[tournament-org] Consultation on the BGA Levy

Mon Sep 25 16:42:53 BST 2023

Hi Colin et al,

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.

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?

(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.)

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.

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.

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.

Hope that all makes sense and is at least a start of some useful feedback!

Thanks,

Jenny

On Mon, 25 Sept 2023 at 16:29, secretary--- via tournament-org <
tournament-org at lists.britgo.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
>
>
> 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 …
>
>
>
> Background:
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> Proposed Fee Structure:
>
> From 2025 the EGF membership fee for each country will consist of two
> components
>
>    1. A set annual amount per member from that country, plus
>    2. For each tournament played in that country which is submitted to
>    the EGD, a small participation fee for each player in the tournament *which
>    will vary according to the status of the player*. Players who are
>    members of a national association which is in the EGF will incur a much
>    smaller fee than non-members.
>
>
>
> 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, *regardless of which country the players are from.* 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.
>
>
>
> An example:
>
> Please note these numbers are from my head and are very much *indicative
> only* and the final figures will be set as part of the debate with the
> EGF. The scheme may look like:
>
>    - The BGA pays 2 or 3 euro annually to the EGF for every member we
>    have.
>    - 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.
>
>
>
> Some immediate implications:
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> 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
>
>    - 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?
>    - What about first-time tournament players where typically we don’t
>    charge? Will the EGF do the same?
>    - What about concessions? Will the charges for juniors etc be lower,
>    and if so how will the EGF know who qualifies for a concession?
>    - Will online tournaments/events be charged?
>    - 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?
>
>
>
>
>
> 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?
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>
>
> *Colin Williams*
>
> BGA Secretary      mail:  secretary at britgo.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> tournament-org mailing list
> tournament-org at lists.britgo.org
> https://lists.britgo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tournament-org
>
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