Item # 16 - CFC Membership Fee / Tournament Playing Fee ( = tournament membership )

Chess activity in BC is much lower than Ontario. I'd say most of the potential members play 2 events per year. So to replace the annual $36 CFC membership revenue and the $4 BCCF event fee with a payment on registration would require each player to pay $20 per event not including the rating fee.

Of course the calculation of necessary revenue would have to be made from a national perspective, I imagine, and the averaging effect of doing that would result in a sort of regional subsidy.

How about eliminating the membership fee completely - and build it into the rating fee? This would add a sum (let's say $10) to entry fees - but that would penalize players who play in no-entry-fee events (Scarborough CC?).

Just a thought.

Hugh--
That is precisely what am advocating, though I guess I did not speak/type clearly enough. Some sort of accomodation might be made for no-entry-fee or non-cash-prize events.

Paul--
I do not think that players in BC should make up the total of what they contribute right now--- Right now BC is subsidizing the costs of elsewhere in the country if individuals only play in two events, since they are playing much less then those elsewhere.

The fee should be set at: (the total expenditure CFC budget) / (average number of players per tournament X total number of tournaments)

Everyone pays the same for each tournament they have rated.

Elegance in Simplicity.

For those who favour a special first time membership rate, it is possible to do this now simply by lowering the entry fee for those players.

One interesting issue is the fact that we have a fixed rating fee...perhaps the rating fee should be based on the tournament entry fee......

I am completely against a first-time discount at least at the CFC level. TDs can do whatever they wish with their own budgets of course.

I don't like the short-term memberships much and the reason is that I think quite a number of current annual members would likely drop to a 3-month membership, say if they are a summer-only player. Overall you'd lose more full-time members than you would gain part-time.

Any kind of "first-time" discount would also promote ratings fraud. However if that is thought to be a small issue, the "Original" Tournament Fee was a good one. In your FIRST EVER event you can pay $10, and you get one free magazine (Electronic now of course) in addition to being able to play. Sure, give them an offer to upgrade to a full year by simply paying the remainder. But make the fee strictly only for a first-time member.

We have gone the no-membership route for the BC Chess Federation. At the AGM in May 09, we voted to eliminate the $12 annual BCCF fee that was being collected for us by the CFC and to replace the revenue with a fee of $4 per player per tournament. The fee must be forwarded to the CFC by the tournament organizers before their event is rated.
It's still a bit early to tell but after a few growing pains, it appears to be revenue neutral and it reduces the sticker shock of a $48 membership for a new player to a little less imposing $36. The $4 BCCF fee is hidden in the entry fee of course.

Hi Paul:

Interesting to see how the BC experiment is working.

I've never been taken with " hidden " taxes. We used to have the Manufacturer's Tax, which I thought was a bad idea, a hidden tax.

Is there any move afoot in BC that organizers in advertising need to disclose your BC rating fee as part of the registration fee, and it be shown on a public list of tournament expeses, including the TO fee, and the TD fee, if any?

Bob

Bob, so far there is no specific BCCF regulation covering your two points. It is a small chess community, however, and the issue is well known to organizers, TDs and regular players.

So, BC has initiated a rating fee model for their memberships.

The basic rating fee is now $7 for BC, with no provincial membership fee, interesting model.

In an earlier post I suggested a staggered rating fee, based on entry fee, or type of event, etc.

BC adopted the 'tournament fee' system described above two years ago. I thought it was a mistake then and still do.

Making such a system national (which I understand is the British system) would simply compound the mistake nation-wide.

I think our focus should be on increasing 'value added' to members and with that well in hand we've accomplished most of the goals.

Two other points:
- we live and die on the efforts of an army of organizers both at the local club level and at the tournament director / organizer level. These folks are key people in the success of the CFC and we need to be constantly on the lookout for ways to make things easier for them. The SwissSys deal was a good step, particularly as it took place at a time when laptop computers were not as commonplace as now.