Compulsory Membership?

[Roger de Coverly]

3. In the case of FIDE rated events, the ECF requires that any English-registered player is a Gold ECF member or higher. If, despite this, an English-registered player takes part in a FIDE-rated event, the player will be de-registered from the FIDE list.

4. In the case of FIDE-rated rapidplays, we are in effect in a trial period while FIDE assesses demand and whether it wishes to continue to rate rapidplay events on an ongoing basis. Currently, FIDE makes no charge for rating rapid plays. In recognition that this is still a trial period, the ECF is asking organisers of FIDE-rated rapidplays to ask for English participants to be ECF members, but we would take a more flexible view in considering individual exceptions if the only FIDE-rated events in which the person had competed were rapidplays.

Would you like to take a look at the thread about tomorrow's Richmond Rapid-play and the reply to my comment about whether you needed membership or could enter as a non-member without, in my words, the ECF trashing your rating?

(edit) This one
http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4291
(/edit)

[David Pardoe]

I can only speak personally, but the SCCU is a very useful tier of administration.

But what does it administer? A glance at the web site suggests that its main function is organising the county championships in its region - just as with the other Unions. That it looks active (to an outsider) is probably down to Richard Haddrell's efforts as webmaster. (Ray Collett does a similarly good job on the MCCU web site.)

Going back to points raised on page 11 about Unions & other chess bodies....
It is easy to `knock` these bodies, and dish out a fair amount of criticism...but we must not lose sight of the fact that many officers do substantial amounts of very good work..

On the later points about fund raising and the `seeming loss` of our Olympiad team..
We lost that Gov £60k grant (which went into the `chess pot`, and will be hard to replace).
To replace this via `Membership fees`, would have increased the Membership charge by several pounds per member, so maybe not a practical option.
But it is not clear to me (I may have missed some points raised), just where the money for our Olympiad team used to come from.
I`m presuming we`re looking for several thousand pounds to send a team of 5 players & captain to Turkey....although cheap package holidays might be had for less money, perhaps.
I`ve suggested various possible fund raising options....and I presume the ECF has also looked at options.
What about the possibility of various chess bodies putting up `low interest loans` to the ECF to fund a team. Maybe, several organisations could put up loans of say, £500 - 1000 at a 2% coupon for 5 years.
We appear to have thrown in the towel on this one...and now is obviously very late in the day.

As regards possible team players for this event, I`m guessing that we normally send a team from our top 20 players. Extending this slightly might be worth consideration, but I except that having at least two top players would be very desirable. No doubt the team captain has been looking at the options. I`m thinking here between a possible comprimise between having to pay out significant fees, and also encouraging some of our `lesser` top dogs...asssuming availability, etc...

[Roger de Coverly]

But it is not clear to me (I may have missed some points raised), just where the money for our Olympiad team used to come from.
I`m presuming we`re looking for several thousand pounds to send a team of 5 players & captain to Turkey....although cheap package holidays might be had for less money, perhaps.

The money for the Olympiad teams comes from the general funds (International Budget) of the ECF plus Sponsorship and Patronage when available. The host country supplies basic accommodation so the costs to the ECF are upgrading the accommodation, paying for travel and paying fees and expenses to players to participate. A competitive men's team usually requires the selection of those who treat chess as their living, so they are not willing to work for nothing.

The Olympiad can be cheaper for the ECF than the European team championships in the odd numbered years because the teams in that have to meet their own accommodation costs.

[Matthew Turner]

Andrew Farthing wrote (on Wednesday)
"Regarding the Olympiad, the practical difficulty is that the registration and payment deadline for the Olympiad is 1st June, so we are going to have to take a decision on whether a team can even be sent over the next week or so."

Is there any news on this yet? Do we know when a decision will be taken/announced?

[LawrenceCooper]

Andrew Farthing wrote (on Wednesday)
"Regarding the Olympiad, the practical difficulty is that the registration and payment deadline for the Olympiad is 1st June, so we are going to have to take a decision on whether a team can even be sent over the next week or so."

Is there any news on this yet? Do we know when a decision will be taken/announced?

The decision is mine and teams will be sent.

[Mark Howitt]

I'm very interested to know what those teams will be!

[Mark Howitt]

It's pretty obvious that one of the ECF's priorities should be funding the English chess team, not office staff. Scotland and Wales manage without paying any formal office staff at all.

Still waiting for the team details.

[Sean Hewitt]

Still waiting for the team details.

When's the deadline for submitting the team?

[Paul Buswell]

Carl, mods:

Is it possible to set up a thread to receive reports of how League and County AGMs are responding to the new ECF membership / £2 Game Fee requirement for league play?

Are they accepting it? Dropping out of grading? Dropping out of grading for lower divisions perhaps?

And if accepting it, how will they administrate it? Pass the obligation of Member or £2 down to clubs, require all players to be ECF Members, some other model for recoupimg costs?

Similar information on clubs' positions over their internal results would also be of interest.

It would be good to know whether there is broad acceptance or a peasants' revolt.

PB

[Roger de Coverly]

And if accepting it, how will they administrate it? Pass the obligation of Member or £2 down to clubs, require all players to be ECF Members, some other model for recoupimg costs?

