"Bruce" wrote in message
ups.com...

Well Eric's tiny pup tent theories are still working away I see.

No one can say he's not in tents with his views.

Eric's view even when he worked for USCF was that it wasn't price
gouging or harrassment it was only USCF excericising it's rights.

That's right! Pay up and its still a privilege, not a right. Only ChessHut
has rights in his member organization.

Eric pretty much never knew any rating fee increases, service cuts or
dues increases that he didn't think were good. He frequently turned
it around to blame things on disgruntled organizers who if they would
merely disappear and stop promoting chess would make USCF a happy
successful organization.

And I believe him. The trouble with chess is the players! Its like trying to
herd cats!

I think Eric would entirely be happy if all the 'low affiliate' people went
clean away and the organization would comprise the staff alone, who could
then dress the proper way, something like the boy scouts wearing Don's chess
jackets, adorned with skill badges, like, e.g., 'castles left, & castles
right' and the women should look the same too. They could march a bit in the
morning, sing the ChessHut Song, and go camping in the swamp the other side
of the parking lot on the weekends in tasteful little tents.

Phil Innes

On Aug 13, 1:11?pm, "Chess One" wrote:
"PB" wrote in message

ps.com...



Phil:

Those are figures for all of England. It would be possible but
tedious to regionalise them, and the definitions for such an exercise
would need some thought.

I note that the 2007 ECF Year Book lists 9 clubs in Cornwall, which
implies perhaps a maximum of 16 matches?

Yes - that's way down since 30 years ago. Probably 18 league matches and 3
or 4 cup KO format ones. Then for some, county games which used to be about
1 per month, and we had a rated club championship. Maybe 20 rated-games per
year is an average?

On payment, I am a couple of years out of touch but the system as
applied to Cornwall would have been that the Cornwall County Chess
Association would pay the national body ?0.92 (say $1.75) per game
played in the Association's tournaments, and half that amount in the
case of junior tournaments. How the Cornwall Association collects
this money from its local clubs/players is entirely a matter for the
Association - I have seen various models depending on local
circumstances, which vary widely.

Interesting. So about $35 pa for that 20-game player [though this may be
offset by local art 'grants' and such - isn't some lottery money going to
chess now? Maybe just centrally to BCF?]. My old club colleague Ian George
is now the CCCA Sec, I'll ask him, and also how is his Pirc?

I further assume that these fees - 92 new pence per game support the cost of
ratings by BCF, and nothing else - not a magazine, eg.

My own Club plays in two leagues, in both Kent and Sussex. It is
those leagues which pay the national rating fee of ?0.92 per game.
But as it happens we pay the leagues not per game, but a sum per team
we enter, and we trust someone in the leagues has done their maths OK
to meet the leagues' costs. Then our own Club members pay an annual
subscription (currently ?48) to the Club to cover our team entry fees
and the Club's other costs, and we trust that our Club Treasurer has
got her budget right. At the moment the players in my Club's team
matches also pay a supplementary amount of ?2 per match, but that's a
contentious issue.

?1 = $1.90 very very roughly.

OK - that's a fair outline of club fee system, & maybe typical. Although I
notice you Saxons use money instead of Heva! being able to make payment in
mackeral.

Statistically, I mention in passing that there are a further 3,056
players in the English system who had rated games in 05/06 but none in
06/07.

I note 17 players whose first affiliation is listed as Camborne &
Redruth; 13 of them had rated games in 06/07, the average number of
games amongst those 13 being 16, and the median 14.

A very good report - and I thank you.

[I lived in Sussex one Summer, eat figs! and cycled back and forth on a
sit-up-and-beg 1919 bicycle twixt Arundel, Chichester and down the lanes
Bogner way, past Blake's house - easy cycling below the Downs. I met Lady
Goodwood there, who, at the time seemed to own half of Africa, and since I
didn't fawn before her, La assumed I was indeed the viscious Viscount Innes,
something of a raconteur, and engaged me in topics which I had to gloss
being entirely innocent of them! But I never played chess in Sussex except
with her driver who was good enough to play 'blind' while driving.]

