Junior ECF Membership

[Sean Hewitt]

The ECF strongly believes that chess in England benefits from a strong membership base and seeks to encourage the vast majority of players in England to join.

The Federation is greatluy encouraged by the number of adult and junior players who have already joined the Federation but notes that their are some junior organisations and events which do not require ECF membership to play. The ECF has listed to the views of those organisers and, in order to promote the benefits of membership to those who have not yet experienced them, the Federation will shortly be offering one year's free membership to any junior who has not previously been an ECF member.

We hope that this will encourage junior events to participate in the ECF membership scheme by removing a perceived barrier. We are confident that with a vibrant junior membership the ECF, working with others, will be able to make significant progress developing chess in this country.

I'm sure that everyone will applaud the ECF for listening and acting positively to introduce something which will do much to encourage junior chess in England.

[Alex McFarlane]

An obvious question, what is meant by 'one year's membership''?

Is this a calendar year or will it expire at 31 Aug 2014 as other memberships do?

I suspect the latter for admin purposes and to avoid the problems that some adults have experienced but if I were an inexperienced junior taking up the offer I might think it was the former. I certainly would not be happy to join in July to discover my year was almost up!!!

[Sean Hewitt]

An obvious question, what is meant by 'one year's membership''?

Is this a calendar year or will it expire at 31 Aug 2014 as other memberships do?

I suspect the latter for admin purposes and to avoid the problems that some adults have experienced but if I were an inexperienced junior taking up the offer I might think it was the former. I certainly would not be happy to join in July to discover my year was almost up!!!

It will be membership to 31 August next, as all annual memberships now are. This will be clear in the promotional material which will accompany the launch of the offer.

[Angus French]

The Federation is greatluy encouraged by the number of adult and junior players who have already joined the Federation but notes that their are some junior organisations and events which do not require ECF membership to play. The ECF has listed to the views of those organisers...

Never let it be said that the ECF doesn't list

The ECF strongly believes that chess in England benefits from a strong membership base and seeks to encourage the vast majority of players in England to join.

The Federation is greatluy encouraged by the number of adult and junior players who have already joined the Federation but notes that their are some junior organisations and events which do not require ECF membership to play. The ECF has listed to the views of those organisers and, in order to promote the benefits of membership to those who have not yet experienced them, the Federation will shortly be offering one year's free membership to any junior who has not previously been an ECF member.

We hope that this will encourage junior events to participate in the ECF membership scheme by removing a perceived barrier. We are confident that with a vibrant junior membership the ECF, working with others, will be able to make significant progress developing chess in this country.

I'm sure that everyone will applaud the ECF for listening and acting positively to introduce something which will do much to encourage junior chess in England.

In a way I think this is good but I also wonder about encouragement of new players who aren't juniors.

Did the ECF Board consider, as an alternative, a new, low-price, category of membership to cover both junior-only events and internal club events? By low price I mean a few £s, enough to cover the admin/sign-up charges and grading costs but not much more.

I also wonder whether this oughtn't to be approved by Council - sometimes Council is asked to approve aspects of the membership scheme; sometimes it isn't.

[Alex Holowczak]

Did the ECF Board consider, as an alternative, a new, low-price (say a few £s, to cover the admin/sign-up charges and grading costs), category of membership to cover junior-only and internal club events?

Yes. I proposed this to the Junior Director at a Junior 4NCL. I proposed any nominal fee of something like £3-5, and for that we could have a grading list explicitly for junior-only events, in a bid to encourage things like Megafinals (that aren't eligible for proper grading, because they're not all played with clocks). Details could have been ironed out. Junior events could still be submitted for "normal" grading if they had the level of membership appropriate, or upgraded to that level of membership for the tournament in question.

The feedback was that junior persons (by which I mean, people who organise junior events) thought £3-5 was still too expensive.

[Angus French]

The feedback was that junior persons (by which I mean, people who organise junior events) thought £3-5 was still too expensive.

Could the price not be even lower - say £2 - with enrolment only available through submission of an MO-style spreadsheet to the ECF Office (with the intention of saving in admin costs)?

[Alex Holowczak]

The feedback was that junior persons (by which I mean, people who organise junior events) thought £3-5 was still too expensive.

Could the price not be even lower - say £2 - with enrolment only available through submission of an MO-style spreadsheet to the ECF Office (with the intention of saving in admin costs)?

The £3-5 figure was the headline rate; it would have been subject to the £1 discount in place for all of the other memberships.

[Roger de Coverly]

The ECF has listed to the views of those organisers and, in order to promote the benefits of membership to those who have not yet experienced them, the Federation will shortly be offering one year's free membership to any junior who has not previously been an ECF member.

What exactly are "the benefits of membership to those who have not yet experienced them"?