In terms of collecting £ 2 per head, I rather suspect the ECF doesn't know how it will do it either. Existing collection of Game Fee has something of the "honesty" box system about it, with the ECF not being prepared to invest in a system to directly link the grading files to the accounting. But for leagues, it doesn't matter since you know, more or less, how many games are going to be played and charged, long before they actually take place.

The proposal voted for last October, before it unravelled in the April meeting, was that an analysis would be performed at 31st August 2013 which would sort out whether 85% of the games had been played by members, or whatever was the relevant statistic, and then send leagues the calculated bill based on £ 1 or £ 2 per game per non-member. I don't recall whether they promised to itemise the bill by club or individual. I'd suppose that the deadline could be moved forward a bit to the end of the grading season on 30th June. But there are summer leagues here and there. The relevance of this is the backdating feature, it would appear that you can join as late as 31st August 2013 and still expect the ECF to not demand a payment for the game played on 1st September 2012.

Alternative collection systems were presumably possible, but constitutionally the ECF wanted to avoid a 75% vote, so whatever they did had to be capable of being shoe-horned into the Game Fee regulations.

I'm not sure what sanctions the ECF has in mind against non-payers. Exclusion from the grading list isn't one of them because of the timing issues. The BCF's old 1st January registration year made more sense in that context.

Collectively local graders and treasurers could get together and predict the ECF's bill, if the ECF get a different result, cue arguing.

Edit

This is what the ECF were saying last August

As a temporary measure, to protect against potential shocks to the ECF’s funding, the following (greatly simplified) continuation of the Game Fee model is proposed for graded Club and League events:

A charge will be levied on each half-game played by a non-member, to be calculated at the end of August each year. The rate will be dependent upon the percentage of players in the competition who are ECF members. If there are 85% or more ECF members, the rate per half-game will be £1. If the proportion of ECF members falls below 85%, the rate per half-game will be £2. These rates will apply irrespective of the type of competition (i.e. standard play, rapid play, junior, club, etc.).

The 85% rule was deleted by the April Council. But do the words "temporary measure" and "end of August" still stand? (/edit)

[Alex Holowczak]

It would be good to know whether there is broad acceptance or a peasants' revolt.

Well, I've only heard about one local league so far. The Leamington League will charge £2 for non-members to play in the league, but they can't sign a framework agreement yet because of a constitutional oversight. They missed the deadline to propose it at their AGM!

One club didn't like it, but they haven't pulled out of the league in protest.

Edit: I went to Worcestershire though, which I forgot about. They're signing a framework agreement too. One club voted against, but isn't pulling out of the league because of it. Their objection to signing the agreement wasn't that strong.

wrote:
In terms of collecting £ 2 per head, I rather suspect the ECF doesn't know how it will do it either.

This isn't true at all. Have you not read the framework agreement that new MOs are going to sign on the ECF website?

[Roger de Coverly]

This isn't true at all. Have you not read the framework agreement that new MOs are going to sign on the ECF website?

I haven't, but then why should I assume an MO framework?

On 15th December 2012, you tell the ECF that you don't expect any material amounts of Game Fee to be payable. It doesn't matter how many games have been played by non-members ,you expect highly trained squads of club treasurers to hold match captains hostage until either they or their players have coughed up. The league doesn't actually get the Game Fee bill until "the end of the membership year", which is 31st August 2013.

This is a rather critical difference to the current system. With Game Fee paid on all games, you know for a league in advance the likely bill for the whole season, so you can settle it in advance of the games being paid. When you don't know what the bill will be and it will depend on individual decisions yet to be made, you can do no more than lend the ECF money if you are feeling generous.

(added)
The ECF struggles with linking grading files to accounting, so does it know what it will be producing in August 2013 (!) and how itemised the data will be? For that matter, does it know how it will be dealing with transitional arrangements? (/added)

[John Philpott]

Alex Holwczak wrote

This isn't true at all. Have you not read the framework agreement that new MOs are going to sign on the ECF website?

I think that Roger could be excused for not having done so as the agreement has been belatedly added as a link on the "important changes to ECF membership and Game Fee" page of the website without much of a fanfare. See http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... ment-3.pdf

[Alex Holowczak]

This isn't true at all. Have you not read the framework agreement that new MOs are going to sign on the ECF website?

I haven't, but then why should I assume an MO framework?

On 15th December 2012, you tell the ECF that you don't expect any material amounts of Game Fee to be payable. It doesn't matter how many games have been played by non-members ,you expect highly trained squads of club treasurers to hold match captains hostage until either they or their players have coughed up. The league doesn't actually get the Game Fee bill until "the end of the membership year", which is 31st August 2013.

This is a rather critical difference to the current system. With Game Fee paid on all games, you know for a league in advance the likely bill for the whole season, so you can settle it in advance of the games being paid. When you don't know what the bill will be and it will depend on individual decisions yet to be made, you can do no more than lend the ECF money if you are feeling generous.

The answer to the question you were accusing the ECF of not thinking about the answer of is:

Sign a framework agreement, and you are invoiced the Game Fee at the end of the season.

Don't sign a framework agreement, and you pay as you do now (by December 15). If this is inconvenient administratively due to all the problems of estimating Game Fee, then sign a framework agreement.

[John Philpott]

Alex Holowczak wrote

Don't sign a framework agreement, and you pay as you do now (by December 15).

Unless Council amends the Game Fee Bye Laws to change the due date for chess leagues to 30 days after the conclusion of the event.