This side of the pond only 25% of adult USCF members [that's 7,500 players]
play a minimum of 10 rated games per year.

Cordially, Phil Innes



regards

Paul Buswell- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Phil:

When you say that ratings go to the rating system and nothing else you
repeat a common misconception. It is true that the ordinary player
(i.e. one not paying any enhanced supplementary membership
subscription direct to the national body) will not see any direct
benefit other than their rating, but rating fees are not hypothecated
to payment for the rating system, they are just one of several income
streams to meet multifarious costs at national level.

It is correct that there is state funding for chess at national level
but at local club level it is far far patchier and very few have
tapped into it successfully. We locally could try for, let's see.,
national lottery funding, local Arts Council, local municipality,
local charities, all sorts of sources - but we've had very little
success because we don't really fit the priority criteria - except in
certain limited areas of 'social inclusion' we in this town are not
dealing with the main areas of politically correct concerns. Besides,
the damned paperwork is so daunting - I lose any enthusiasm for
spending 2 to 3 hours on putting together a halfway presentable
funding application for a few hundred quid if I assess its likely
success as maybe 20-1 against.

regards
Paul Buswell

On Aug 13, 11:17 pm, PB wrote:
On Aug 13, 1:11?pm, "Chess One" wrote:





"PB" wrote in message

ups.com...

Phil:

Those are figures for all of England. It would be possible but
tedious to regionalise them, and the definitions for such an exercise
would need some thought.

I note that the 2007 ECF Year Book lists 9 clubs in Cornwall, which
implies perhaps a maximum of 16 matches?

Yes - that's way down since 30 years ago. Probably 18 league matches and 3
or 4 cup KO format ones. Then for some, county games which used to be about
1 per month, and we had a rated club championship. Maybe 20 rated-games per
year is an average?

On payment, I am a couple of years out of touch but the system as
applied to Cornwall would have been that the Cornwall County Chess
Association would pay the national body ?0.92 (say $1.75) per game
played in the Association's tournaments, and half that amount in the
case of junior tournaments. How the Cornwall Association collects
this money from its local clubs/players is entirely a matter for the
Association - I have seen various models depending on local
circumstances, which vary widely.

Interesting. So about $35 pa for that 20-game player [though this may be
offset by local art 'grants' and such - isn't some lottery money going to
chess now? Maybe just centrally to BCF?]. My old club colleague Ian George
is now the CCCA Sec, I'll ask him, and also how is his Pirc?

I further assume that these fees - 92 new pence per game support the cost of
ratings by BCF, and nothing else - not a magazine, eg.

My own Club plays in two leagues, in both Kent and Sussex. It is
those leagues which pay the national rating fee of ?0.92 per game.
But as it happens we pay the leagues not per game, but a sum per team
we enter, and we trust someone in the leagues has done their maths OK
to meet the leagues' costs. Then our own Club members pay an annual
subscription (currently ?48) to the Club to cover our team entry fees
and the Club's other costs, and we trust that our Club Treasurer has
got her budget right. At the moment the players in my Club's team
matches also pay a supplementary amount of ?2 per match, but that's a
contentious issue.

?1 = $1.90 very very roughly.

OK - that's a fair outline of club fee system, & maybe typical. Although I
notice you Saxons use money instead of Heva! being able to make payment in
mackeral.

Statistically, I mention in passing that there are a further 3,056
players in the English system who had rated games in 05/06 but none in
06/07.

I note 17 players whose first affiliation is listed as Camborne &
Redruth; 13 of them had rated games in 06/07, the average number of
games amongst those 13 being 16, and the median 14.

A very good report - and I thank you.

