I’m curious as to the rationale behind the affiliate cost. Does anyone who has followed delegate and board meetings for a while know what people were thinking when drafting the characteristics of affiliation?
In particular, I’m interested in the following questions:
Why the magazine? If it is to show prospective USCF members, why make the affiliate pay for it (assuming this is part of the breakdown)?
Why make it harder for clubs to get started (cost)? I’m thinking ‘activity means members’.
What prevents a group of clubs, even geographically dispersed, from sharing one affiliate (without taking membership fee discounts and commissions or directory listing into account; more on that later)?
Tying up the last two questions, what prevents someone from having an affiliate, advertising it and letting poorer clubs (or richer!) use it for $2 a year? Local clubs are listed in regional web sites anyway most of the time, so the USCF directory by state, even though useful, is not entirely necessary.
How do USCF revenues from affiliate fees compare to revenue from membership fees?
What are the benefits of affiliation apart from the membership commissions, TLA discounts, USCF directory, ability to run rated tournaments, magazine? I’m not saying that these are not good, just wondering if there are others.
Why $40?
It seems to me that one of the advantages of having an affiliate as far as finances are concerned has been taken away with online discounts for membership fees. With these, the affiliates can only get $1 as a commission if they want to undercut the USCF and give an incentive to their members to join/renew through them. It takes at least double the time to recoup costs, since a lot of people know about online renewal. I think it is beneficial to the organization if individual clubs have a stake in bringing members in and keeping memberships current. Clubs and tournament organizers (affiliates) are, after all, the ‘activity’ part of the ‘activity means members’ equation.
By no means am I trying to be negative. I’m actually proud of having started an affiliate and of actively contributing to the organization in this small way. I’m just wondering about cost/benefit for other potential affiliates who may not be inclined to fork over $40 for what seems like little return. I want to encourage others to start their own clubs, but I feel I need more information to justify the cost.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I don’t see a problem here.
The extra copy of Chess Life is just something I give away to someone who just joined or someone interested. It’s nice to have. For a chess club with a physical location it gives you one you can make available to people coming in the door.
Rating supplements get mailed to affiliates and there is a cost to that. You wouldn’t want to send those to just anybody.
The cost for an affiliate membership is not high, but just enough to where you won’t get an affiliate unless you need one. You don’t many ‘vanity’ affiliates (i.e. Douglas’s Chess Club) in the USCF directories making it hard to find a ‘real’ affiliate.
I forgot about the supplements, but to me they are not much use.
TDs get access to query results for free online. No need to wait for the mail.
I realize that this is not good for the less computer literate, but again, it’s an extra that does not really count as a benefit you get for paying the affiliate cost.
The USCF’s TD and Affiliate structure may be a bit dated, but nobody has yet put forth a viable alternative.
The ratings supplements information may be available for free online, but preparing it still takes several days of staff time, which means it isn’t prepared without incurring some costs.
Understood. There’s a lot of hard work that goes into making this organization run, and there is definitely a lot of things that need to be done and that are being done that require a lot of money. I do think, however, that the structure does not match the intention.
The main reason I posted this is because I started a club two months ago and since then, with the increased exposure to players in the community, I have found two informal regular gatherings of players that are not interested in being part of the USCF for this and other reasons. And that’s only within five miles of where we meet.
I think the organization would benefit from reducing the cost of affiliation, which would encourage more affiliates to spring up. Some may not be viable, but some will, and they will bring more members and more rated play. This could mean changing what it means to be an affiliate. I’m not saying I have the answers, but I’m willing to discuss ideas and work with anyone who wants this organization to grow.
$40 also to me seems like not much of a barrier. The main benefit of becoming an affiliate is to get games rated. The main barrier to realizing this benefit is getting a TD to take charge, organize tournaments, make pairings, record results, submit rating reports, and listen to a steady stream of complaints about how this or that is unfair, all without becoming too much of a killjoy toward the rest of the players who just want to have fun.
As a scholastic coach and independent tournament organizer, I find that telling people I am “an official USCF affiliate member” gives me more credibility than just “some guy who likes to organize tournaments.” It’s worth $40 because I can attract more players.
I’d like to look at it from another perspective. I don’t think $40 is too much or is a barrier. I did start a club after all. I’m happy with the USCF having those $40 from our club.
Rather, is it a disincentive? Can we structure affiliation in another way that will instead be really attractive to chess organizers outside of the USCF system?
Without the perception that you get your money’s worth through benefits, this is more like an organization tax or donation, which, again, I’m more than happy to participate in.
One example of an incentive for small clubs is commissions (which, as explained above, take longer nowadays with online discounts to become a benefit).
