ECF Game Fee v Membership

[Steve Henderson]

Subject ECF Game Fee v Membership

In the North of England – the NCCU + NCCU Counties are running Membership Organisations with success. I understand that there are other Counties running MO’s as well.
Players like the fact that they pay a one off £10.50 (Adults) £6.50 (Juniors) to the MO and this allows them to play as many games of chess as they wish and get all these games graded. They become an ECF Basic Member or Registered Member. Organisers also find it easier to administer congress’s (No Game Fee to collect – well for the majority of players), Local leagues with cross border playing presents no issues! Overall it is a simple and much easier system than Game Fee to administer!

The ECF board at a recent meeting as I understand it put the membership issue to Council, Council threw it out!
I think you might remember this meeting, as a few people resigned shortly afterwards.

Anyway, are there any ECF delegates (on this forum) that where at this meeting, or voted by proxy, that were against the idea of membership?
I would like to know your opinions, views & thought’s of why you wanted to retain Game Fee and why you are against membership?
Did you canvass your members; were you mandated to vote against membership?

Us lot up here in the North keep hearing time and time again that it is the Southern block that is opposed to membership - ??
How true this is we have no idea!?

If you are an ECF Delegate and you reply could you please let us know which County, League etc you represent

Cheers
Steve Henderson
CCA President
ECF Delegate For Cleveland Chess Association

[Edward Tandi]

Well, someone has to stick their head out.

IMHO, the introduction of a membership fee just complicates things. The way chess is organised today, a chess player will join one or more clubs, pay the clubs membership and the clubs in turn pay the Leagues. The Leagues then pay the ECF grading fees. This is well understood.

Enter the ECF membership fee. Now, each member has to pay both ECF membership as well as the club membership. Does the club player have a choice of not paying for ECF membership? What happens if they don't pay? Do their results become void or are they merely ungraded? If ungraded, it becomes an easy way for someone to escape a bad season and is therefore bad for the grading system. Must players obtain membership before they play? If so, this will be an obstacle to recruiting new members, If not, how do we enforce it?

The ECF fee will force clubs to reduce their membership fees, which are already quite high because of rent. Will the Leagues, who will no longer have to pay grading fees, pass on the reduced cost to the clubs? All of it? Most of the cost is for the venue, so the player->club->league->ECF payment chain still exists -the ECF membership fee is (for most players) just an additional bill to pay.

What about the future of clubs? If a player can pay their ECF fee and take part in rated games, why bother joining a club? This is true to some extent today, but now players can organise virtual teams, without the overhead of club venues. I think it reduces the value add of current chess clubs. Clubs rely on a critical mass of members to survive.

Although I am now an ECF direct member (I wasn't for many years), I don't think the introduction of ECF membership for grading purposes is conducive to the introduction of players to competitive chess. Many people try chess at the club level and leave, but a few end up becoming regulars. I think the ECF fee is just one more obstacle for new players to climb.

[Sean Hewitt]

I'll stick my head above the parapit on this one also.

I was at the meeting Steve refers to. At the meeting it was not at all clear from the board that this was a resigning issue. Indeed I believe that Martin Regan has subsequently stated publicly on this forum and elsewhere that this was not why he and his colleagues resigned. I should state that I am the Chairman of Leicestershire Chess Association, and so am the counties ECF rep. I also play in the Coventry Chess League and am their ECF rep too. I voted in favour of pursuing the membership route. Let me also make it clear, Leicestershire CA are a Membership Organisation and as such operate an ECF membership scheme.

Let me deal with some of Edwards points :-

IMHO, the introduction of a membership fee just complicates things. The way chess is organised today, a chess player will join one or more clubs, pay the clubs membership and the clubs in turn pay the Leagues. The Leagues then pay the ECF grading fees. This is well understood..

I dont think that this is well understood. Players pay their subs, and they play games. The majority have no idea what game fee is, how much it is, or how it works. They just pay and play.

Enter the ECF membership fee. Now, each member has to pay both ECF membership as well as the club membership. Does the club player have a choice of not paying for ECF membership? What happens if they don't pay? Do their results become void or are they merely ungraded? If ungraded, it becomes an easy way for someone to escape a bad season and is therefore bad for the grading system. Must players obtain membership before they play? If so, this will be an obstacle to recruiting new members, If not, how do we enforce it?..