[I lived in Sussex one Summer, eat figs! and cycled back and forth on a
sit-up-and-beg 1919 bicycle twixt Arundel, Chichester and down the lanes
Bogner way, past Blake's house - easy cycling below the Downs. I met Lady
Goodwood there, who, at the time seemed to own half of Africa, and since I
didn't fawn before her, La assumed I was indeed the viscious Viscount Innes,
something of a raconteur, and engaged me in topics which I had to gloss
being entirely innocent of them! But I never played chess in Sussex except
with her driver who was good enough to play 'blind' while driving.]

This side of the pond only 25% of adult USCF members [that's 7,500 players]
play a minimum of 10 rated games per year.

Cordially, Phil Innes

regards

Paul Buswell- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Phil:

When you say that ratings go to the rating system and nothing else you
repeat a common misconception. It is true that the ordinary player
(i.e. one not paying any enhanced supplementary membership
subscription direct to the national body) will not see any direct
benefit other than their rating, but rating fees are not hypothecated
to payment for the rating system, they are just one of several income
streams to meet multifarious costs at national level.

It is correct that there is state funding for chess at national level
but at local club level it is far far patchier and very few have
tapped into it successfully. We locally could try for, let's see.,
national lottery funding, local Arts Council, local municipality,
local charities, all sorts of sources - but we've had very little
success because we don't really fit the priority criteria - except in
certain limited areas of 'social inclusion' we in this town are not
dealing with the main areas of politically correct concerns. Besides,
the damned paperwork is so daunting - I lose any enthusiasm for
spending 2 to 3 hours on putting together a halfway presentable
funding application for a few hundred quid if I assess its likely
success as maybe 20-1 against.

regards
Paul Buswell- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

We are also occasionally our own worst enemy. I lost at least 3-4
tournament and chess club sites because of anti-social, unacceptable
behavior by chess players.

It was one of the main factors in convincing me to give up chess
organizing. The other was declining attendance. I know of another
case where a long term site for the Kansas Open was lost forever
because a chess player propositioned a student on the campus where the
event had been held for years.

The student rightfully complained to the college officials and they
withdrew use of their campus facilities the following year. It was
widespread common knowledge that people slept in their cars in the
parking lot of the Adams Mark Hotel in Philadelphia at the World
Open. I knew 4 chess players personally who told me they slept in
their cars at that tournament for the entire time the event was going
on.

For a time here we couldn't keep a site for our chess club open
because moronic, obnoxious chess players kept ****ing off the owners/
operators of the places we were holding it. Between 1998 and 2003,
Omaha Chess Club moved 5 times.

"PB" wrote in message
oups.com...


Phil:

When you say that ratings go to the rating system and nothing else you
repeat a common misconception. It is true that the ordinary player
(i.e. one not paying any enhanced supplementary membership
subscription direct to the national body) will not see any direct
benefit other than their rating, but rating fees are not hypothecated
to payment for the rating system, they are just one of several income
streams to meet multifarious costs at national level.

Okay - though I do understand this to mean that rating-fees pay for players
ratings, but not understand if rating cost is supplemented by other income,
or contributes to non-rating activities.

Evidently, those who pay for ratings on a game-by-game basis, approximately
cover the fee to rate the game, no? I see by what you write below the system
is unevenly socialised.

It is correct that there is state funding for chess at national level
but at local club level it is far far patchier and very few have
tapped into it successfully. We locally could try for, let's see.,
national lottery funding, local Arts Council, local municipality,
local charities, all sorts of sources - but we've had very little
success because we don't really fit the priority criteria - except in
certain limited areas of 'social inclusion' we in this town are not
dealing with the main areas of politically correct concerns. Besides,
the damned paperwork is so daunting - I lose any enthusiasm for
spending 2 to 3 hours on putting together a halfway presentable
funding application for a few hundred quid if I assess its likely
success as maybe 20-1 against.

That's a grim scenario. On any page-3 of a form I'm already biting it, and
often get sent out of the house for excessive swearing.

Phil

regards
Paul Buswell

On Aug 17, 10:31 am, "David Kane" wrote:
"Bruce" wrote in message

ups.com...





