At the Portland Chess Club, players can become members of the club at different rates depending on age and length of membership, pdxchess.org/membership/. That page on our website states several benefits of becoming a member (only members can play in the annual Club Championship, often get first invitation to participate in special events, have the right to elect the board members annually in January) but the only reason most people become members of our club is for the entry fee discount they get at most of our tournaments. I’ve been trying to think of additional benefits we could offer to members. The only thing I’ve thought of is to allow members who provide chess coaching to advertise on our website and at our facility.
What are some additional benefits we could offer to club members?
Entry fee discounts on tournament play are usually sufficient enough of an extra benefit for many club members. Having a weekly or daily site to play, a central place for chess information, and a club library is more than what some clubs offer. There is little expectation from most players that they are going to be offered insurance, health care, discounts on purchasing non-chess related merchandise, or a credit card by their chess club. A simple, decent place to play and a discount on entry fees usually does quite nicely to attract members. More complicated offerings cost money and do not guarantee that membership will increase.
You could always make some sort of publication. Otherwise club membership begins to feel to many people like required membership in their state chapter affiliate, or like regular US Chess membership, like a tax they must pay to play in tournaments.
Club membership isn’t required to play in any Portland Chess Club tournament except our annual Club Championship but that is a smaller tournament and is a 5-round Swiss with one round every Tuesday night in October (starts the last Tuesday in September if there are only four Tuesdays in October)
We already have the Northwest Chess magazine. Despite this, some people, including myself, still see state membership requirement as an extra tax that is required to play in many tournaments.
A long time ago, it was common in many states and chess clubs to bundle the club, state, and USCF membership in one package. The member was sold on the fact that this allowed him to play anywhere in the nation while receiving not one but three publications concerning chess news. Before there were clearinghouses and the internet, local chess players found out about tournament, both before and after, through these publications. The local and state newsletters provided details about the upcoming events on the chess calendar. They also published the crosstables of the events when completed. Sometimes game annotations and a tournament summary was added. The USCF magazine had TLAs and occasional coverage of local events through the “Here and There” column, though it generally focused on national and international events.
The bundling of the memberships was done to demonstrate to the member that he was part of a national scene, not just a local one. Many state tournaments required state membership to play. Local tournaments sponsored by clubs and other entities usually did not require club membership, except for club championships. However, back then we were sold on supporting our chess clubs in order to make tournament play possible. In effect, the three memberships provided the infrastructure for chess throughout the country. Many players kept their state and local newsletters, some for historical reasons, others because they had one of their very own games published for posterity within those eventually yellowed pages. They even held on to their old Chess Life and Reviews.
Now our information and records are in the Cloud. People cannot hoard electronic club or state newletters. With no physical presence to remind them of chess and their part in a grander whole, it is easy to look on membership dues on every level as a tax. Our club has eliminated such a tax by being free to all who want to come and play. We have the privilege of having a free site and a cooperative church pastor. We have a website at mchess.freehostia.com to provide tournament flyers and tournament details. I am sure that because we do not have a large physical presence or require gobs of money to run events, players take all that goes into running a club for granted until it goes away.
You can offer all sorts of things as part of membership. The players will use what they want and ignore the rest. Like many chess players, they think only of their own personal interests and could care less about benefits for other players or being part of a grander whole. They expect that somehow tournaments will always exist for them to play in with as little money, work, or interest from them to make it happen. Were they less selfish way back when than players are today? That is difficult to tell. Chess in that era was a smaller bunch and everyone tended to know each other more.