Firstly, Edward assumes their would be a link between membership and grading. This may well be a logical assumption, but its far from certain that this would be the case. However, even assuming that this link is correct it is erroneous to suggest that not paying ECF membership would be an easy way to escape a bad season as you would either have been a member for that season (and your games graded) or you wouldnt (and your games would not be graded). You couldnt decide retrospectively.

The ECF fee will force clubs to reduce their membership fees, which are already quite high because of rent. Will the Leagues, who will no longer have to pay grading fees, pass on the reduced cost to the clubs? All of it? Most of the cost is for the venue, so the player->club->league->ECF payment chain still exists -the ECF membership fee is (for most players) just an additional bill to pay

There are two raise issues here : Fianance and operations. If I take the finance issue first ; I would expect any league (or congress) seeing a massive reduction in its costs (which abolition of game fee would be) to pass that saving on to its playing members. In Leicestershire, league subscriptions are set at the AGM by the clubs anyway so there is no prospect of the league trousering the dosh! In fact, since we have had our MO we have reduced the cost of entering a league team from £55 to £17.50, with the differential being purely the cost of game fee.

Dealing with operations, we administer our membership via the clubs. They tell us at the start of the season which of their players wish to be members. We then add the membership fees to their invoice for league fees. When we receive their cheque the players are ECF members, and issued membership numbers, and we send details and cash to the ECF. This is much simpler than game fee as its up front, and doesnt require calculating all the games which have game fee liability (and which ones dont).

How clubs administer this is up to the individual club. At my club, we simply include the cost of ECF membership in the annual subs. So now, instead of paying £25 for a years chess (out of which we paid game fee via increased league fees) the player pays us £25 for a years chess and a years membership of the ECF. The only difference the player sees is that he gets a membership card. Others charge a small premium (say £2-£3) being their calculation of the additional cost. Some do nothing, and very few players from such clubs join the scheme.

What about the future of clubs? If a player can pay their ECF fee and take part in rated games, why bother joining a club? This is true to some extent today, but now players can organise virtual teams, without the overhead of club venues. I think it reduces the value add of current chess clubs. Clubs rely on a critical mass of members to survive.

I dont understand this point. Any player can play congress chess now without the need to join a club. If a player wants to play league games he must join a club. I dont see how this would change if game fee were scrapped in favour of membership. Where would a "virtual team" play its home games?!

Although I am now an ECF direct member (I wasn't for many years), I don't think the introduction of ECF membership for grading purposes is conducive to the introduction of players to competitive chess. Many people try chess at the club level and leave, but a few end up becoming regulars. I think the ECF fee is just one more obstacle for new players to climb.

If this fee were on top of game fee then I would agree. But because it is instead of game fee it's possible to simply replace (more or less) one with the other. Membership has three distinct advantages - Firstly, its much easier and simpler to operate than game fee. Secondly, players feel that they belong to the ECF, because they are members. At the moment, only a small minority of players are actually members of the ECF. Thirdly, more competitve chess can be played without additional cost. In Leicestershire we have re-started the County Championships, added a summer rapidplay league, and this season a new league cup competition - all of these events require no additional charge to the clubs becasue it costs us nothing to run them. The benefit of this is that more players in Leicestershire are playing more chess. When I looked at the stats of players who stopped playing chess, they tended to drift away playing fewer and fewer games until stopping completely. That trend at least has been stopped. And of course I hope that the more people play, the more they might improve!

The impression I got at the meeting was that there was a north / south split on this issue with the southerners being pro game fee. I think the logic of the pro game fee lobby was

i) Its simpler than membership - something that seemed totally illogical to me. Anyone who has had to make game fee estimates, payments on account, carry forward, brought forward etc will know what I mean! I think for most they are used to game fee and therefore are resistent to change. It is human nature.

ii) Its fairer than membership because the more you play the more you play. Its certainly true that you pay more if you play more under game fee but whether this fair or desirable is another matter. After all, you dont get more for your money. For instance, you dont get two grades instead of one, or twice as much satisfaction from seeing junior teams sent abroad. I of course call game fee the chess prevention tax, and for good reason. If we didnt have the membership scheme at LRCA that we now have we wouldnt have our summer rapidplay league, our league cups or our county championships. Game Fee had for years successfully prevented these events from running!

iii) How will we determine votes at Council?!! Yes, this was really put forward as a reason for keeping game fee. Dont think much more needs to be said on that one.

