I am not going to argue with you. You want your plan to pass then you will have to do much more work on it. I tried to figure out a financial impact - I could not figure out how to do that. You want that done then I suggest you come up with defendable assumptions and show how you think it will be so much better. But something that says - “obviously play will increase” won’t work - because you cannot show it will.
Your plan called for large percentage increases in scholastic memberships. That was never going to fly.
I cannot model what will happen if the price of a membership class increases by a large amount. And taking a major risk with such a large part of the organization revenue is only OK if it works.
Thank you. All I wanted was for my ADM not to be misrepresented. I defy anyone to find a single “large percentage increase” that I proposed that was, as I said above, more annually than all but the least expensive cup of coffee at Starbucks once. Mr. Priest is, of course, correct when he suggests that too many of the delegates are too involved in scholastic chess to charge a fair rate for their memberships, but that discussion is far off point here.
No I did not suggest that. Please do not try to put words in my mouth.
The EB continues to have a group tell us that the amount charged for scholastic memberships is too high and an impediment to the growth of the game, while we have another group which regularly tells us that the scholastic memberships are too cheap and do not cause those members to pay their fair share.
Of course, the truth is probably in between those views with elements of each being valid.
Haven’t we gone a tad bit off topic? Perhaps a split thread is in order. But the discussion is interesting.
I’m not sure why Alex thinks the price of a Starbucks coffee is a relevant measure to scholastic players. Yeah, I know, the parents pay the bill. But the parents are far more likely to think of it as a double digit percentage increase than to compare it to anything they actually pay for. That it’s a small amount isn’t as important as the psychology of the big percentage increase. We see that all the time in the non-chess world. And yet, if it’s something people want, they will pay. So how it would play out is anyone’s guess.
Similarly, we have been told many times that $50 was a glass ceiling above which adult membership would drop. No proof mind you, but that theory has driven our pricing in the past. As Allen notes, it’s hard to prove such things.
There is also the old saw that people value what they pay for. If they pay something it’s more important than if it’s free. If ratings became free, would they be less valued? Again, hard to prove, especially since the players don’t pay for them directly anyway.
The bottom line is we don’t know how any such proposals would impact - the bottom line. We can calculate what the impact would be if behavior was totally unchanged. But if behavior isn’t changed, why do anything? The impact of any change is hard to project accurately; you take your best shot and see what happens. But if the range of possible outcomes is wide and the risk high, it’s not sensible to do it. The burden of showing the risk is acceptable for the range of realistic outcomes rests with the proposer. I was not in Norfolk so I don’t know how what Alex presented in support of the motion, but it is clear that better evidence will be needed if anyone hopes to convince the delegates this is a proposal worth adopting.
While it is true that Scholastics would have had the largest percentage increase (20/17 is a 17.6% increase), scholastic players also make up the largest block of memberships and rated games. While in most other membership categories only around half of the dues-paying members play in a rated event, among scholastic members it is more like 80%. So the abilities for clubs and schools to hold free scholastic rated events is likely to be a major benefit to them.
It may also be time to completely sever the link between memberships and magazines. Around 75% of scholastic and youth age members don’t get a printed magazine.
In the 1990’s we had 1200 or more scholastic affiliates. We only have around 275 scholastic affiliates today, so lowering the affiliate rate (sans magazine) might get us back into school chess programs, especially if it includes free rated events. (Remember, all affiliates can run K-3 primary events and scholastic affiliates can run in-school K-12 events now without requiring US Chess membership.)
I honestly don’t know what the impact of dropping ratings fees, accompanied by an increase in memberships, would be, and to be honest I DO NOT CARE! Sometimes you really do need to try something radical to expand your visibility and scope of activities. Even if it cost us $50,000 in revenue compared to the current fiscal year it’d be a fantastic investment in the future of chess. And it advances our 501(c)(3) mission.
Warning-this gets REALLY radical: Over the years I’ve always been worried about touching the JTP programs for fear they might be reduced further or eliminated. Maybe it’s time to think about expanding those programs. If all K-12 events were rated for free and open to non-members if run by scholastic organizations (including school districts or state-wide associations), that might solve the ‘Illinois’ and ‘Kansas’ problems with a single stroke. What would the impact be of rating the Illinois HS chess championships?
The trick is how do you do this without killing the cash cow (scholastic/youth membership revenue)? What benefits to memberships can we offer that make memberships worthwhile to players in those age groups?
What would it take to transform these events into US Chess rated events? THAT’S the direction we should be thinking if we want to become the ‘big tent’!
Back when Chess Express first showed up, I said to someone (I don’t remember who, possibly Bill Hall) that the very existence of Chess Express demonstrated that we weren’t doing our job right. It was not a popular viewpoint.
It’s not that they are finding them directly. It’s that US Chess could work with other national entities to educate them about the benefits of chess clubs.
