I just got the renewal for my affiliate membership. I was reading on the renewal slip the 3 benefits of being an affiliate:
1: Ratings supplements mailed to me. I read that the USCF is discontinuing that.
2: A copy of Chess Life. I don’t need it; I already get a copy as a member. I’m not a ‘club’; I just have an affiliate membership to hold tournaments.
3: The ability to hold rated tournaments.
I currentlly hold 1 event of my own each year. I am wondering why the USCF has to charge me for the ‘right’ to hold a tournament. (Which generates revenue in the form of rating fees) They don’t charge to be a TD.
Why can’t we eliminate the affiliate fee, and slightly raise the per game rating fee so that it is revenue neutral? (Heck, it might generate more money if someone who had thought about holding a tournament did now that he doesn’t have to buy a 2nd membership!)
I do agree in general with the idea that you do not get much for your affiliate dues and that every tournament you hold as an affiliate does generate revenue from ratings fees.
Perhaps their should be a “no magazine” affiliate option for those affiliates who do not want a magazine. I do appreciate the magazine as a scholastic affiliate as it provides a copy for our school library. I was disappointed in the content of a recent magazine article being present in a K-8 school library and that I regularly encourage chess club members to look at the magazine during free time at school.
Revenue is an issue for USCF. On one hand, raising the per game fee does shift cost to active players, and on the other hand, we want to promote play. I would say in general the per game fee is more easily recoverable for those who hold several large scholastic tournaments a year, so it could be raised some without a significant negative impact on # games played.
Do affiliates really build the cost of the ratings fee into their entry fees, or are they just a cost of doing business?
If the USCF were to increase the fee for rating an event from 18 cents per game (online submission) to, say, 25 cents per game, that would cost the affiliate an additional 14 cents per player for a 4 round event.
Is the typical entry fee going to go up 14 cents? I kinda doubt it. I doubt it’d go up a buck, either.
Hey, cut the sarcasm please. It is a legitimate question and post. I’m the only person organizing tournaments where I live, and I’m trying to do it as a benefit to the chess players in the area. My last tournament was a $25 EF, with $575/b32. Add in a $125 + tax conference room where we played, TLA ads, rating fees, and a nice trophy for 1st place, I was budgeted to make my $40 affiliate fee and less than $10 profit. That $40 is a significant portion of my budget.
It just makes me wonder why I don’t let the membership expire, and just direct under another affiliate. I’ve either directed for or am acquainted with about 4 different affiliates that are several hours away. There is no restriction against “borrowing” someone’s affiliate number as long as they trust your directing ability and are willing to have their affiliate club connected with the outcome of your tournament.
How much money are we saving by cutting mailing the Rating Supplements? Why can’t we knock that price off of the affiliate fee? Also, when is that scheduled to take place? Judy Misner should not be sending out renewals saying that I’m going to get bimonthly copies of the USCF rating supplement if it is going to end soon.
I know that revenue is a touchy subject right now, and there has already been a discussion of a no magazine option that was flamed on by several people. It just seems that the guy like me who is trying to help promote small tournaments and get people active (I sold 3 memberships and renewed one that had been expired over 10 years) is getting the short end of the deal.
Revenue and expenses are likely to be important concerns for a long time, as they should have been all along. :sigh:
There will be an October supplement sent out, and of course the 2006 Annual list, but no supplements in 2007 other than the 2007 Annual list.
The annual list is by far the most expensive to print and mail, so at a guess this will save about half of the cost of printing and mailing the supplements, and most (but not all) of the staff time associated with generating the supplements.
The audited financials for 2005-06 shows around $21,000 in supplement costs. With around 1300 affiliates, this will only save about $7.50 per affiliate, and less than that in the current fiscal year, since several supplements other than the Annual have already been or are about to be sent out.
It will still take some staff time to prepare and upload rating supplement files, and it usually takes about 2 days each time to get the Top 100 lists ready.
I question whether you should become a regular “affiliate” if all you do is have one tournament a year. When I think of affiliates, I think of local chess clubs, not TDs that want to have a single rated tournament. I can think of additional benefits “clubs” have over single-event affiliates – heck, they may even have a USE for that monthly magazine.
Maybe TDs in a region should get together and form an “affiliate” of their own.
Or maybe we should have per-event “affiliate” charge that doesn’t include a magazine or annual rating list. This would have to amount to more than just “ratings fees” in order to be revenue-neutral – and right now, I have to admit we need to be AT LEAST revenue neutral in any changes.
I surprised that we won’t be saving more of our costs on ratings supplements by eliminating all but the annual list. I had thought postage and printing for the “other” 5 supplements would be (in total) much more than for the annual issue. How many copies of that annual list will we have to print and mail? How many pages?
Part of the problem is that the annual list is large enough that it requires a different binding process, which increases the printing cost.
Also, it is usually printed on a heavier stock, because unlike the other supplements it is going to be used for years. I suspect that increases the paper cost as well as the postage cost.
And maybe I’m wrong, maybe it only costs 40% of the total.
Glenn Petersen thinks we should issue a cumulative list like the one we did in 1986. Aside from the increased cost (at a time when we’re trying to find ways to LOWER costs), I don’t know how far back we should go. If we included EVERYONE with a published rating that would be around 400,000 names, which I think would make the annual list look like the New York phone book!
Maybe we could print cumulative lists periodically? Every 5 or 10 years? I don’t see the need to do this every year. I’m really not sure how much we need these things at all: how many affiliates actually USE printed supplements or ratings lists instead of getting the info electronically?
Is there any way to see these in a .pdf? How many pages would an annual ratings list have (not a cumulative list)?
I see no reason to use a HEAVIER stock on these annual lists, but a higher QUALITY stock may be appropriate. Consider how thin the stock is for a typical Bible, for example. While they are meant to last for many years, they are printed on VERY thin paper stock.
Oh, the queries themselves are automated, it’s going through the lists to check them that takes time.
Birthdates and male/female coding fields have to be checked, players who are registered with other countries have to be excluded per an EB motion from earlier this year, etc.
Otherwise we wind up with players on the top Under 10 list who are older than that but where we have the wrong birthyear, players named “Robert” on the top girls list, etc. Players (and their parents) get upset about that!
It isn’t an 8 hour a day task, but it takes several hours to review the list for possible errors then contact players to verify data, wait for responses, etc. And the deadline is always tight, especially this month when we waited until the 8th to do the cutoff.
And sometimes there are one or two errors on the lists anyway.