[Edward Tandi]

I'll stick my head above the parapit on this one also. ... Let me deal with some of Edwards points :-

IMHO, the introduction of a membership fee just complicates things. The way chess is organised today, a chess player will join one or more clubs, pay the clubs membership and the clubs in turn pay the Leagues. The Leagues then pay the ECF grading fees. This is well understood..

I dont think that this is well understood. Players pay their subs, and they play games. The majority have no idea what game fee is, how much it is, or how it works. They just pay and play.

I have had club members ask me how it works, particularly when the subject became topical.

Enter the ECF membership fee. Now, each member has to pay both ECF membership as well as the club membership. Does the club player have a choice of not paying for ECF membership? What happens if they don't pay? Do their results become void or are they merely ungraded? If ungraded, it becomes an easy way for someone to escape a bad season and is therefore bad for the grading system. Must players obtain membership before they play? If so, this will be an obstacle to recruiting new members, If not, how do we enforce it?..

Firstly, Edward assumes their would be a link between membership and grading. This may well be a logical assumption, but its far from certain that this would be the case. However, even assuming that this link is correct it is erroneous to suggest that not paying ECF membership would be an easy way to escape a bad season as you would either have been a member for that season (and your games graded) or you wouldnt (and your games would not be graded). You couldnt decide retrospectively.

There is good understainding that league games are rated and that clubs offer the opportunity in playing in these matches. Since players only pay for club membership, the link is complete. Of course it need not be this way.

Thanks for clarifying what you do regarding grading. But say player A has ECF membership and player B does not, what would be the outcome of A vs B? Would player A's grade be adjusted?

The ECF fee will force clubs to reduce their membership fees, which are already quite high because of rent. Will the Leagues, who will no longer have to pay grading fees, pass on the reduced cost to the clubs? All of it? Most of the cost is for the venue, so the player->club->league->ECF payment chain still exists -the ECF membership fee is (for most players) just an additional bill to pay

There are two raise issues here : Fianance and operations. If I take the finance issue first ; I would expect any league (or congress) seeing a massive reduction in its costs (which abolition of game fee would be) to pass that saving on to its playing members. In Leicestershire, league subscriptions are set at the AGM by the clubs anyway so there is no prospect of the league trousering the dosh! In fact, since we have had our MO we have reduced the cost of entering a league team from £55 to £17.50, with the differential being purely the cost of game fee.

£55 for a whole team? Our London League bill (for two teams) is in the order of a few hundred pounds. It is not clear to me how much of this is the game fee.

Dealing with operations, we administer our membership via the clubs. They tell us at the start of the season which of their players wish to be members. We then add the membership fees to their invoice for league fees. When we receive their cheque the players are ECF members, and issued membership numbers, and we send details and cash to the ECF. This is much simpler than game fee as its up front, and doesnt require calculating all the games which have game fee liability (and which ones dont).

How clubs administer this is up to the individual club. At my club, we simply include the cost of ECF membership in the annual subs. So now, instead of paying £25 for a years chess (out of which we paid game fee via increased league fees) the player pays us £25 for a years chess and a years membership of the ECF. The only difference the player sees is that he gets a membership card. Others charge a small premium (say £2-£3) being their calculation of the additional cost. Some do nothing, and very few players from such clubs join the scheme.

Say I play for 2 clubs, participating in 3 leagues. How would that be administered?

What about the future of clubs? If a player can pay their ECF fee and take part in rated games, why bother joining a club? This is true to some extent today, but now players can organise virtual teams, without the overhead of club venues. I think it reduces the value add of current chess clubs. Clubs rely on a critical mass of members to survive.

I dont understand this point. Any player can play congress chess now without the need to join a club. If a player wants to play league games he must join a club. I dont see how this would change if game fee were scrapped in favour of membership. Where would a "virtual team" play its home games?!

The London League, for example, plays almost all of its games at a central location. In this case, there is no need for a "home" venue. By "virtual team" I mean a "club" without a physical location, which is not strictly necessary.

Although I am now an ECF direct member (I wasn't for many years), I don't think the introduction of ECF membership for grading purposes is conducive to the introduction of players to competitive chess. Many people try chess at the club level and leave, but a few end up becoming regulars. I think the ECF fee is just one more obstacle for new players to climb.

If this fee were on top of game fee then I would agree. But because it is instead of game fee it's possible to simply replace (more or less) one with the other. Membership has three distinct advantages - Firstly, its much easier and simpler to operate than game fee.

