ECF Finance Council Meeting 22 April 2023

[John Reyes]

Meeting went well and love alex H comment of the meeting.

I do Feel that one of the Meeting should be Face to face (like the AGM and hope someone will proposed it at the next AGM

Also there was just Me and Gareth Ellis who was at the ECF Financial meeting. i know Tim wall dial in but was there for only 30 minutes

No show from

Tina Teotia - Bronze Rep
Robert Dennington - Silver Rep
Luke Russell - Gold Rep

I feel that why are they people want to be a member rep? Angus French was a great rep and always turn up to the meeting, as well as Michael Farthing.

[Ian Thompson]

In arriving at the three options which Paul has already mentioned, Council appeared to be quite heavily influenced by the need to get more FIDE ratings. It was pointed out that England was far behind most other West European countries in this respect, with Spain being singled out as a typical country where virtually every tournament is FIDE-rated.

What proportion of those tournaments are weekend swisses played over 2 or 3 days and what proportion are played over longer periods? How does that compare to England?

I don't know the answer to that, but what I do know is that Spain has many more tournaments lasting a week or more than England. There are 12 in Catalonia between April and September, for example. I'd suggest that comparing chess in Spain to chess in England is not comparing like with like. If England wants to be similar to Spain it would need to make a major change to the way tournaments are organised.

[Neill Cooper]

I thought the comment that chess.com has over 4 million UK members interesting. It shows the limited reach of the ECF to the vast majority of people who play chess in our country. I think it is also consistent with the controversial survey of a decade or so ago about the number of chess players in the UK.

[John Upham]

with Spain being singled out as a typical country where virtually every tournament is FIDE-rated.

Would it be fair to mention that Spain has tournaments that typically do not have early am starts and the evening round goes late into the night?

We need Justin to help us out here.

[Angus French]

I thought the comment that chess.com has over 4 million UK members interesting. It shows the limited reach of the ECF to the vast majority of people who play chess in our country. I think it is also consistent with the controversial survey of a decade or so ago about the number of chess players in the UK.

How is 'UK' determined and how many accounts are active and used regularly?

[Wadih Khoury]

In arriving at the three options which Paul has already mentioned, Council appeared to be quite heavily influenced by the need to get more FIDE ratings. It was pointed out that England was far behind most other West European countries in this respect, with Spain being singled out as a typical country where virtually every tournament is FIDE-rated.

What proportion of those tournaments are weekend swisses played over 2 or 3 days and what proportion are played over longer periods? How does that compare to England?

I don't know the answer to that, but what I do know is that Spain has many more tournaments lasting a week or more than England. There are 12 in Catalonia between April and September, for example. I'd suggest that comparing chess in Spain to chess in England is not comparing like with like. If England wants to be similar to Spain it would need to make a major change to the way tournaments are organised.

No, all you need to get all UK congresses fide rated is... to actually do it.
You need
* an NA (e.g. all arbiters that took an Ecf course)
* To follow fide rules
* To follow fide timings (4 hours games for true open, 3 hours games for U2400, even shorter games for lower bands)
* To have everyone gold member, or pay/charge the surcharge, or the problème goes away by having a single ECF membership class

It gets more complicated if you want to do norms, but that's like 0.1% of the volumes.

Having week long tournaments, while nice, is not a prerequisit to solve the underrating issues.

[IM Jack Rudd]

The weekender I played in last weekend was 40/100' + G/20', which is perfectly valid for FIDE ratings, and I'm pretty sure that most of the players in the Open were already rated.

(Although, as I lost to a player rated 1924, I might be quite grateful that it wasn't FIDE-rated.)

[Roger Lancaster]

No, all you need to get all UK congresses fide rated is... to actually do it.
You need
* an NA (e.g. all arbiters that took an Ecf course)
* To follow fide rules
* To follow fide timings (4 hours games for true open, 3 hours games for U2400, even shorter games for lower bands)
* To have everyone gold member, or pay/charge the surcharge, or the problème goes away by having a single ECF membership class

It gets more complicated if you want to do norms, but that's like 0.1% of the volumes.

Having week long tournaments, while nice, is not a prerequisit to solve the underrating issues.

Absolutely right, Wadih, although you then have to find an available arbiter and - since it's unreasonable to expect him/her to be available for hours on end for free - add his or her fee to your budget. Of course, strictly speaking, the arbiter doesn't even have to be on site as long as s/he can be reached by telephone although that's something widely regarded as risky in the event that a dispute arises. Separately, there's little point advertising a FIDE-rated tournament if most of the competitors are unrated because then the majority of game results won't qualify.

[Roger Lancaster]

In arriving at the three options which Paul has already mentioned, Council appeared to be quite heavily influenced by the need to get more FIDE ratings. It was pointed out that England was far behind most other West European countries in this respect, with Spain being singled out as a typical country where virtually every tournament is FIDE-rated.

What proportion of those tournaments are weekend swisses played over 2 or 3 days and what proportion are played over longer periods? How does that compare to England?

