Membership Services

[Roger de Coverly]

Roger you really do talk a load of tosh at times.

It would help to follow if you quoted the statement to which you take exception. If you run a club on the basis that everyone and I mean everyone gets to play in club teams, there is no such thing as someone who only plays in internal tournaments. In any event, in case you hadn't noticed, it is now more expensive than it was last season for players purely taking part in internal tournaments. If I could remind you that Game Fee for internal tournaments was 20p for standard play and 10p for rapid, it's quite clear that you would have to play a lot of games for £ 13 membership to be cheaper.

In case you argue that it isn't about cost, may I remind you that the opposition to Game Fee and the perpetual agitation for per head schemes came from the North, where a 10 p increase in Game Fee ( 50p for 5 games in a Congress) was seen as completely unacceptable.

However unacceptable this may sound for Congress organisers, the ECF should not be giving Congresses services for nothing if it wants to raise money to pay for raising money, least still should it be giving them votes to enable this state of affairs to be perpetuated.

[William Metcalfe]

We only send 1 of our internal comps in for grading our new players could have played plenty of serious games free of charge but they all choose to take up ECF membership.Next season our first batch of juniors will be taking up ECF membership and none of there parents are making comments about cost like 1 parent said it costs more to go to the Cinema once.
Roger what is the biggest cost to your club or clubs i suspect it is venue costs in the South east how do venue costs compair to ECF membership.What you are arguing about is basically the cost of 2/3 pints of beer i suspect a few of your members drink more than that on a regular basis.

[Roger de Coverly]

.What you are arguing about is basically the cost of 2/3 pints of beer i suspect a few of your members drink more than that on a regular basis.

Even in the South of England, beer does not cost £ 20 a pint, or £ 42 if you are talking FIDE rated leagues. Game Fee at 60p a game caused immense grief to those who thought it prevented new competitions. Those wishing to run events designed to appeal to new players really don't want to have to set the entry fee at a minimum of £ 13 per head. Even the ECF recognise this by allowing the £ 6 concession for Congresses.

As you rightly point out, it isn't Game Fee as a chess prevention tax that inhibits new events, but the cost of venues.

Regular players have, for the time being, put up with the price increases. What happens if the ECF wants or needs more and amalgamates Bronze and Silver at the Silver price? The most active players have seen a price cut of course. If you look at the longer term, I find it difficult to accept that making it both more difficult (FIDE/ECF Licensing) and more expensive for new players to participate does anything for longer term stability and growth other than to inhibit it.

[Roger de Coverly]

What happens if the ECF wants or needs more and amalgamates Bronze and Silver at the Silver price?

The NCCU may be proposing exactly this.

From http://www.nccu.org.uk/nccu/mins/docs/N ... 1212DC.pdf

Although the ECF meeting was largely silent on Junior ECF membership, the NCCU
wished to explore the possibility of a merged Bronze and Silver for Juniors as it was thought Northern juniors are losing out due to being pushed into congress play while Southern juniors are mainly league based

I'm willing to be corrected but I think this premise is incorrect. As far as I am aware, most Junior activity in the South also follows a tournament model rather than a league model. The difference is that in the South, most tournament organisers had little difficulty with the concept that they should pay a bulk membership fee to the ECF based on the number of games played in their tournament. In fact they lobbied the ECF voting membership at the April 2012 Council meeting to be allowed to continue with this approach, albeit at a somewhat higher price. The advantage to them of the bulk approach was that they didn't have to demand an individual membership fee disproportionate to the cost of entering the tournament.
.

[William Metcalfe]

Roger you only need to be a Bronze member to play league chess.I do not know of any county leagues that are FIDE rated maybe you could enlighten me on which countys run FIDE rated leagues

[Roger de Coverly]

I do not know of any county leagues that are FIDE rated maybe you could enlighten me on which countys run FIDE rated leagues

Oxford, although I've been told they have a concession that you don't need to be any sort of ECF member to play the first game. That rather demonstrates the claim that ECF membership is some sort of FIDE requirement as a myth, or remains a myth provided the ECF don't try to implement FIDE Licensing. Where does the ECF, or for that matter any English chess organisation stand or perhaps sit on this?

[IM Jack Rudd]

I do not know of any county leagues that are FIDE rated maybe you could enlighten me on which countys run FIDE rated leagues

Oxford, although I've been told they have a concession that you don't need to be any sort of ECF member to play the first game. That rather demonstrates the claim that ECF membership is some sort of FIDE requirement as a myth, or remains a myth provided the ECF don't try to implement FIDE Licensing. Where does the ECF, or for that matter any English chess organisation stand or perhaps sit on this?

Nowhere, at the moment. FIDE Licensing got shelved. If it gets unshelved again, it will be something the ECF will have to look at.