I find this quite remarkable, but I'm not convinced it works for all locations. The ECF could of course balance this situation by decreasing the game fee and/or increasing the membership fee. So I'm not sure we can use the cheapness argument to justify an ECF membership scheme.

Secondly, players feel that they belong to the ECF, because they are members. At the moment, only a small minority of players are actually members of the ECF. Thirdly, more competitve chess can be played without additional cost. In Leicestershire we have re-started the County Championships, added a summer rapidplay league, and this season a new league cup competition - all of these events require no additional charge to the clubs becasue it costs us nothing to run them. The benefit of this is that more players in Leicestershire are playing more chess. When I looked at the stats of players who stopped playing chess, they tended to drift away playing fewer and fewer games until stopping completely. That trend at least has been stopped. And of course I hope that the more people play, the more they might improve!

Clearly cost was a big issue in your region and I am glad for your success. But if we all shifted to this ECF membership scheme, the ECF coffers would suffer and they would be forced to increase the membership fee to cover costs. It seems to me that other parts of the country, who pay higher game fees are sponsoring your region. Nation-wide adoption of the ECF membership scheme would negate its advantage and your region would in effect lose its subsidy.

The impression I got at the meeting was that there was a north / south split on this issue with the southerners being pro game fee. I think the logic of the pro game fee lobby was

i) Its simpler than membership - something that seemed totally illogical to me. Anyone who has had to make game fee estimates, payments on account, carry forward, brought forward etc will know what I mean! I think for most they are used to game fee and therefore are resistent to change. It is human nature.

I think it depends on your point of view. Who is it simpler for? I would say it is simpler for all except the League organisers. This is one/two people per league. The ECF membership scheme (the implementation of which you describe above) makes things more complicated for every club, who are effectively delegated ECF administration responsibilities.

ii) Its fairer than membership because the more you play the more you play. Its certainly true that you pay more if you play more under game fee but whether this fair or desirable is another matter. After all, you dont get more for your money. For instance, you dont get two grades instead of one, or twice as much satisfaction from seeing junior teams sent abroad. I of course call game fee the chess prevention tax, and for good reason. If we didnt have the membership scheme at LRCA that we now have we wouldnt have our summer rapidplay league, our league cups or our county championships. Game Fee had for years successfully prevented these events from running!

iii) How will we determine votes at Council?!! Yes, this was really put forward as a reason for keeping game fee. Dont think much more needs to be said on that one.

Of course I will point out that there is nothing to stop regional associations from adopting the ECF membership scheme. So why mandate it?

[Sean Hewitt]

Thanks for your reply Edward. I'll try and answer your points.

Thanks for clarifying what you do regarding grading. But say player A has ECF membership and player B does not, what would be the outcome of A vs B? Would player A's grade be adjusted??

At the moment, if the event is a "regional special" (that is an event which doesnt pay game fee but is held in an MO area) the game is graded for player A but not for player B. I guess this would be the best way to implement a grading scheme linked to membership.

£55 for a whole team?

Yes £55 per 5 man team.

Say I play for 2 clubs, participating in 3 leagues. How would that be administered?

As I said earlier, that would be for each club to decide. The simplest solution I believe (which we use at our club) regarding players playing for two clubs is that your subs include your ECF membership. If you are already an ECF member (either directly or via another club) then you get a discount which equals the cost of ECF membership. I dont know how different leagues affects things. My club plays in two leagues and we simply pay the appropriate fees to those leagues on behalf of the players.

The London League, for example, plays almost all of its games at a central location. In this case, there is no need for a "home" venue. By "virtual team" I mean a "club" without a physical location, which is not strictly necessary.

I understand the concept of central venues. What I don't understand is how a change from game fee to membership would change that. Surely a club without a physical location could exist now under the game fee regime? It seems to me that game fee / membership doesn't change anything in this regard.

If this fee were on top of game fee then I would agree. But because it is instead of game fee it's possible to simply replace (more or less) one with the other. Membership has three distinct advantages - Firstly, its much easier and simpler to operate than game fee.

I find this quite remarkable, but I'm not convinced it works for all locations. The ECF could of course balance this situation by decreasing the game fee and/or increasing the membership fee. So I'm not sure we can use the cheapness argument to justify an ECF membership scheme.

I'm not sure I understand what's being said here. My statement is that membership is easier and simpler than game fee - is this what you find remarkable? If so, I dont know why because surely £x per player per year is simple to understand, and our experience is that its simple to administer. Certainly simpler than y pence per player per game, with discounts for certain types of player in certain types of event where one has to make an estimate mid season as to the totals with carry forwards and brought forwards from / to previous / prior seasons!