For example: where is the presentation to a national library association about US Chess and the benefits of chess? Or to national park district groups? Or to college associations - especially junior colleges - where the local chess community can add expertise and continuity that in turn benefits the college students who are (relatively rapidly) turning over?
We should be interacting with other national groups to promote chess, or cooperate in promoting both groups. Is there a way to combine bridge sites with chess? Mensa meetings? etc.
How about senior living centers? They often have meeting space, but can their residents get out to play chess? What if the chess club came to them?
For over a decade in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, I directed a team tournament for a HS and an education consortium that provided an assortment of academic competitions for “gifted” kids to compete in as part of their enrichment. The tournament was split into JHS and HS divisions. 16 teams, 64 players, each day played chess, interacted socially, and had fun. The kids, in an era before social media, found ways to network with each other after the competition. The school sponsor/teachers loved the tournament and its effects on the students. One year I asked the sponsoring school and the other schools if they would like to have future events rated. There was enthusiasm for the idea. We contacted the USCF and broached the idea as an experiment. We were willing to pay a rating fee, but could not force the schools to have the kids be USCF members. That would be counter to the consortium guidelines. The schools were willing to provide the kids’ addresses to the USCF to allow the organization to reach out and sell itself to the kids. That allowed us to verify grade level and permitted us to develop a database of junior players. We handed out USCF magazines to the kids. The USCF allowed the event to be rated for a couple of years.
During this time we had a core of 128 kids each year, many of them new to chess to create a scholastic base. These were teenagers, not elementary school kids, who were developing an avid interest in chess. This occurred at a time when the number of juniors playing in our area was only just beginning to grow. The scholastic explosion nationally had not happened yet. Some of the kids went on to purchase memberships and played in the open tournaments in the area. Then the USCF told us that it required that future “gifted” tournaments must have all players be full USCF members. That ended the experiment as the consortium balked given its rules. The tournament continued, but was no longer USCF rated. Several of the school sponsors, who had established school affiliates so that they could run intra-district events, related to us that they were angry and said that they would never have anything to do with the USCF again. It was not our fault that the USCF was poor in selling itself. We complied on our part with providing all required information to create IDs. All that was needed was a little patience to allow the seeds to grow.
Had the program been allowed to continue, we would have had a base of about 500 teenagers with ratings and IDs in the area. The consortium was asked early on by one of the schools if they would like to provide chess to the elementary school kids, too, given the success the program was achieving. They were looking for new ways to support “gifted” elementary students. Projecting over a decade, we would likely have had close to 1500 kids in our area playing rated chess, having annual events to play in, and a conduit to playing in adult tournaments where they would have had to purchase USCF memberships. With such a base, a yearly pool of new entrants, and tournaments and leagues to reinforce their participation, IMO the retention rate of players who would eventually purchase memberships would have been very high. The USCF demand for membership money was short sighted and broke the connections with chess for these young people. The USCF was unnecessarily greedy for the immediate membership money and had little vision for what was potentially being created: a self-sustaining program that would have ancillary benefits for schools, chess clubs, tournament organizers, and for the USCF.
Many schools have opted to hire experienced TDs, and will use the TD’s affiliate instead of getting their own. In the '90s the schools were more likely to pay for an affiliate.
We weren’t in the past, but have we reached the point where we could financially take the risk?
In IL there might be a privacy issue with actually getting the member IDs in the first place (name, address, birthdate needed). Maybe a subset of approved people could be deputized by the IHSA to enter them. Those non-member IDs would resolve the prohibition from requiring membership in another organization for a student to represent a school.
We have a proposal from one EB member to ditch any non-magazine membership and just have one price in each category. Then you choose to get the magazine or get the content electronically but there is no discount for electronic.
We’ve already had this go 'round… but I would make the magazine available to everyone free of charge on the website, and charge anyone who wants a printed/mailed copy. This would remove any doubt about the tax-deductibility of the full amount of membership dues.
Honestly, why isn’t the magazine free for everyone online? We already charge people extra who want a printed copy. Wouldn’t pushing that out into the world benefit us?
Our accounting firm does not agree with your assessment. If you would like to send me your opinion with the proper regulation and legal citations I will be happy to send it on to them. If you have reference to any IRS letter ruling that may be on point that would also be useful. My e-mail is in the officer listing. An e-mail is preferable to a PM through this system but if you cannot find my e-mail then send me a PM and I’ll get it to you.
We’ve already discussed this and agreed to disagree. The plain language of Publication 526 makes it clear.
What benefit of membership falls outside of the specifically disregadable items mentioned?
EDIT: I shouldn’t have asked a question, because I’m not having the discussion again. What I posted should just be food for thought and left a that. Take it, leave it, whatever. Sorry.
The publication is not law or regulation. I am serious about forwarding your ideas to the accounting firm. But it needs to be something other than the IRS Publication. You may well be right at least in part, but I would appreciate the greater level of support for the position if you have it.