[tournament-org] Consultation on the BGA Levy

Mon Sep 25 17:25:40 BST 2023

Thank you for seeking views

As you know we collect the levy and pass it through. However it is in effect an honesty box system.

Regarding proposals elements (a) and (b)

I think (a) and (b) are two bites of the cherry. The number of members of BGA who do not participate in tournaments is non-zero and by some measure their EGF levy should be zero.

(What is the point of the EGF levy - is there any clarity above and beyond the EGF needs dosh, not in itself unreasonable but surely that could be met by a tournament levy per player?)

If there is no avoiding the per BGA member levy I suggest it is slightly higher say +1 euro and only apply the per tournament levy (as before) to entrants who are not members of a European national association.

Further if there is going to be a per tournament levy may I suggest that a national membership card (see below) should be an EGF passport? And that if you want to participate in a EGF sanctioned tournament you have to be a member of a national association or pay the higher levy:

* I have no idea if, for example, Chinese students are members of anything.
* Currently in order to participate in Italian tournaments (as I do from time to time) one has to be a member of FIGG and in France it is FFG membership or higher rate if not e.g., a BGA member.
* A national association membership card should suffice in all cases. (e.g, I do not use anything FIGG provides and reciprocity should count for something) 

In any scenario I think BGA will need to reintroduce numbered membership cards, no membership number = higher levy (under this new system and if a passport the small subset of BGA members who mainly play elsewhere, er, me, will need this card to avoid the non-association levy)

If one is really serious perhaps TDs would need to be able to search on number/name which is surely data protection possible.

BGA might need to consider if schools/family memberships give out individual numbers/cards.

A random search suggests decent membership cards might not be so expensive and could be "nice to have"

https://www.ukprinting.com/digital-printing/membership-cards

Hopefully comprehensible

Gerry

> On 25/09/2023 16:21 BST secretary--- via tournament-org <tournament-org at lists.britgo.org> wrote:
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> Hi,
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> 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 …
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> Background:
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> 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.
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> Proposed Fee Structure:
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> From 2025 the EGF membership fee for each country will consist of two components
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> An example:
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> 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:
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> * 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.
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> Some immediate implications:
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> 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.
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> 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
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> * 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?
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> 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?
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> 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.
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> Thanks in advance.
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> Colin Williams
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> BGA Secretary      mail:  secretary at britgo.org mailto:secretary at britgo.org
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> _______________________________________________ tournament-org mailing list tournament-org at lists.britgo.org https://lists.britgo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tournament-org
> 
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