You mention balancing the situation by decreasing game fee, but surely this is erroneous. The discussion heer, I think, is game fee v membership so the assumption (certainly on my part) must be that a proper membership scheme would replace game fee. Any scheme which combines the two simply adds an additional layer of complexity.

Finally you say "I'm not sure we can use the cheapness argument to justify an ECF membership scheme" but I have not mentioned what the cost of membership should be - yet!

Clearly cost was a big issue in your region and I am glad for your success.

Cost is an issue everywhere I think, but more important surely is value for money. Interestingly though, I haven't argued about costs in respect of membership. Thats a different discussion, and has more to do with what services the ECF should provide, and how much they will cost. Such a discussion then applies equally to game fee rates and membership rates. What I have said is that eliminating game fee will encourage more events, new events and additional participation from existing players - a very different argument.

But if we all shifted to this ECF membership scheme, the ECF coffers would suffer and they would be forced to increase the membership fee to cover costs. It seems to me that other parts of the country, who pay higher game fees are sponsoring your region. Nation-wide adoption of the ECF membership scheme would negate its advantage and your region would in effect lose its subsidy.

This was raised at the London meeting by the game fee supporters as a big reaason to be against membership. It is of course such complete and utter rubbish that I'd forgotten all about it! Let me explain :-

According to the ECF accounts, Game Fee generated £48676 in income in the year 1 May 2007 - 30 April 2008. In the same period, membership raised £46380 for a total of £95056. There are currently 10262 players with a grade, so if game fee were replaced completely by membership (which is the discussion we are having) we would have a membership fee of £9.26 per annum plus VAT which is £10.88. Compare this to the current lowest standrd fee of £16 per year (£10.50 for MOs) and any suggest that "if we all shifted to this ECF membership scheme, the ECF coffers would suffer and they would be forced to increase the membership fee to cover costs" is clearly wide of the mark.

The statement that "other parts of the country, who pay higher game fees are sponsoring your region" is also demonstrably untrue because, as a county, we pay just as much now in game fee + membership than we used to in game fee alone. The facts clearly dispel the myth. The difference for us as a county is that we have been able to increase chess playing activity without having to raise extra game fee revenue.

The claim that "Nation-wide adoption of the ECF membership scheme would negate its advantage and your region would in effect lose its subsidy" is clearly defunct given that no such subsidy exists.

I think it depends on your point of view. Who is it simpler for? I would say it is simpler for all except the League organisers. This is one/two people per league. The ECF membership scheme (the implementation of which you describe above) makes things more complicated for every club, who are effectively delegated ECF administration responsibilities.

I am a league organiser and membership is definitely simpler IMO. There is some admin involved for us in administering the sceme, but no-where near as much as is involved in administering game fee.

Of course I will point out that there is nothing to stop regional associations from adopting the ECF membership scheme. So why mandate it?

Two reasons. Firstly, a two tier scheme adds complexity and therefore time and of course cost. That's wasteful and a bad thing. Martin Regan took the view (and I am sure that he is right) that the ECF spends nearly as much on collecting game fee as it actually collects. In other words game fee exists purely to pay for collecting game fee. An utterly absurd situation. It would therfore be more efficient to replace it with a membership scheme exclusively. Secondly, as our experience shows, game fee is a chess prevention tax. Remove it (whilst still funding the ECF) and organisers can implement and grow chess playing initiatives that players seem to want. I would hope that everyone would agree that increasing participation is a good thing, and membership encourages that far better than game fee.

[Roger de Coverly]

Edward has given a good summary of why many of us in the south regard payment by play a least worst solution to the problem of financing a national chess association in the absence of government or sponsorship financing.

The "county" based membership approach outlined by Sean is quite similar to the system in place prior to the introduction of Game Fee in 1993. In those days, it was component parts of the BCF like the County Associations and the London League who provided most of the financing to the BCF. This was done by a concept called, I think, the levy number. Basically the BCF examined the entrails of a chicken and decided that, for example, if the relative level of chess activity in Bucks was 2, then the level of activity in Essex was 5. Counties were billed accordingly. Also there was a concept of the "registered" player. It was required to be a "registered" player to play in some competitions and you got a registration through the county association. This introduced the wild card issue as well - if you needed a substitute for a league game to avoid a default was the club or player willing to foot the cost of an additional registration?

