Accessing notice board

[Hugh Brechin]

Yeah, I understand that people's finances can be tight. £40 quid isn't a huge amount of money, but it can certainly not seem like nothing. I feel I should also clarify that I can understand why someone who is (say) the parent of a youngster playing one or two minors a year wouldn't really feel the need to join.

I basically stand by the point I made, but to the extent that I'm criticising anyone for failing to sign up, it's regular players who aren't members (I have no idea how large that group actually is - I think I remember seeing stats from Douglas Bryson a few years ago saying that active adult players are overwhelmingly CS members), rather than occasional organisers or parents.

[andyburnett]

If we get a list of reasons for not joining, perhaps it's possible to address these; see if we can devise ways to make it more attractive to join up?

It would be useful, for example, to know the stats of...those who have played, say, 5 graded games this season but aren't members. Is it one-off tournament players? Local league players who don't play tournaments at all (and therefore don't see any personal benefit from joining up)? Primarily juniors?

Using an analogy with golf membership (which tends to be relatively very expensive compared to chess), clubs have had to implement ever-more flexible and ingenious methods of attracting/keeping members. We could possibly look at some of these ideas too.

[Ianbrownlee]

what price free speech... £40.00 free speech is free on so many levels and non members must be able to put their points across , as long as they play chess in our leagues, club championships and tournaments. Members have other benefits and previledges including a very well written magazine. Incidently I must say i was well impressed with Andrew Burnett with his article, honest and well presented as always and Alastair maxwell's bit as well
- members get their money's worth and if they feel they dont then they can make their views known