I don't know the answer to that, but what I do know is that Spain has many more tournaments lasting a week or more than England. There are 12 in Catalonia between April and September, for example. I'd suggest that comparing chess in Spain to chess in England is not comparing like with like. If England wants to be similar to Spain it would need to make a major change to the way tournaments are organised.

I can't answer those questions either, although Catalonia chess tournaments presumably benefit from the fact that the region is relatively compact with some 8 million people living in some 125,000 square miles. But your final sentence hits the mark and a significant part of today's meeting felt that a starting-point would be to create a single class of ECF membership, with everyone eligible to take part in FIDE-rated events, rather than retain the present system where gold membership is needed.

[Roger Lancaster]

with Spain being singled out as a typical country where virtually every tournament is FIDE-rated.

Would it be fair to mention that Spain has tournaments that typically do not have early am starts and the evening round goes late into the night?

We need Justin to help us out here.

Sorry, unclear to me what you're getting at here, John. Is that Justin as in Justin Tyme ?

[Paul Cooksey]

In fairness, the point being made wasn't that the only difference between English and Spanish tournaments was FIDE rating. The point was only that all competitive chess in Spain is FIDE rated.

Now 3 hour games can be rated <2400, you might be able to rate evening leagues if you could meet the arbiter requirement. It might be relevant for those who want to show benefit in single tier ECF membership.

[Angus French]

... But your final sentence hits the mark and a significant part of today's meeting felt that a starting-point would be to create a single class of ECF membership, with everyone eligible to take part in FIDE-rated events, rather than retain the present system where gold membership is needed.

I think this would be a very bad idea indeed. Why is it that a decent number of players are Bronze members and not Silver+ members? Is there not concern about disenfranchising current Bronze members? Has this discussion not been had before when not one but two motions were put to Council to combine Bronze and Silver memberships - something which the paper submitted for today's meeting failed to consider?

[Angus French]

In arriving at the three options which Paul has already mentioned, Council appeared to be quite heavily influenced by the need to get more FIDE ratings. It was pointed out that England was far behind most other West European countries in this respect, with Spain being singled out as a typical country where virtually every tournament is FIDE-rated.

What proportion of those tournaments are weekend swisses played over 2 or 3 days and what proportion are played over longer periods? How does that compare to England?

I don't know the answer to that, but what I do know is that Spain has many more tournaments lasting a week or more than England. There are 12 in Catalonia between April and September, for example. I'd suggest that comparing chess in Spain to chess in England is not comparing like with like. If England wants to be similar to Spain it would need to make a major change to the way tournaments are organised.

No, all you need to get all UK congresses fide rated is... to actually do it.
You need
* an NA (e.g. all arbiters that took an Ecf course)
* To follow fide rules
* To follow fide timings (4 hours games for true open, 3 hours games for U2400, even shorter games for lower bands)
* To have everyone gold member, or pay/charge the surcharge, or the problème goes away by having a single ECF membership class

It gets more complicated if you want to do norms, but that's like 0.1% of the volumes.

Having week long tournaments, while nice, is not a prerequisit to solve the underrating issues.

Hmm... I think it's very much worth considering what Spain - and other European countries - do verses what England does: might we do differently? Also, I'd recommend considering Ian's comments carefully.

[John Upham]

with Spain being singled out as a typical country where virtually every tournament is FIDE-rated.

Would it be fair to mention that Spain has tournaments that typically do not have early am starts and the evening round goes late into the night?

We need Justin to help us out here.

Sorry, unclear to me what you're getting at here, John. Is that Justin as in Justin Tyme ?

I was thinking of Justin Horton (and Jim Plaskett), our Spanish correspondent(s).

[Roger Lancaster]

... But your final sentence hits the mark and a significant part of today's meeting felt that a starting-point would be to create a single class of ECF membership, with everyone eligible to take part in FIDE-rated events, rather than retain the present system where gold membership is needed.

I think this would be a very bad idea indeed. Why is it that a decent number of players are Bronze members and not Silver+ members? Is there not concern about disenfranchising current Bronze members? Has this discussion not been had before when not one but two motions were put to Council to combine Bronze and Silver memberships - something which the paper submitted for today's meeting failed to consider?

Yes, there are two schools of thought on this - the 'significant part' which I mentioned earlier and a second group, seemingly of broadly similar size and of which Angus is a member. Personally, I'm not convinced it's a 'very bad idea' (if one divides an ECF subscription by 52 to get the effective weekly rate, it's negligible) but am inclined to argue against it mainly on the grounds that it's obviously very divisive and I feel the ECF would do better to focus on areas where there's a broad consensus. I'm also of the opinion that the ECF Council - and don't get me wrong, it's full of well-intentioned people - isn't necessarily representative of the wider ECF membership. For starters, today's meeting consisted exclusively of (mainly white) men and I certainly didn't feel anyone related to (for example) the single mum on income support in Huddersfield with two sons keen on chess. So, for rather different reasons, my position isn't too far from that of Angus.