The levy concept was a structure that might have worked in the fifties before the days of congresses but was open to the obvious abuse that the major congresses and non-territorial leagues ( a local examples was the Thames Valley) paid next to nothing. This meant that the burden of financing British chess fell on a subset of the chess-playing population. When the amounts involved seemed relatively small - say £2.50 a head this wasn't a major problem. It became a problem when the BCF overspent on the 1986 KvK match in London and looked to County Associations to fill the hole in its finances. A system which based the payment to the BCF on the number of games played seemed fairer than an arbitrary levy and widened the financing base to congresses etc.. County Associations found that their amounts payable to the BCF halving. Congresses and non-territorial leagues seemed content (in the South at least) to pick up their share of financing.

The problem with "pay per head" schemes is that you either have to make them optional - in which case you have to answer why freeloaders are allowed or you have to make them compulsory which is a disincentive to participation, in particular for new players. In the USA, they have a very closed shop - even foreigners are required to become USCF members in order to play. They also have OMOV and board members who delight in composing law suits against one another. Did I mention that they have next to no rated leagues?


In monetary terms, the ECF seems to need to raise about £ 80-100 thousand a year from the chess community. Hard line compulsory membership would seem likely to drive away both events and players whilst optional membership would abolish the game fee income with no financial replacement.

If there's a perceived need to demonstrate "membership" ( in the shareholder sense), it can fit into a "pay by play" model with a bit of imagination. For example if you play x game fee based games - you can become or remain a member. If it works, you could consider the new Bridge model - one upfront fee per head followed by payment per event (levied on the event). The Bridge guys have memberships running into tens of thousands - but they have concluded that it's easier and they presume cheaper to chase a few hundred event organisers than several tens of thousand individuals.

[Peter Sowray]

Thanks for some interesting postings on this topic.

When I was on the Board this time last year, I expressed my view that the ECF should scrap game fee and raise revenue via a simplified membership system.

I believed that collecting this revenue costs the ECF far too much. I visited the office in Battle and saw how much effort was involved. In rough numbers, it took up one and a half full-time headcount, and that was without adequate credit control around Game Fee collection. I’m not surprised that a Game Fee debtor of about £6,000 has recently come to light – incidentally, does anyone know the background to this? Is the money going to be recovered, or is it effectively a bad debt?

I also felt that we should be encouraging people to play more chess, and be making life as easy as possible for congress and league organisers.

I’m from the south.

Best regards,

Peter

[Sean Hewitt]

When I was on the Board this time last year, I expressed my view that the ECF should scrap game fee and raise revenue via a simplified membership system.

I believed that collecting this revenue costs the ECF far too much. I visited the office in Battle and saw how much effort was involved. In rough numbers, it took up one and a half full-time headcount, and that was without adequate credit control around Game Fee collection. I’m not surprised that a Game Fee debtor of about £6,000 has recently come to light – incidentally, does anyone know the background to this? Is the money going to be recovered, or is it effectively a bad debt?

I also felt that we should be encouraging people to play more chess, and be making life as easy as possible for congress and league organisers.

I’m from the south.

We wont hold that against you Peter! But seriously, your conclusions must be right and certainly seem to mirror the experience we have had (albeit on a small scale) here in Leicestershire.

Roger - I think the point I would make is that it shouldnt be for counties, leagues or congresses to fund the ECF. That must fall to the players. And whilst pay as you play v flat membership fee is a philiosophical debate more than anything else (rather like poll tax v council tax), i believe that membership wins here because it's easier and cheaper IMO to administer and collect. It also encourages players to play more chess.

[Paul Stimpson]

i believe that membership wins here because it's easier and cheaper IMO to administer and collect. It also encourages players to play more chess.

The problem here is that game fee shouldn't be used for leagues, game fee should only be used for congresses.

It makes sense for a player to be registered for a league and with this the membership can be required.

However Game Fee works perfectly well for those players wishing only to play tournament chess. I hardly think Game Fee prevents participation here, quite the opposite I would have said.

What about at Junior Level? We can send game fee to the ECF and hold a tournament that is graded no problem. If we asked for every entrant to be an ECF member I think numbers would collapse!

The stick to enforce membership was mooted to be no grading of games, the logical conclusion to this would be quite simple, we wouldn't send the event for grading! Therefore the ECF would lose out.