It could be that affiliates receive another discount for equipment as a benefit. I don’t undertand the logic of having books and equipment in the catalog at a certain price, say that we get a member discount, and then find that other online stores sell the same items at a much lower price. Good example is the rules book: $18.95, member price $17.95, can be found elsewhere for $12.89 without any special affiliation or membership. (I’m glad the USCF spun off its book and equipment sales )
There could also be a reduced first time fee, just like for memberships, of $20, coupled with ways to reward affiliates for maintaining or increasing the USCF’s main source of revenue, memberships. For example, waive or reduce affiliation fees if the affiliate has for the past year signed up or renewed enough members or run a certain number of rated games. These are all ways of encouraging activity, which is what affiliates are all about.
I’m looking for ways to increase the USCF’s bottom line, not reduce it. I personally think there is a lot more room for the organization to grow. I think it really needs to get behind ‘activity means members means revenue’ for real and look for more radical ways to make this happen. I realize that the leadership is of course working to accomplish this, and their efforts are noticed and appreciated.
If the USCF wants to increase the bottom line, they can keep the affiliate Chess Life. Do not need two issues of Chess Life in my mail box. Most affiliates are sent to active USCF members, they can ask the affiliates if they want a copy of Chess Life.
I agree that a good way to increase the bottom line would be to not send a copy of Chess Life to the affiliates. Everyone who runs an affiliate is usually a member or TD or whatever and gets a copy of the magazine.
(By the way, you can request not to have a copy of the ratings supplement sent to you as an affiliate.)
Until the USCF takes my affiliate number and pin number off the back of the affiliate magazine, I don’t even feel like I can hand out copies to new people thinking of joining the USCF, or even leave at the club just for general reading, as it may be used for other purposes.
Even with having two copies, would not say every affiliate should not get a copy. There are some affiliates thats run by a non-USCF member. It would be nice to say I do not want a copy of Chess Life.
Those who can should let the USCF know to stop sending them the current month’s magazine. If you want to be able to give sample magazines to prospective members, ask the USCF to send you instead 10 of the lower value past issues.
Those who can should also ask the USCF to stop sending them annual and supplemental ratings. You can always read Tim’s TD Corner online.
well, I just started the Scottsboro Chess Club, and although we do have some money, we have equipment to pay for, have to save up to run that first tournament, and many other expenses. I think the $40 is just a barrier to starting clubs, so maybe they aught to make it that for each club, the first year is only $20 or something, or even give them 3 months free and then the regular chargest apply (the only problem with that is - anyone can form a “club” for three months of Chess Life, lol). If necessary, I wouldn’t mind not getting the magazine for our first year, so long as it costs less.
You do not need a affiliate to start a chess club. There are a number of small chess clubs, that run fine and well without the affiliate. If you do run a tournament, and there is a small profit after the event: the tournament will pay for the cost of the affiliate membership.
We need printed rating supplements because we don’t have access to the USCF online at many of our tournament locations. My goodness - if we did - I guess that would mean that we have a laptop and that’s WAY more than $40 a year!
I’ll also never loan out my personal copy of Chess Life.
But we’re crazy - we(actually not we, but HIM) paid for the affiliate membership for our club even though we don’t charge dues for the club. If you can’t recoup $40 a year from running tournaments you need to rethink something.
If you don’t need to be an affiliate and dont want to be, then don’t. I’m happy that we are supporting the USCF that little bit more. I just hope they are still making money with everything they send us!
Since you have posted in the forum, you have access to a online computer. If you have the tournament done at site with paper, you still can upload a tournament online. The director can build a online tournament with the information from a paper event. Building by hand a online tournament is much faster then sending in one by hand. If you send it online, the rating fee per-game is 18 cents for any time control. If its by hand for a G/30 - G/60 for dual ratings its’ 80 cents per game.
If you have new members, you can send in the membership at home. With the homework, of new memberships and building the crosstables, could still have the event rated the same days as the tournament. Would be more willing to go to a event sent in online, then one being sent in with paper.
Most tournament sites are not going to have a online computer, or the director having a computer access at the site. Just having a event with pairings with hand, does not mean you still have to send the event as paper. If you mail the paper tournament, someone in the office is still going to build the data of the tournament, then build the crosstables. Take it home and do some homework, the memberships and tournament can be done the same day as the event.
It would be interesting to survey TDs and find out what percentage of the sites they use have online access, I suspect it may well be above 50% these days.
The phpBB software supports polls, I may try to figure out how they work to run such a survey. (That’s a biased sample for sure, but better than nothing.)
Log in as admin, go to Permissions under Group Admin, select the forum, click on Advanced Mode, and scroll to the right for the Poll setting. I’ve got some samples at nechess.com/nscaforum/index.php
Maybe I’m dense, but I don’t understand what the response has to do with the question. If someone comes to your tournament, how are you going to know their ratings without the supplement or computer access?
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