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<p>Please note that there is no specific requirement for any BGA
system to be exactly cost-reflective. It makes sense for any levy
system to be approximately "pass-through" - but it does not have
to be exact. I fully agree that it is important that TD's are not
unduly inconvenienced.</p>
<p>Irrespective of what final system the the EGF comes up with, we
may decide to subsidise juniors, or first-time tournament entries,
or anyone else. And it may be that we continue to ask TD's to ask
for non-BGA members to confess on an honesty basis - and if some
of them are dishonest, for the BGA itself to pick up the bill.</p>
<p>Toby<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 25/09/2023 16:42, Jenny
Rofe-Radcliffe via Board-private wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAHcv+4MB42tR1A+YBaP2vsQ4eeRukoRv=+rStgDkH-7KfsES5A@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="ltr">Hi Colin et al,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Apologies for answering a question with a question,
especially as I'm not sure that the answer to my question will
particularly inform answers to the questions you want
answering, but I sort of want a bit of context.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The BGA levy provides a clear benefit to tournaments and
tournament participants, because it helps to provide
tournament equipment, and it also effectively compensates the
BGA for the volunteer admin time involved in advertising and
reporting on past tournaments, etc. What are the benefits to
the BGA/national organisations, to tournaments, and to
tournament participants, that the EGF provides to make the
extra work they want people to do worthwhile?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>(I assume that the EGF expects to increase its income from
this, because I can't think of another reason why they'd want
to increase everyone's administrative burden this way.)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>My actual answers to your questions - basically charging
different rates based on BGA/other org membership is extra
admin, which I personally never minded but presents a barrier
to entry to tournament organisation that needs to be very
justified. One of the things that your thoughts doesn't yet
cover is data protection; it's one thing knowing that UK
tournament organisers will have information about you, but
it's another thing again to have that information potentially
available to people all over the place.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>One possible solution to that would be to have the onus on
players to prove their membership of a relevant national
organisation - but that in turn would require (a) players to
be organised and (b) national organisations to be going back
to issuing physical membership cards or similar.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It all feels like a very complicated pain in the neck for
grass-roots organisers, who are the last people Go players
should want to put off or stress.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Hope that all makes sense and is at least a start of some
useful feedback!</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Jenny</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, 25 Sept 2023 at 16:29,
secretary--- via tournament-org <<a
href="mailto:tournament-org@lists.britgo.org"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">tournament-org@lists.britgo.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div class="msg-2767551078445456951">
<div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;" lang="EN-GB">
<div class="m_-2767551078445456951WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal">Hi,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I am looking for some input on
lessons learned from running the BGA Levy system on
tournaments. In fact this is to help the EGF, but will
indirectly help ourselves as well. I have circulated
this to the tournament organisers list, and a few
others who will have relevant experience. I need to
explain the background to this request first …</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Background:</p>
<p class="m_-2767551078445456951MsoListParagraph">The
EGF is proposing to change the way it charges
membership fees to its member countries. If it gets
agreement (possibly a big if) this will be applicable
from 2025. The details are as yet undecided, and I did
expect there to be a formal consultation exercise, but
it now looks like they will just bring their proposal
to the 2024 AGM and vote on it. However, as we already
run a system which is similar to their proposal (the
levy system) they are keen to hear from us about what
works well and what doesn’t. Hence we may have some
ability to shape the debate before next year’s AGM.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Proposed Fee Structure:</p>
<p class="m_-2767551078445456951MsoListParagraph">From
2025 the EGF membership fee for each country will
consist of two components</p>
<ol style="margin-top:0cm" type="a" start="1">
<li class="m_-2767551078445456951MsoListParagraph"
style="margin-left:54pt">A set annual amount per
member from that country, plus</li>
<li class="m_-2767551078445456951MsoListParagraph"
style="margin-left:54pt">For each tournament played
in that country which is submitted to the EGD, a
small participation fee for each player in the
tournament <i>which will vary according to the
status of the player</i>. Players who are members
of a national association which is in the EGF will
incur a much smaller fee than non-members.</li>
</ol>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36pt">The first
part requires each country to maintain a list of its
members. The second part means that the BGA will be
charged based on UK tournament participation, <i>regardless
of which country the players are from.</i> Whilst we
have still to discuss this it is likely that the BGA
will expect Tournament Directors to pay that component
to the BGA, who will then pay the EGF. How the TD’s
set the price for their events will of course be down
to them, but the EGF fees will apply to all events
submitted to the EGD.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">An example:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36pt">Please
note these numbers are from my head and are very much
<b>indicative only</b> and the final figures will be
set as part of the debate with the EGF. The scheme may
look like:</p>
<ul style="margin-top:0cm" type="disc">
<li class="m_-2767551078445456951MsoListParagraph">The
BGA pays 2 or 3 euro annually to the EGF for every
member we have. </li>
<li class="m_-2767551078445456951MsoListParagraph">For
each tournament held in the UK, the EGF will charge
the BGA 0.5 euro for every participant who is
already a national member of an EGF country, and 2
euro for every non-member.</li>
</ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Some immediate implications:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36pt">The EGF
have already realised that TDs will want to charge
non-members more than members, given that non-members
will cost them more. This means that that TDs will
need easy access to a Europe-wide membership database,
so they can quickly check for each entrant whether or
not they are a paid up member of an EGF country. The
EGF know they have to build this database, and then
persuade all member countries to keep it up to date.
Without this the system is unworkable as TDs won’t be
able to do differential charging.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36pt">Just a
little thought raises a whole slew of questions on the
detail of this, none of which we have answers to yet.
Some that I can think of are</p>
<ul style="margin-top:0cm" type="disc">
<li class="m_-2767551078445456951MsoListParagraph">What
about multi-day tournaments, is the charge per day?
If so how would the EGF know which rounds were on
which days to raise the correct bill?</li>
<li class="m_-2767551078445456951MsoListParagraph">What
about first-time tournament players where typically
we don’t charge? Will the EGF do the same?</li>
<li class="m_-2767551078445456951MsoListParagraph">What
about concessions? Will the charges for juniors etc
be lower, and if so how will the EGF know who
qualifies for a concession? </li>
<li class="m_-2767551078445456951MsoListParagraph">Will
online tournaments/events be charged?</li>
<li class="m_-2767551078445456951MsoListParagraph">Will
the membership database say when the person’s
membership starts and ends, and will that be used by
the EGF in their billing calculations?</li>
</ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sorry for the length of this, but
what I would like from you please are your experiences
of handling our current levy system, what problems it
has caused you, and how you got round them. Also given
the proposed structure above, what would be needed to
make it workable for you? </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I will collate all the responses
and create a document to send in to the EGF. It will
ostensibly be a ‘lessons learned’ document, but if
there is a strong view on any topic I can use it to
put the case for the things we want to see.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thanks in advance.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12pt">Colin
Williams</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6pt"><span>BGA
Secretary mail: <a
href="mailto:secretary@britgo.org" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">secretary@britgo.org</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span><img style="width: 2.8645in;
height: 0.9895in;"
id="m_-2767551078445456951Picture_x0020_1"
src="cid:image001.jpg@01D9EFC7.3E8A4640"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="275" height="95"
border="0"><span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
</div>
</div>
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</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Toby Manning
26 Groby Lane
Newtown Linford
LE6 0HH
01530 245298 (best)
07798 825299</pre>
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