Mike, I can’t find the current rules for tournament memberships on this site. Heck, the subject is even too long to type in the USCF search engine page! Can you or some other kind reader help me out? Thanks, Ben
Check the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for the TD/Affiliate Support Area
If the intent of the tournament membership option is to draw more players, why is the information buried on a FAQ page for TD’s? To get the word out details of a tournament membership should be listed on the “join/renew” page as well as the other membership pages on the webstore.
It appears to me that the office isn’t very supportive of this type of membership.
That appears to be true, but it sure is helpful to the Chief TD, or his designate, who is submitting a tournament rating report and frightfully finds out that one or more of his players’ membership has lapsed after they cannot reach that player.
I agree that this option should receive more exposure for the players, not just the TD’s and affiliates. The pages referenced above would be a good start.
Since Tournament Memberships can ONLY be purchased AT THAT TOURNAMENT, having them on the membership webstore would seem to be counter productive.
The TLA portion of the website would seem to be a more productive place to mention them.
I wasn’t saying that they would purchase the tournament membership at the store. Mentioning that they have an option whereas they could forgo a regular membership is not counter productive in my opinion.
The player who never shows up to the tournament because he thinks it is too expensive can’t be told about the option by the TD.
I agree. We are still just learning how to provide information to people other than hard core members.
Grant, how did that person find out about the tournament in the first place? That’s WHEN AND WHERE to promote tournament memberships!
People complain that our membership webstore already has too many options on it (I agree), you want to give people ANOTHER REASON not to join when they visit our membership webstore?
Mike, you make my point. If the potential web savy member found out about the tournament on the online TLA area, he would likely add up the total cost. I don’t think its too much of a leap to think that a significant number of people might decide not to pay a membership fee of $41 to play in a $10 tournament. The TD of that $10 event will never see the potential member to sell him the tournament membership.
Having known in advance that the tournament is only going to cost $22 instead of $51 will persuade more new players to try tournament chess.
I’m not sure that’s what I wanted. Weren’t there some rules that the event could be no longer than X rounds or the event couldn’t last Y days? Did those sub-rules become abolished? If not, where are they listed? Thanks!
When TMs were reinstituted by the Board in late 2005, the fee was either $10 or $20 based on the nature of the event. (Events that were over 5 rounds and weren’t quick-only events and weren’t held exclusively on weekdays were eligible for the $10 rate, or something like that.)
That proved to be both confusing to explain and complicated to administer, so last August the Board changed it to $12 for adults and $7 for those under 24 regardless of the nature of the event. All but $2 of that is applicable to a one-year or longer membership if purchased within 60 days. The membership webstore will recognize and automatically apply that TM credit.
The explanation for this on the old website (which was updated last August to reflect the Board’s actions) is at uschess.org/newtournamentmembership.php
I’m not sure where all it should be mentioned on the new website. (I don’t have access to Joomla to make those changes anyway.)
When someone purchases a TM, we send them an email advising them of their TM credit the day after the event they played in is rated. (If we don’t have an email address we generate a letter on a laser printer and mail it to them.)
Much simpler than what I had feared - thanks!