USCF Memberships - Waiting to Submit Them

Running Chess Tournaments
1

I ran a tournament that finished on July 28th and had a player participate in the final round and renew his USCF membership. So that I could get the rating report done I renewed his membership immediately and submitted the report online.

However, after the fact I realized that I should probably had waited a few days (4) and then submitted his membership and the rating report and he would have gained another month’s membership (good PR/customer service or whatever).

The only reason I see not to doing that is if the tournament wouldn’t get rated because he wasn’t a current member at the end date of the tournament. However I believe that when running the validation on a membership the tournament only looks at the expiration date of a member, and not the date he actually became/renewed the membership (e.g. if he’s not expired then rate it, irrespective of when he became a current member).

Should the USCF adopt some sort of policy that states if a membership has already expired, or if it is a new membership then the expiration date is the following month if submitted say within 7 days of the end of the month, e.g. submit the membership from July 24th onwards and the expiration date becomes August 31st the next year? Of course this doesn’t apply to renewals who haven’t expired since you just tack on the additional years.

Regards,

Chris

2

Sure, you could have sent in the membership and the tournament August 1. The extra four days is not a big issue with the players. The point is this, if the new member only becomes a member for only one year. It does not matter if the expiration date is 07/31/06 or 08/31/06. If the member is not going to pay for more years, the membership is going to end one month or the other.

If the member will stay with the USCF, the member can keep the membership current for years. If the member keeps the membership current for 5 years or 20 years, does it matter what month the membership ends? There is always a chance, the new member in time will get a life membership.

There are good and bad to hold off on the membership. If you send in the membership that day, you could print out the temporary membership card. This would give the member the ID number and information to go to the next event if the real card does not come in time. If you hold off till August 1, the member would not be able to show the temporary membership card. The new member would need to copy the MSA record after it is posted August 1.

The problem you have with the membership sent in July 28 or August 1, you open up a paradox. Only the member can deal with the out-come of this paradox, not the seller of the membership.

3

Here is how we treat memberships received online or from the website:

If a membership is processed before the end of July, that member gets the August issue (the one mailed in late July) as his first issue and then the next 11 issues. His expiration date will be the last day of July. (He gets a full year plus the fractional portion of the current month.)

Similarly, if a membership is processed in early August, then the first issue that member gets is the September issue (the one mailed at the end of August), and then the next 11 issues. His expiration date will be the last day of August. (Once again, he gets a full year plus the fractional portion of the current month.)

For memberships received in the mail, the ‘transaction’ date is the date the membership is received at the USCF office. That means memberships received by the last day of the month are treated as having been processed that month, even if they aren’t actually entered into the computer until a couple of days into the next month. In July, for example, they completed processing of the ‘June’ memberships at about 1PM on July 5th.

As long as a membership is current at the time an event is validated, we don’t worry about whether it was current during the event. (That means that if an event is submitted late and a membership isn’t considered renewed until several weeks after the event ended, we don’t worry about the gap.)

In other words, we’re already giving more than 12 months of tournament play and 12 issues of the magazine to all new or renewing members.

If I understand what you’re asking, Chris, you want the USCF to sent someone over 13 months of service for memberships renewed towards the end of a month, including 13 issues of the magazine.

That’s going to increase the cost to service those members, do you think it will increase memberships enough to support that additional expense?

It may also increase a phenomeon I call ‘year-skipping’.

I know of a number of players who play infrequently, at a tournament always held on the last weekend of the month.

They play in this year’s event and get a membership good through the end of the month a year from now. Next year, they’re still current members so they don’t need to renew their membership at that tournament.

I personally know a couple of players who do this, so about a year ago I ran a query on the database to see if there are others, ie players who renew their memberships for one year, but only do so every 24 months (give or take a month). I found several hundred of them.

4

I’m assuming that you more accurately mean something like: “As long as an expiration is after the end-date of the tournament at the time an event is validated…”

So for an event held 7/30-31 and sent in 8/1, it is OK to have entrants whose memberships expire on 7/31/05. I.e., on the day when validation occurs your code compares the membership expiration date to the tournament end date.

5

You’re correct, the comparison is between the ending date of the section and the expiration date of the member.

As long as the membership is current as of the ending date of the section at the time an event is validated, no error is flagged.

Obviously, if memberships for any non-members come in after the initial validation pass, the event has to be re-checked in order to clear up that error.

For events submitted online, putting in a ‘check’ or ‘receipt’ membership exception request that isn’t automatically approved will trigger another evaluation check Monday-Friday at about 6PM. If memberships have come in via the web or the mail during the day, they’ll be picked up by that pass.

6

We noticed this in the Illinois Chess Association, as well. So, a couple of decades ago, we went to a system where the membership can expire any time during the month.

So if a player joins ICA at a tournament which begins August 25, his membership will expire August 24 of the following year.

Bill Smythe