I am a USCF Tournament Director. I am only a club level TD. My TD certification expired in 1999. I attempted to renew this in the year 2000 and was told that club level TD certification never really expired, and that unless I wished to have a higher level of certification, then I should not worry about this. I have continued to direct small tournaments as both assistant and chief TD up until late 2007 with no problems. A few days ago, I directed a small tournament and was rejected as having an expired membership for both the chief TD and assistant TD status. It would seem that what I was told by the USCF about the status of my TD certification is now incorrect and that I have expired. What steps must I take to renew my Club level certification?
I’m of the understanding that you can’t renew a club level certification, although you can petition for a six month (?) extension so that you can keep directing while you prepare to take the local test.
Is that correct?
Alex Relyea
As originally passed, the club level TD certificate was good for 3 years and was not supposed to be renewable. (I think that sometimes happened anyway, though.)
Several years ago (2005) that was modified. Club level certification can be renewed for another 3 years by taking and passing an open book exam based on the USCF rulebook. (I think it is currently the same test that is used for the local exam, but with a lower passing score.)
If you have the necessary experience (and it sounds like you should), I recommend you go for local certification instead. It is renewable for another 3 years providing that you direct at least one tournament per year.
Darrell Wyatt took over handling TD certifications when Larry Pond retired earlier this year, but he’s probably still learning some of the nuances.
His email is dwyatt@uschess.org.
I think in general when someone whose certification has lapsed asks to be recertified, he or she is recertified for a few months (probably less than 6) to be given some time to complete and return the exam.
Take the Local exam. If you’ve been directing tournaments for that long, there are only 2 cases:
a) you will easily pass the (open book!) Local exam, or
b) you won’t - in which case you will get a rude shock as it is pointed out
to you how much you are getting wrong.
The main purpose of the Local exam is to make sure that you have actually READ the rulebook and know how to look things up in it.
I’ll now bore old-timers with my standard advice for Club TD’s:
Take the Local Exam closed book (at home, on scratch paper) first. You will probably be very sure about the right answers on at least 80% of the questions.
then…get out the rulebook and research every answer to every question. Every question on the Local exam is directly answered by a piece of the rulebook - you just have to find it. You will discover that as many as HALF of the answers you were sure about are…wrong.
And then…you can mail in the exam (and pass). You’ll be happy - and so will the players in your next event.
Ken’s advice is spot on. I followed this process a month ago and the experience was eye opening.
Incidentally, Darrell Wyatt is wonderfully responsive. From request to grading he processed my test in about a week (email was excellent) so I could use the US Open TD workshop as credit towards Senior TD.
As a fairly active TD in the DFW metroplex, I have worked with a number of different tournament
directors. Several have asked me “what difference does it make if I take the local exam”. The answer
is simple-passing it implies that the rule book has been read. And, as a chief td at many events,
my confidence in leaving a td “on his/her” own is GREATLY enhanced when they have at least a
local level of certification. I am sure a few club tds renewed as club tds, mainly because they
had too few Tournaments, for whatever reason to qualify to take the local exam.
That said, at least in my area, there is an acute shortage of tournament directors. Those of
us with experience should be willing to mentor and train others as we have been mentored and
trained ourselves. Ok, I admit some of this is self-serving, as I sometimes need others to fill
in for me.
But would USCF be better served in not simply extending a club level certification of
a td who fails the local exam, but achieves a certain satisfactory grade (for club??). At least,
then, we would have someone run tournaments, when the alternative may be that the
tournament becomes unrated, memberships are not sold, and no ratings fees are collected
by USCF.
Robert Jones
Senior TD/Denton, Texas
I thought the office already did this. What leads you to think they don’t?
Passing the Local exam at the 80% level gets you a Local TD certificate. Passing at the 70% level gets your Club TD certification renewed. I also thought that Club TDs that pass their renewal exams at the 80% level and had the other qualifications were kicked up to a Local TD certificate. The best thing about getting the Local TD certificate is that it is suppose to renew without any further exams as long as the certificate holder directs an average of 1 tournament per year.
Tim Just
Chair, TDCC.
I agree with Ken on this point whole-heartedly. In fact, it is good advice for ALL TDs regardless of experience or certification level.
Personally, I read the rulebook from cover to cover at least once a year.
