@jetoba, thanks. I was posting from memory and rarely look at that section of the rulebook. Most of my events are small enough that it's harder for me to get the experience for Senior TD, though I've helped at a few larger events, so may have that covered by now. I would have to verify.
I don't see enough benefit to USCF
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Martin_Stahl wrote1...
Pretty sure the clubs listed on site are ones that have current affiliate memberships. It's up to the affiliate to keep their details up to date and there are some affiliates that don't hold events.
They also allow affiliates to send email blasts to members. I believe that feature has an associated cost, but maybe it would be an interesting idea to give a credit for email blasts to new affiliates, though that's only going to get out to people already aware of what US Chess is and isn't very likely to net new members.
There are a number of affiliates that are focused on club-member-only events or have space issues that are already stretched with the players that come even without website advertising (some scholastic organizers are in the situation of having to turn away some of the advance entries without doing any advertising).
If you are looking for affiliates actively running rated events then go to the "events rated list" page and search by month and state
http://www.uschess.org/datapage/events-rated.php
Sep 23, 2022
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#44
Martin_Stahl wrote:
Pretty sure the clubs listed on site are ones that have current affiliate memberships. It's up to the affiliate to keep their details up to date and there are some affiliates that don't hold events.
They also allow affiliates to send email blasts to members. I believe that feature has an associated cost, but maybe it would be an interesting idea to give a credit for email blasts to new affiliates, though that's only going to get out to people already aware of what US Chess is and isn't very likely to net new members.
I tried to contact a bunch of the clubs that were listed and were close to me. I want to say I tried 12 to 15. There was no response from anybody and I had tried for months.
At that time there was also a local Club listed right here on chess.com but it had been defunct for about 5 years. The person in charge of it here had moved from this area to Michigan I believe and they deleted the club from the site so all of the contact info was lost at that time. I had contacted one of the members who lives locally and we've become pretty good friends since. We traveled to Lansdale for a tournament and I ended up getting the local Club kind of resurrected, but that's been a serious challenge. I don't have enough time and my work schedule does not allow me to administer something like that. Not properly for sure.
I also tried to contact the USCF back then but that felt like it took an act of Congress. I specifically inquired about doing an email mailing. I know I was willing to pay to do it but I can't recall what happened that I didn't. I want to say that somehow we didn't meet requirements but it's been some time so I just can't remember.
I'm not sure about that list being current affiliates. The Williamsport Pennsylvania chess club is listed and I guarantee you I've spoken to both of the people who were principals of that and it has been completely dead for some time.
The above 2 responses suggest that paying an extra fee is the least of someone's worries. Getting in at all can be challenging.
Sep 24, 2022
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#46
@1g1yy, unless I missed it in my scrolling, I didn't find a Williamsport chess club listed. This page also says only active affiliates are listed (active as in affiliate membership isn't expired). Since that chess club's affiliate expired in 2018, if you looked before that happened, that would explain it.
http://www.uschess.org/index.php/Chess-Clubs.html
Sep 24, 2022
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#47
If you go to the bottom of the page there is a menu of links. I selected the club's link and then did a search with a distance. Under that the Williamsport Club was listed. I didn't consider that I had to do something else to find active clubs versus dead ones. I did though figure out that the vast majority are dead. Here's the link.
Sep 24, 2022
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#48
Maybe that search doesn't look at affiliate status. The one I linked to is the older one.
Sep 24, 2022
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#49
Where did you get that link from? The page almost doesn't look like the same page as the USCF I was looking at. Obviously it is but it looks a different page theme all together. I just clicked on their Affiliates link down below and that's not what you have.
Sep 24, 2022
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#50
Chesserroo2 wrote:
After paying dues to USCF, it is still not enough to get into tournanents. I don't see any USCF sponsored tournaments anywhere. All the tournanents seem to be local and require joining the local association and paying additional dues to them to play in their tournament. So if I go around the country playing in tournaments, I'd have to join 50 different associations. All USCF does is keep a database of ratings, which the local clubs already do and already can share.
So why do local clubs require USCF membership, and what else does USCF offer? The magazine is paid for separately.
FIDE only charges $10 per month or per tournament to record ratings.
You do not have to pay 50 state association fees.
99.9% of tournaments require those that live in the state to be state members, but out of state players can you their own state's association or not require it at all.
I live in North Carolina. I pay $10 a year for the NCCA (North Carolina Chess Association). I have NEVER paid another state's association fees. I have played in the following states:
New Hampshire
Massachusetts
Connecticut
New York
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
Maryland
Virginia
West Virginia
North Carolina
South Carolina
Georgia
Florida
Tennessee
Alabama
Michigan
Illinois
Wisconsin
Louisiana
Kansas
Texas
Nevada
California
That is 23 different states I have played in. Paid only ONE state association! And I have played in over the board tournaments since 1996!
You say you pay FIDE $10 per month. USCF is less than that! $50 per year or so (I pay nothing as I am a life member - paid close to $1000 back in the early 2000's, but it makes me a member for life!), and depending on the state, anywhere from $5 to $20 per year for the state. So worst case scenario is something like $70 per year, which is cheaper than $10 per month.
