ECF Game Fee Billing

[James Toon]

Our experience at Pimlico Chess Club is that the billing system is working, but not perfectly. In the past month we have been invoiced for two events:
(1) the 3rd Pimlico Summer Chess Tournament (2013 – a Silver event)
(2) the Central London League (2012/13 - a Bronze event).

In relation to (1), we were invoiced £102 for 17 Bronze or non-ECF members at £6 each. Two of these turned out to be Silver+ members according to the final 2012/13 ECF member database. Maybe they joined after the event, but the ECF billing system hadn't caught up.

In relation to (2), we were invoiced £20 for 10 games by non-ECF members. This was correct.

I don't speak for the ECF, but my understanding is that the £6 fee for Congresses is payable for those who are not ECF Silver members at the time of the event, although payment at an event upgrades Bronze membership to Silver.

If the two players to whom you refer joined after the event, you still have to pay.

I thought the principle was that if you joined the ECF at a particular level at any time during the year, you were treated as being at that level for the whole year for the purpose of the events you played in. Maybe that only applies to Bronze events and not Silver.

In any event, I checked the individual entries following David's comment. The two players in question were ECF Silver+ members before the event started and therefore should not have been on the invoice at all.

[David Sedgwick]

I thought the principle was that if you joined the ECF at a particular level at any time during the year, you were treated as being at that level for the whole year for the purpose of the events you played in. Maybe that only applies to Bronze events and not Silver.

That is my understanding.

On the basis of the facts that you've now established, you are of course correct about your liability (or lack of it).

[James Toon]

In this case the two players notified me of their Silver+ status in the week before the tournament started. It looks as though the ECF system didn't pick this up in time, so regarded them as in a lower membership category on the date the event started and (incorrectly) charged us for them. Probably just one of those teething problems that can affect new systems.

[Roger de Coverly]

The Report of the Finance Committee has recently been added to the ECF website.

That's now quoting a target date of end October for completion of Game Fee billing and rather confirms that no rigorous system previously existed.

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... report.pdf

Review the ECF’s billing and collection procedures to ensure the completeness and timeliness of membership and game fee income collection.

Game fee used to be dealt with on effectively an honesty box basis. There was a one-off exercise carried out to try to identify underpayments, but there was no systematic approach. We have now moved to a situation where game fee is invoiced for, based on a calculation by the ECF of the games played by non-members. This has to be the right way to go, but the implementation has left a lot to be desired. The production of the underlying information reached the ECF Office on an intermittent basis, and was simply turned into invoices without a further degree of intelligent review being applied. John is currently dealing with league game fee invoicing himself with the intention of getting everything up to the end of the financial year billed by the end of October.

[Mick Norris]

The Manchester League invoice for the 2012-13 season arrived yesterday by email from John - there was a temporary problem with printing and posting invoices, which is a problem for us as our Treasurer doesn't do email (for chess, anyway)