Also why does it have to be an all or nothing approach? I think a compulsory membership scheme would allienate the ECF from the average player even more than it already has.

[Roger de Coverly]

I think the point I would make is that it shouldnt be for counties, leagues or congresses to fund the ECF
Why not? On its current constitution those are the membership of the ECF and the ones with the voting power.

i believe that membership wins here because it's easier and cheaper IMO to administer and collect.

Isn't that only cheaper because you're throwing in a hidden donation of volunteer time from the county associations? If it takes a person and a half in Battle to keep track of 300 game fee payers - how many would it take to track 10000 or more individuals? You'd presumably also want congress and county organisers to police whether expired members were trying to freeload.

I wouldn't disagree that game fee admin is complex. A reason is that it's so full of exemptions. Pure, simple game fee would just be (number of games in event) * (cost per game). No exemptions. If you want to give money back for assorted membership categories, do it from the end season grading records. Something like, charge £30 for membership to include things like the diary, the year book and the grading printout. Give back perhaps 40p per game, provided the credit is at least £10 to a maximum of £20 as an offset against next season. As it stands at the moment, the ECF probably loses money on every really active individual who it converts from game fee payer to game fee exempt.

In the county associations with which I was involved we were pleased to see the back of registrations and levy points. Much less mission critical administration and no need to find someone to run it

It also encourages players to play more chess.

The economics concept of barrier to entry comes to mind. If the marginal cost of a single (first) game or tournament is 10-20 pounds why is this an incentive?

[Gary Cook]

How did the ECF let £6000+ of unpaid Game Fee accumulate? There is no way this is one year's unpaid Game Fee - what sort of organisation was/is in place to make sure that Leagues, Congresses etc., not only paid but also paid the right amount (not too much or too less)?

[Edward Tandi]

Thanks for clarifying what you do regarding grading. But say player A has ECF membership and player B does not, what would be the outcome of A vs B? Would player A's grade be adjusted??

At the moment, if the event is a "regional special" (that is an event which doesnt pay game fee but is held in an MO area) the game is graded for player A but not for player B. I guess this would be the best way to implement a grading scheme linked to membership.

But this will distort the grading system, probably resulting in some inflation, because it is most likely the weaker players who will avoid membership. And what if player B is ungraded? More complication.

£55 for a whole team?

Yes £55 per 5 man team.

It would appear that the ECF have indeed got the balance between grading fee and membership fee quite wrong.

Say I play for 2 clubs, participating in 3 leagues. How would that be administered?

As I said earlier, that would be for each club to decide. The simplest solution I believe (which we use at our club) regarding players playing for two clubs is that your subs include your ECF membership. If you are already an ECF member (either directly or via another club) then you get a discount which equals the cost of ECF membership. I dont know how different leagues affects things. My club plays in two leagues and we simply pay the appropriate fees to those leagues on behalf of the players.

So I pay ECF membership twice? Or I would need to choose which club I apply for membership through. This is where some of the complexity starts to show, from the player's and club mamnagement's perspective.

The ECF could of course balance this situation by decreasing the game fee and/or increasing the membership fee. So I'm not sure we can use the cheapness argument to justify an ECF membership scheme.

I'm not sure I understand what's being said here. My statement is that membership is easier and simpler than game fee - is this what you find remarkable?

No, I find it remarkable that you have made the switch to a membership scheme without incurring additional costs. Again, you argument is that it is simpler, but I say that this is not so for the majority of chess players. The extra hastle though, is probably worth it, if it includes ECF membership.

You mention balancing the situation by decreasing game fee, but surely this is erroneous. The discussion heer, I think, is game fee v membership so the assumption (certainly on my part) must be that a proper membership scheme would replace game fee. Any scheme which combines the two simply adds an additional layer of complexity.

Finally you say "I'm not sure we can use the cheapness argument to justify an ECF membership scheme" but I have not mentioned what the cost of membership should be - yet!

Perhaps increasing the membership fee is a better choice. Yes the way things are right now, we might be able replace the game fee, if that is what is deemed best. The costs of of administering 10K members would need to be examined quite closely.

What I have said is that eliminating game fee will encourage more events, new events and additional participation from existing players - a very different argument.

Agreed, assuming the ECF membership remains at the same level.