[Roger de Coverly]

Nowhere, at the moment. FIDE Licensing got shelved. If it gets unshelved again, it will be something the ECF will have to look at.

The point is though that FIDE people have a self-belief they are promoting chess participation even where like zero default times they are doing the opposite. I think the ECF like the KNSB should stand up and be counted in opposition to the proposal. To do otherwise is to indicate that it might secretly believe in it. A cynic would ask how FIDE Licensing differs from the ECF's requirement of Gold membership as a pre-condition of playing in a FIDE rated league or tournament.

So there's a challenge. Will the ECF make a statement welcoming the withdrawal of FIDE Licensing and indicating that it doesn't want to see it reintroduced? If not, why not?

[PeterFarr]

Apologies for being rather late to this thread; I’ve only just joined the forum. For background, I’m an average evening league and county hacker.

As a reminder, the original question was “…. blank piece of paper. What would you like the ECF to do for you?”

In general terms, my answer is, in order of priority:
(1) Promote chess in England
(2) Run the national teams
(3) Run the British Championship
(4) Operate an efficient grading system

I’m more concerned about these high level priorities than things like specific member benefits – to me the biggest thing the ECF can do is encourage more people into the chess family, to the benefit of all.
A few thoughts on these suggested priorities, mostly (1):

(1)Promoting the game - I use the word “promote” deliberately; I see the ECF as being supportive of chess activities such as leagues, congresses and junior chess, but not the prime agent. I don’t think it should be the role of the ECF to intervene too closely in these areas, as I believe local organization is the most effective. Coaching accreditation, supporting materials etc., are fine if there is a demand for them and they can be produced affordably. Probably support for the best juniors via squad training etc is an exception, with the logic that it supports improving the National teams. The chess sets for schools episode is an obvious example of the organization over-reaching itself; even if the set had been manufactured and distributed there was no possible mechanism to support it all. Its ancient history now and I’m not saying this as a blame thing, it’s so easy to be wise in hindsight. I just think the ECF should focus on what is do-able.
Similarly the CAS affair would never have happened with a focus on core priorities:- here I have very considerable sympathy with those involved, as it was an honourable effort; I just don’t think it was ever going to help any of (1) – (4) above.

I do believe that the new membership categories and a move away from game fee are very positive steps; game fee would never have been invented from a blank piece of paper, starting in 2013. Yes I would like to see things like affiliate marketing benefits where these can be negotiated, and definitely a regular news e:mail (with appropriate unsubscribe option naturally). This should be a two-way street, giving members the opportunity to feedback directly (I think even the most ardent champions of this forum would admit that it is not necessarily typical of the average player).
I would also like to see Family membership categories added, and perhaps a discount for new members. For example, England Netball offers a “taster membership”. I think this might help address some (not all) of the concern over players that play few games paying disproportionate fees, and also encourage more take-up. The discount could be quite big I think – say 40%.

I think a high priority should be attached to promoting women’s chess. It’s such a big deficit in the English game that so few women play, and I believe this also puts off men. The days of the gentleman’s club are long gone, yet chess carries far too much of this legacy. It doesn’t have to be done through “positive discrimination”, though I think there is a strong case for it; it can be also done more subtly through things like the family membership idea as above, the tone of marketing materials, and the nature of venues. I’m not saying I have great answers, I just think it is vital to address this issue, or chess will really lose out against other leisure pursuits that are increasingly welcoming to both sexes.

(2) England Teams - I feel that chess players do like to see the England teams do well, and would accept that part of the membership fee should support the team – it would be great to recover those days of the early 80’s. Of course it takes decent sponsorship to really add value here. Slightly tangentially, I also think there is a feel-good factor from having things like the Candidates matches in London; we are lucky that London is a magnet for major events and it would be great to be able to leverage that more. Finally, naturalise Peter Svidler by giving him MCC membership or something. He’s practically English already.

(3) British Championship - Please can it come back to Brighton or Eastbourne! – preferably with lots of coaching going on at the venue for juniors etc. , paid or otherwise. And a famous and well-dressed person to open the congress and give out prizes.

(4) Grading – Actually, I love the current service, and all the graphics, history etc. Monthly grading is a red-herring for most players as it’s statistically insignificant. As between FIDE and ECF systems, I couldn’t care less, so others can argue that. I think there is far too much emphasis – amounting to an obsession sometimes – with gradings. It just seems to obscure the idea of chess as an enjoyable activity in its own right. I exempt IM or GM-type players from this, as it can make a tangible difference – though even here I recall David Bronstein saying that he hated Prof Elo’s co-efficients and looked forward to a time when chess was accepted as a true art form.

Finally, I would like a gradual move to OMOV, and I would also like ECF members to ask themselves how they can support the federation – for example by being polite, positive and encouraging to ECF officers. And thanks to Sean Hewitt for a great initiative in membership communication.

That’s it – implement all that and the chess world will be perfect.