[tournament-org] [Board-private] Consultation on the BGA Levy
Toby Manning
ptm at tobymanning.co.uk
Mon Sep 25 18:14:13 BST 2023
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.
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.
Toby
On 25/09/2023 16:42, Jenny Rofe-Radcliffe via Board-private wrote:
> 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
>
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Toby Manning
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