What is the relationship between the local club and the State organization where you reside?
Anyone can answer.
I live in Alabama and it appears that State Organization is beginning to be the most important organization to the Chess Player. But it is used to be the opposite. The local club did almost everything.
Now the State Organization is starting to regulate tournaments that require Alabama Chess Federation membership. And doing so in a manner similar to the USCF regulates tournaments. Note I am not yet opposed to this idea. Nor I am a friend of it.
Another question.
How healthy is the local clubs where you reside? Do you have regular attendance and tournaments? Or do most players play on the Internet and State Organization sanctioned tournaments?
The issue is the ACF has never really regulated ACF Affiliate tournaments before this point. From what I understand the ACF has had to take this step (from their viewpoint). Still though I am curious about what others have experienced along this line.
Well, I can tell you that if I were a TD in Alabama, I wouldn’t be running any ACF events. It seems to me that the affiliate is attempting to usurp some of the rights and responsibilities of the TD.
Here in Oklahoma, I don’t believe that the state chapter affiliate has attempted to regulate its sanctioned events to that extent. I don’t have much contact with it, but I can’t imagine that it would mind if I wished to require OCA (Oklahoma Chess Association) membership at an event. I’ve done a lot of work with the (if you will) “shadow” state chapter affiliate, the OCF (Oklahoma Chess Foundation), and it has never attempted to exert that kind of authority on my tournaments. Indeed, except for official state championships, which should be bid IMO in any case, and the affiliate should have the authority to set/agree to terms, the primary responsibility of the state chapter affiliate should be to make sure to collect dues from the TD or organizer, depending on how the tournament is set up. This hasn’t been a problem with the OCF, and I don’t believe it has been with the OCA either. Also, there is nothing in the by-laws of either organization, unless it has changed recently, which mentions other affiliates affiliating with the state chapter affiliate, thus that problem is eliminated.
Please note that there is nothing in the USCF by-laws which requires you to run your tournaments through the state chapter affiliate, or to get its “sanction”. You’re free (and I’d encourage you) to run tournaments without ACF sanction.
I got the feeling that the Chief TD is assumed to also be the organizer. Some of the sanctions would make the most sense if that was so.
In Illinois, the tournament calendar is maintained on the website by Maret Thorpe (and done very well IMO). All tournaments have gone there regardless of whether or not they were considered part of the IL tour. Even non-USCF-rated high school or scholastic tournaments are listed (the state high school governing body has mandated that membership in another organization - like the USCF - cannot be required for a student to play for the student’s school).
There are incentives for tournaments to push for ICA (IL Chess Association) membership for the participants, but there have been a number of tournaments run that were not on the IL tour and thus where this was not required.
Any attempt to require ICA membership for scholastic tournaments would almost certainly go down in flames (the only time this century that was raised, some of the parents/coaches looked into an electoral take-over of the ICA but, when people realized that only non-candidates were pushing for that requirement, the move was considered unnecessary). The current K-8 state championship tournaments grew from a non-ICA background starting in 1982 that drew many times the number of players that the then-sanctioned ICA events drew and became the de jure state championship by 1985. Any such attempt to require ICA membership for high school tournaments would be either completely ignored or laughed at.
The adult ICA membership requirements had the carrot of the ICA tour (kind of like a grand prix) to help pull in ICA memberships, but even that could not stop a membership decline and apathy. I think in the most recent election, the president was re-elected with 18 of the 19 votes cast.
Mind you, I said “ACF wants to enforce membership collection.” I did not say enforcing membership collection was necessarily a good thing.
michaeldlawson still hasn’t yet told us enough about what’s going on in Alabama, what their trends are, and who the players are.
In Illinois, many of the people who lead the state association are also involved with tournament organizing or directing in some way, whether it’s as independent operators or as part of a club. It would be difficult for most state affiliates to avoid that. So, when michaeldlawson says:
…I ask “isn’t it all the same people?” Put another way, I can’t picture having a set of state officers that contained no tournament directors, no club leaders and no tournament organizers.
I’ve also noticed that tournament organizers (whether club leaders or independent operators) seem to be pretty independent people. I can’t picture them following those ACF regs.
I cannot tell you why the ACF feels obligated to control the tournaments. Because that the reason is an even more heated issue. In fact we might be talking about a civil lawsuit (or two). Yeah it is that bad.
Traditionally Alabama Chess Tournaments are organized by pretty the same people year after year. Some of these people are not involved with the ACF but some are very much involved with the ACF. The Affiliate used to be the boss but the focus for a few tournaments is now the Chief Organizer. Who is usually the TD. At least that is my understanding of Chess in Alabama.
Interestingly enough ACF inc indicated to me that have rejected one ACF sanctioned event.
ACF has indicated that a designated person could collect the money for membership.
Chess has suddenly become more active in Alabama with more people interested in organization. That is good but as I have always said Chess people don’t hate each over the Chess play but over Chess Organizational Effort. And so it goes
I hope I answer the questions as best I could
I appreciate your responses. I think it will be helpful