I’m the president of our High School Chess Club, and I was trying to have us become an official USCF club/affiliate. I’m really confused on the application process. As it seems like to apply to become (or maybe it’s access to the TD/Affiliate support area? I can’t tell) an affiliate.
Can someone run me through the process?
I’m a USCF member and an officer of my chess club, I want to get my chess club set up so that I can host a USCF rated tournament.
Thanks!
Bryan
Fill out a form and send in via snail mail with a check.
They are a little slow right now in processing it (because of some financial issues brought by lawsuits).
Maybe there is another way. You can call them up to get them to send you the form. However I believe I saw it someplace on this site.
You can start the process from the USCF webstore, secure.uschess.org/webstore.
BTW, as of last Friday, the USCF is back to 5 day weeks.
Besides your club becoming an affiliate, you’ll also need a TD… either bring one in, or become a club TD by getting a rule book and signing the form promising you’ll use it.
If you are doing a tournament only for students of your school then you can look into the JTP option (possibly easing new players into USCF play). If you have sections with at least one player from at least one other school then all the players in those sections will need to be USCF members (I’m making an assumption that a high school tournament would not have a K-3 section). The rating fee is the same for JTP or non-JTP options. The non-K-3 JTP option is only available for a scholastic affiliate. Offering that (and allowing any of the school’s students to participate in a tournament) might make it easier to get the school to pay for the affiliate dues and rating fees (if that is an issue).
If you become a club TD then you can enter all of the non-members via the TD/Affiliate area to get USCF ID numbers, and then upload the tournament and flag it as JTP so that it can pass the validation and get rated. Paying the rating fee on-line by credit card might require using a parent’s credit card.
If you think you’ll have a number of players for a tournament then look into getting one of the pairing programs (WinTD and SwissSys are two big names there and Tim Just has posted videos on how to use either one).
Yep. It’s confusing. It may help to think of it this way:
…USCF-rated tournaments are run by USCF affiliates. These are clubs or organizations who have an affiliate membership in USCF.
…USCF-rated tournaments have to be directed by a TD. This is a person who has a valid USCF individual membership and is certified by USCF to be a TD.
…You can buy either or both of these membership online at the USCF store (Join in upper corner of the site) if you have a credit card. Once you have these two memberships (one organization plus one human), you register each of them online through the TD/Affiliate support area.
…Then you log on as the affiliate in the TD/affiliate support area and authorize the individual TD to submit tournaments for that affiliate.
…TDs are the ones who submit the tournaments for rating.
You need both memberships, and they need to be “connected” by having the Affiliate authorize the TD to submit tournaments.
As far as I know, the only thing you can’t do online is apply to become a club TD. To do that, you print out a form from the USCF site, and you need to sign it and either fax it or mail it back. Check your MSA record a couple of days after faxing, and you’ll probably find you are a club TD. USCF follows up with a mailing for new TDs a couple of weeks later.
Have fun running tournaments!
We are no longer sending out TD cards, because we haven’t reprinted them. (There’s an option in the TD/Affiliate Support Area for TDs to print their own TD card, though.)
If we have an email address on file for a member, the membership program can send a TD an email when his or her TD status is updated.