Sep 24, 2022
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#51
Chesserroo2 wrote:
After paying dues to USCF, it is still not enough to get into tournanents. I don't see any USCF sponsored tournaments anywhere. All the tournanents seem to be local and require joining the local association and paying additional dues to them to play in their tournament. So if I go around the country playing in tournaments, I'd have to join 50 different associations. All USCF does is keep a database of ratings, which the local clubs already do and already can share.
So why do local clubs require USCF membership, and what else does USCF offer? The magazine is paid for separately.
FIDE only charges $10 per month or per tournament to record ratings.
Also, there are plenty of large, national events.
www.chesstour.com hosts many of the large tournaments, like the World Open, etc.
The USCF Themselves run the US Open in late July/Early August annually
The US Amateur and US Amateur Team events are national events (4 of each, the "East", "South", "North" [I think, might be "Mid-West"] and "West" events).
National Highschool, Denker, Pan Am, etc are all nationally ran.
Not all are state-sponsored or local events.
Sep 24, 2022
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#52
1g1yy wrote:
Where did you get that link from? The page almost doesn't look like the same page as the USCF I was looking at. Obviously it is but it looks a different page theme all together. I just clicked on their Affiliates link down below and that's not what you have.
I used a club link from the MSA page after finding an event that affiliate ran.
Sep 25, 2022
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#53
Martin_Stahl wrote:
1g1yy wrote:
Where did you get that link from? The page almost doesn't look like the same page as the USCF I was looking at. Obviously it is but it looks a different page theme all together. I just clicked on their Affiliates link down below and that's not what you have.
I used a club link from the MSA page after finding an event that affiliate ran.
I just spent over a half an hour trying to navigate the site and find the link that you just posted. From the homepage I cannot find it. Now once you're on that page it looks as though you would have navigated from the homepage to clubs and tournaments and then to chess clubs. On the left they're evidently used to be a menu which was a whole lot more useful than the garbage one that have now. It's not very intuitive that I would click on ratings in order to do a search for a club but that's the hierarchy they use in their menu. The only search that I can even find from the US chess homepage is down at the bottom of the page in all of those links they have all jumbled up, but that search while it does have a link on the current homepage, only finds defunct clubs.
Here we are in a thread questioning whether the USCF is beneficial to its members, and if you asked me my opinion on their networking efforts, I would say they've made every effort possible to be sure players cannot find a place to play.
So I used the affiliate directory search found at the top of that list of clubs by state and search by ZIP code typing in only 17. Using just the first two digits is a pretty big geographic area. Using three resulted in zero results. With two I had Five results, all of which are at least 2 hours away. The Harrisburg ones are the ones that I could not contact using the contact info available on the page which can actually be found from the USCF homepage.
In my travels through the site I did find a link for a document titled guide to a successful chess club. When I clicked on it I saw that it was a pdf download greater than half a gigabyte. If a person cannot laugh at the irony of the size of that file and the lack of chess clubs in the state, they need to work on their sense of humor.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I have to go to the Forum on chess.com in order to find a link to the club search that actually works and finds active clubs. Lol
I just went to the website quickly to verify that the examples I were thinking of were still there. And they are. Without wasting a ton more time here I pulled up the first few clubs listed when doing a search within a hundred miles of my zip code. The first three I pulled up have not had events since the 1990s. Unless a whole lot has changed since I last looked, that is pretty much what I'm going to find all the way down the list. That is to say that they've made no effort to keep any of that data up to date and that it takes forever to find any useful information on the site. If that is listed as part of their mission then I would say they are failing. I think some in this thread feel that I think they should materially participate with local events and that's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying they make it difficult to start anything local that's sanctioned and that should be their number one mission if they expect to grow.
In this thread I've tried to say numerous times that they make no effort to encourage involvement and I stand by that. Looks to me like there's eight board of directors members and their financials show approximately 1.25 million in annual salaries. Then a little bit of contract labor as well. They are losing membership at an alarming rate which appears to be about 12% annually. That at a time when I actually joined and helped out those numbers. I'm afraid I will be part of next year's decrease though. I feel that unless you are located in an extremely limited portion of the country you gain nothing by being a member.
At the cost of virtually zero dollars they could easily Implement a system by which they emailed the membership to say they would like to encourage people to start local chapters and spread organized chess to more people. Once someone decides they would like to give it a try they could send an email to members Within a certain distance and let them know that someone is trying to organize a club. At that point they would have the option of let's say clicking a link in that email to come into contact with the person who is trying to organize things. And of course you move on from there. But they won't do that. And they won't do anything else either. Is it any wonder they are bleeding members right and left.
Pretty sure the clubs listed on site are ones that have current affiliate memberships. It's up to the affiliate to keep their details up to date and there are some affiliates that don't hold events.
They also allow affiliates to send email blasts to members. I believe that feature has an associated cost, but maybe it would be an interesting idea to give a credit for email blasts to new affiliates, though that's only going to get out to people already aware of what US Chess is and isn't very likely to net new members.