect of ever getting a national title, think they are worthwhile.

That's a fair point. There doesn't, however, seem to be much demand for such competitions - at least in the MCCU - and there is no sign of the MCCU actually running one.

[Roger de Coverly]

.
Does anyone know when a revised budget - and also minutes for the Finance meeting - might appear?

I don't know how seriously the Cole revolt should be treated, but if it gets support, that removes some Northern income. Yorkshire is a likely problem as well, given the abolition of their special scheme, proverbs about blood and stone come to mind.

That's even before the plausible effect that casual and irregular players just melt away, particularly if militant club treasurers ban match captains from even considering avoiding defaults with occasional players.

[Dragoljub Sudar]

Notts will not be insisiting on compulsory membership and the clubs have agreed in principle that we have a bulk payment facility, possibly through a framework agreement. Clubs will be encouraged to submit membership lists to the association treasurer who will send the appropriate payment to the ECF. The membership fees will be added to the clubs' annual affiliation and league entry fees bill. It's a nice and simple system. Obviously we'll have to rely on clubs to support this and accept that there will be some players who will not become members; their clubs will have to decide how to collect the game fee.

At my club's (Gambit) AGM, we agreed to increase club subs by £5, assuming that our league fees will reduce by the game fee amount (approx £8 per board), and adopt an opt-out policy where those who don't wish to be ECF members or who already are ECF members either directly or via another county have to inform our treasurer accordingly, and he'll subtract £12 or £13 from that person's subs. It was the simplest way for our treasurer and only 2 of our 26 members played fewer than 7 games last season.

I still think the membership scheme stinks, but we've just got to get on with it.