According to the ECF accounts, Game Fee generated £48676 in income in the year 1 May 2007 - 30 April 2008. In the same period, membership raised £46380 for a total of £95056. There are currently 10262 players with a grade, so if game fee were replaced completely by membership (which is the discussion we are having) we would have a membership fee of £9.26 per annum plus VAT which is £10.88. Compare this to the current lowest standrd fee of £16 per year (£10.50 for MOs) and any suggest that "if we all shifted to this ECF membership scheme, the ECF coffers would suffer and they would be forced to increase the membership fee to cover costs" is clearly wide of the mark.

This begs the question of where the game fee money is going. It seems to me that something is badly wrong with the administration of the game fee. You are of course assuming that membership administration costs won't increase disproportionately.

The statement that "other parts of the country, who pay higher game fees are sponsoring your region" is also demonstrably untrue because, as a county, we pay just as much now in game fee + membership than we used to in game fee alone. The facts clearly dispel the myth. The difference for us as a county is that we have been able to increase chess playing activity without having to raise extra game fee revenue.

The fact is that your region is paying less per game. Of course I understand people wouldn't be playing those extra games if using gaming fees, which is why you don't see it as a subsidy. Still, I am not sure how repeatable this success is in other regions.

I think it depends on your point of view. Who is it simpler for? I would say it is simpler for all except the League organisers. This is one/two people per league. The ECF membership scheme (the implementation of which you describe above) makes things more complicated for every club, who are effectively delegated ECF administration responsibilities.

I am a league organiser and membership is definitely simpler IMO. There is some admin involved for us in administering the sceme, but no-where near as much as is involved in administering game fee.

Still, it's more complicated for clubs and players, who are the majority.

Of course I will point out that there is nothing to stop regional associations from adopting the ECF membership scheme. So why mandate it?

Two reasons. Firstly, a two tier scheme adds complexity and therefore time and of course cost. That's wasteful and a bad thing. Martin Regan took the view (and I am sure that he is right) that the ECF spends nearly as much on collecting game fee as it actually collects. In other words game fee exists purely to pay for collecting game fee. An utterly absurd situation. It would therfore be more efficient to replace it with a membership scheme exclusively. Secondly, as our experience shows, game fee is a chess prevention tax. Remove it (whilst still funding the ECF) and organisers can implement and grow chess playing initiatives that players seem to want. I would hope that everyone would agree that increasing participation is a good thing, and membership encourages that far better than game fee.

Clearly, administration cost is a problem. I would have thought that computerisation could reduce it to an acceptable level. I think the fee is only a "chess prevention tax" because of the current balance between the cost of ECF membership and the proce of the game fee. Change this balance and ECF membership could be seen as the "chess prevention tax".

I would like to better understand the game fee administration costs.

[John Upham]

How did the ECF let £6000+ of unpaid Game Fee accumulate? There is no way this is one year's unpaid Game Fee - what sort of organisation was/is in place to make sure that Leagues, Congresses etc., not only paid but also paid the right amount (not too much or too less)?

Is this roughly 12,500 half games? Which organisation could this be?

John

[Sean Hewitt]

I think the point I would make is that it shouldnt be for counties, leagues or congresses to fund the ECF
Why not? On its current constitution those are the membership of the ECF and the ones with the voting power.

You are right that this is the current position. My point is that just because this is the way it is now does not make it right. I certainly dont agree with the current situation where the more you pay the more votes you get - it means you can actually buy votes!

In any case, counties leagues and congresses ultimately get their money from the players. A membership scheme merely seeks to do so directly. It has the benefit that players belong to the ECF and of course therefore should make the ECF more accountable.

The economics concept of barrier to entry comes to mind. If the marginal cost of a single (first) game or tournament is 10-20 pounds why is this an incentive?

Because the marginal cost of the first game is not £10-£20 its zero. I haven't seen any suggestion that non-members can't play, they simply won't get their games graded. That's certainly how it works in the MO's.

[John Philpott]

John Upham wrote

Is this roughly 12,500 half games? Which organisation could this be?

John, I think that you are looking in the wrong direction if you expect this sum to relate to a single organisation. Based on my experience back in 2003 as stand-in Director of Finance, the figure will be the accumulation of individual items relating to:

(a) April congresses not due to have paid Game Fee until after the end of the ECF's financial year;

(b) club events ending in April or later also not due to have paid Game Fee until after the end of the financial year;

(c) events for which a variation of the normal due date for payment has been agreed in advance; and

(d) events that have simply paid late.

As such a debtor arises every year, I am unclear as to the circumstances that led to its being excluded from the original version of the draft unaudited accounts circulated with the Council mailing.