Then, I go to the USCF Web page and look for Rules Updates (supposed to be given in <Rulebook changes since the 5th Edition>) This, unfortunately, has not been updated recently (and desperately needs to be).
NOTE TO WEBMASTER HAL BOGNER: PLEASE UPDATE THIS PAGE, YOU HAVE THE TEXT
I advise ALL TDs to do the same.
Note, This I do, in spite of the fact that I am certified National Tournament Director (NTD, the highest USCF Certification), I am the Rules Committee Chair, and, I was on the advisory committee that consulted with the Editors of the 5th edition of the Rulebook (acknowledged in the from of the book.)
NO ONE is exempted from learning more about the Rules.
David Kuhns, NTD
Chair, Rules Committee
The office will generally extend an expiring or lapsed TD’s certification for a month or two, certainly long enough to take the local exam (which is also the recertification exam for club TDs, but with a lower passing grade.)
There was some confusion over extending TD certification for expiring TDs who had the requisite experience (averaging at least one tournament per year for the duration of their current certification), but we got that cleared up earlier this week, and Darrell now knows to extend the certification of TDs who have the requisite experience.
He also has a list of those TDs whose certification had lapsed in the last few months and those whose certification lapses in November and December including counts of the number of tournaments those TDs have worked at in the last 5 years, and my understanding is that he was working through that list to get those TDs updated.
However, the USCF is no longer sending out TD cards, because it would cost quite a bit of money to reprint the forms. Your Chess Life label now shows your current level of TD certification and when it lapses. Our plan is to make it possible for TDs to print out a TD card for themselves from the TD/Affiliate Support Area.
That would be a good additional feature.
What would make excellent sense is that a lower score, that is non-passing for the local exam,
perhaps say 60% be good enough to renew as a club for at least two years. This is true particuraly
for those who can run pairing software, and are very difficult to replace for rated tournaments.
Rob Jones
Senior TD
Denton, Texas
The whole point to requiring TDs to take an exam at the local level (or to be recertified as a club TD) is to ensure that they know the rules, or at least how to look some of the most important of them up.
The idea of certifying someone who cannot pass that open book exam for anything more than enough time to study the rulebook and take the exam again is contrary to the whole idea of having certified TDs.
If you don’t have enough certified TDs in your area, I suggest you train some by inviting them to work at your events. Make them sit out working a round, that should be long enough for them to take the local exam.
Particularly for those TDs who opt to go without a printed magazine (there is more of an average lag time in putting such changes on the label of a quarterly newsletter).
Note that right now the MSA player lookup has a TD tab with the current expiration date. This can be useful for those TDs that do not want to wait until a new TD card can be printed from TD/A.
A techno-savvy tournament aid (ie non TD) can enter results and push the “pair” button in the software. A TD must make any corrections, if needed, but that’s just the brain work – having someone else enter the corrections would be OK.
Then again, it could be darn hard to get a volunteer for that work if they aren’t getting some sort of TD credit.
The option for TDs to display their current TD card, which they can then print out, has been added to the TD/Affiliate Support Area menu.
Great news, thanks Mike!
There’s a problem with the TD cards not coming out the right size, they’re coming out way too big. (I couldn’t test this yesterday because my printer wasn’t working.)
They’re supposed to be the same size as membership cards, which are 3 1/4" wide and 2" tall. That’s also the size of the TD cards we used to send out.
I’m going to have to work on fixing the TD card generator program and the CSS for it (or convert it to generate the card as a PDF, which are in some ways easier to generate.) In the interim it should be possible to get it down to a more manageable size by using the scaling factor on your printer set up page.
I think I’ve corrected the size issue for the TD cards on the TD/Affiliate Support Area, and I’ve also fixed one typo on the card.
Has this policy now changed? One very active area LTD had his certification expire last month. The person I spoke to at the office on the TD’s behest seem to indicate that all TD’s had to contact the office in order to renew their certificate. In reviewing for other TD’s status I noticed that the certification for the person who I spoke with expires in two weeks.
In my opinion nothing is gained by having each TD call the office to point out that they are in fact active. The office can do this much more efficiently by reviewing the list of expiring TD’s every three months or so and renewing those who qualify.
Darrell is no longer working in the USCF office. His replacement is still in training mode. Perhaps his replacement misunderstood the request for renewal and mixed it up with asking for an upgrade. Please try again. I e-mailed his replacemnent about this post.