On Aug 16, 10:49 pm, "Ray Gordon, creator of the \"pivot\""
wrote:
Rating fees, perhaps. Maybe an "unlimited rating fee" for active players or
TDs on behalf of the players.

Each name is worth a lot for marketing, to the point where memberships would
be more profitable overall, since there would be millions of members.

Look at what ICC does and they charge $10.00 a year more than USCF, with
almost the same number of adult members. With no membership fee and a
top-notch esrver, USCF would be able to mop up on B&E sales and e-commerce
partnerships with its top players (who could suddenly earn a living), and
chess might even make it on to something like ESPN.

No, there would not be millions of members and no the USCF would not
do well attempting to compete with ICC which it DID in fact try to do
with US Chess Live back in 2001.

Chess HAS been on ESPN. When Kasparov played a rematch against Deeper
Blue it was on ESPN in 2003.

USCF needs to do a better job in doing what it has always done which
is in serving as a sanctioning body and ratings generating membership
organization.

This is a comically inaccurate characterization of the USCF's
past activity (forget about the magazine(s)?).



USCF's main problem has primarily been that it overestimates its own
appeal and overspends on stupid things that it cannot afford.

This is true. But what you fail to note is that it's serving the self-selected
membership that creates the lack of appeal in the first place. There *are*
millions of Americans interested in chess but the USCF is devoted to
a miniscule percentage of them. So American chess is left without an
organizing force.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm not sure what you were claiming was inaccurate my quotes or Roy's
quotes? What exactly would you like a small not-for-profit to do for
American chess?

I'll put the ball in your court. Keep in mind that this organization
tried to run an internet chess server of its own and that it has shown
a net loss in operations nearly every single year for over a decade.

If it can't serve the needs of dues paying members what do you suggest
it do, expand its services?

"Bruce" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Aug 17, 10:31 am, "David Kane" wrote:
"Bruce" wrote in message

ups.com...





On Aug 16, 10:49 pm, "Ray Gordon, creator of the \"pivot\""
wrote:
Rating fees, perhaps. Maybe an "unlimited rating fee" for active players
or
TDs on behalf of the players.

Each name is worth a lot for marketing, to the point where memberships
would
be more profitable overall, since there would be millions of members.

Look at what ICC does and they charge $10.00 a year more than USCF, with
almost the same number of adult members. With no membership fee and a
top-notch esrver, USCF would be able to mop up on B&E sales and e-commerce
partnerships with its top players (who could suddenly earn a living), and
chess might even make it on to something like ESPN.

No, there would not be millions of members and no the USCF would not
do well attempting to compete with ICC which it DID in fact try to do
with US Chess Live back in 2001.

Chess HAS been on ESPN. When Kasparov played a rematch against Deeper
Blue it was on ESPN in 2003.

USCF needs to do a better job in doing what it has always done which
is in serving as a sanctioning body and ratings generating membership
organization.

This is a comically inaccurate characterization of the USCF's
past activity (forget about the magazine(s)?).



USCF's main problem has primarily been that it overestimates its own
appeal and overspends on stupid things that it cannot afford.

This is true. But what you fail to note is that it's serving the
self-selected
membership that creates the lack of appeal in the first place. There *are*
millions of Americans interested in chess but the USCF is devoted to
a miniscule percentage of them. So American chess is left without an
organizing force.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm not sure what you were claiming was inaccurate my quotes or Roy's
quotes? What exactly would you like a small not-for-profit to do for
American chess?

You inaccurately characterized the USCF as "a sanctioning body and ratings
generating membership organization." The real USCF is essentially a
publisher of an unpopular specialty magazine. Not only does the magazine
have minimal appeal among the general chessplaying public, it also
doesn't have a sufficient quantity of followers to be self-sustaining. Hence,
the USCF's "deficits".


I'll put the ball in your court. Keep in mind that this organization
tried to run an internet chess server of its own and that it has shown
a net loss in operations nearly every single year for over a decade.

If it can't serve the needs of dues paying members what do you suggest
it do, expand its services?


No. .