For an organisation whose original rationale for demanding a universal membership scheme for English chess players with all the problems this causes was that it needed to raise money, offering free membership is counter productive.

[Sean Hewitt]

I also wonder whether this oughtn't to be approved by Council - sometimes Council is asked to approve aspects of the membership scheme; sometimes it isn't.

This is a matter which probably falls to the board to decide upon without the need to refer to Council. That notwithstanding, Council may, if it so desires, to pass an ordinary resolution.

The feedback was that junior persons (by which I mean, people who organise junior events) thought £3-5 was still too expensive.

Could the price not be even lower - say £2 - with enrolment only available through submission of an MO-style spreadsheet to the ECF Office (with the intention of saving in admin costs)?

The consensus was that, at this level, the costs of processing payments starts to eat significantly into the payment itself. Additionally, offering membership 'free' is more sellable than offering it for a small payment. I'm sure that if the ECF had gone with £2, someone would be on here asking "why isn't it free"?!

Regarding your point about adults; it's a good question. There is no evidence that the current scheme has had an adverse affect on participation, though of course it's early days. The ECF will need to keep an eye on this going forward though, in my experience, membership grows as it becomes the norm.

[Roger de Coverly]

I also wonder whether this oughtn't to be approved by Council - sometimes Council is asked to approve aspects of the membership scheme; sometimes it isn't.

I thought Council was supposed to approve the Budget and that was based on assumptions on amounts to be raised from membership and Game Fee. Giving away free memberships has a cost, both on the free membership itself and losses from Game Fee and Pay to Play exemptions.

If membership costs are a disincentive and offering it for nothing is an admission that this is so, offering one year free just postpones the problem to the next year.

[Ray Sayers]

It will be membership to 31 August next, as all annual memberships now are. This will be clear in the promotional material which will accompany the launch of the offer.

Sean,

Any idea on the timescales of issuing this promotional material?

I am assuming it will be before the end of August 2013, but I never like to assume anything!

[Andrew Varney]

I consider this to be a very positive development and I am very pleased that the ECF listened to the opinions of junior chess organisers. In answer to Alex's point

The feedback was that junior persons (by which I mean, people who organise junior events) thought £3-5 was still too expensive.

from my own experience and from what I read and heard in the debate on this forum and elsewhere that contributed to the decision, the issue wasn't so much a cost one as a perceived entry barrier. The idea of a completely free membership for a period of time I think will work to attract more juniors and, with a suitable implementation, should help with the issue of players in secondary schools teams getting involved for the first time.

In addressing these issues it does not matter so much whether it is a one month or one year free membership, so I'd not be worried about the fact that if someone joined in July the membership would only run until August. Some of the candidate Oxfordshire players for the recent ECF U13/U18 county event would certainly have taken up this option if it had been available to them.

I am sure that there are many others who will want to "taste and see" for up to a year.

[Neill Cooper]

The ECF has listed to the views of those organisers and, in order to promote the benefits of membership to those who have not yet experienced them, the Federation will shortly be offering one year's free membership to any junior who has not previously been an ECF member.

This is good news as it generously responds to the concerns raised in the council paper of April 2012:
"Many junior chess associations are very concerned about the requirement implied by the proposed new ECF membership scheme for juniors to become members when they take part in their first ever 5 round or 6 round one-day event. Experience at county level is that typically the first two events a child plays in are experiments for them (and their parents) as to whether they enjoy playing competitive chess. Many junior chess associations who run these events do not wish to charge extra (ECF membership fee) to new players until it is clear that they are committed to competitive chess, which they feel has occurred once they enter their third such event." http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... ership.doc
Hopefully most junior organisations will promote ECF membership in 2013/14.

However, it still leaves severe problems for the National School Championships since the Board have insisted on ECF membership for all players in this tournament for future years.

[Alex Holowczak]

In answer to Alex's point

The feedback was that junior persons (by which I mean, people who organise junior events) thought £3-5 was still too expensive.

from my own experience and from what I read and heard in the debate on this forum and elsewhere that contributed to the decision, the issue wasn't so much a cost one as a perceived entry barrier.

It was never entirely clear to me whether the grounds for objection were:
(1) The cost of the membership, or
(2) The lack of willingness from organisers to do the necessary administration to ensure players were members.
(3) A combination of the two.

Certainly I heard both (1) and (2) from time-to-time.

By making the membership free, I guess we've killed objection (1).

[Andrew Varney]

I doubt that it's simply a lack of willingness by the organisers as much as the difficulty of getting those who are being organised to get things sorted out. So I guess that probably is a mixture of 1 and 2. As long as the admin of the free membership is thought through and not made too onerous, I would expect that this goes a long way to address that issue generally.