Can someone tell me where to find rules for affiliates?
I’m specifically interested in whether it’s acceptable to get one and then just hand out privileges to any TD you know who wants to use it to rate events if you’re not concerned about their doing anything wrong and you trust them. For example, the ABCOrganizer gets an affiliate and adds all the TDs he knows locally basically. So the DEFClub and the GHIJKlub decides they don’t need to pay for their affiliates anymore and let them lapse in favor of saving $40 a year and rating their events under the generous ABCOrganizer, who bought an affiliate and will share it with anyone. Does the USCF allow this practice? I sort of remember reading something that gave me the impression it was at least frowned upon if not prohibited. It might have just been whatever I read when I got my affiliate, but I can’t find it now or it’s not giving me the same impression. I’m under the impression that an affiliate should only allow events to be rated under them if they are actually the organizer or club running them. You don’t just buy an affiliate and let all your buddies use it. Is that right or wrong?
On another specific, for a State affiliate, is it okay to let local organizers who are business owners or even clubs use your affiliate to rate events or should they purchase their own affiliate for events they run.
I’ve seen it happen sometimes where a TD just gets his event under the wrong affiliate from what he intended and that can just be changed with a simple email to USCF. But if the TD doesn’t actually have an affiliate currently that they can rate under, should they buy one?
I don’t see why not, but I think it is inadvisable. If I were to let Ms. Herman be listed under my affiliate, and she, as a TD, did something wrong, like not pay prizes, I believe my affiliate would be liable. I’m aware of the president of one state chapter affiliate who runs a club (in another state) under the state chapter affiliate. So far it hasn’t been a problem.
Long time forum readers may remember a since inactive poster who once offered to list any TD under his affiliate. It was explained here that that was a very bad idea.
It does require self-policing by affiliates. My club had a TD listed as an acceptable chief TD and submitting TD because he had done club events in the past. When he started using the club affiliate for tournaments with no association to the club I removed him from the list (the affiliate does get an e-mail when it is used for a tournament), at which point he got his own affiliate. Otherwise the club would have gotten e-mails for any problems from the events (I don’t know if there ever were any).
Personally I’m listed as a valid chief TD and submitting TD for 11 different affiliates, and I still make sure the separate affiliate for my club is maintained.
One thing to remember is that affiliates show up on the USChess website for clubs. $40 per year for a club may very well pay for itself purely from the visibility on the USChess website even if it never runs any USCF-rated events.