non-uscf memberships as a tool

Running Chess Tournaments
1

Mike:

If you run a tournament over the weekend, if there are a number of new members. The level of new members that the director would need to deposit the cash funds into the bank. So the director would have the funds in the account to pay for the memberships online. This would hold up the USCF ID numbers till the directors account(s) are in order, before doing any online memberships.

Could the director perform a non-USCF membership, this would give the new member during the event the USCF ID number that was assigned to this player. When the director has the funds in the bank, the director can perform a new batch membership to pay for the USCF membership. This would give the player an understanding of their new membership. It would be more important to the director, as it will give a USCF ID number when working with SwissSys. It will also take care of the missing ID number in the validation of the tournament. It should only show up as the player is a non-USCF member during the validation of the event.

Could you also use the non-USCF membership with a group of players in a high school team. If an when the chessplayers pays for the USCF membership, the director would still have the record of the non-USCF membership.

2

Even though it’s hard to parse what you are saying to extract meaning, I think you may be onto something. :slight_smile:

The current tournament reporting file format has a limitation in that it doesn’t have the players’ names in it. This makes it hard to differentiate between players who do not have USCF IDs, once the file is uploaded. The proposed future file format does include the names, but in the meantime this limitation makes it onerous to do multiple ‘length of tournament’ memberships. Basically, the TD who uploads has to match crosstable results with players to find out who’s who.

This also happens if you go the wrong way around and upload the tournament files with non-USCF members before you submit a membership batch.

This could be worked around by using IDs specifically for use by length of tournament players. For example, I have three ‘length of tournament’ players in my tournament. If I know what the agreed to temporary IDs are (say 26000001-26000100), I could just assign 26000001, 26000002, and 26000003 to them in the pairing program. If the uploading and processing software is aware of these agreed to IDs, then it could simply make sure to collect additional info (name, address, dob) and charge $10 or $20 per ‘length of tournament’ ID AND assign and email the real IDs after the transaction has gone through.

This would help in correlating the pairing software’s data with the uploaded data. Of course, the best solution would be to allow uploading of the names and allow automated membership exception requests for ‘length of tournament’ but that would require changes from the USCF and all the pairing programs.

Another thing to consider is that not all ‘length of tournament’ players will need a temporary ID. Some will be expired USCF members. In this case, the automated membership exception request is probably still needed, or at least a way to mark them as ‘length of tournament’.

3

Yes, a TD can do quite a bit of advance preparation for his tournaments using the online tools the USCF now has.

A tournament membership is probably going to be treated like a renewal of an existing membership. That means there has to be a USCF ID already assigned for that individual. (You’ll need one for the rating report anyway.)

(There’s no such thing as a TEMPORARY ID, but let’s not get into that issue.)

TDs using the online TD/Affiliate Support Area can create non-member IDs ahead of time so that they have IDs for all their new members BEFORE the tournament. However, as with all other memberships, we must have the full name and an address for that member.

Suppose you’re going through your advance entries on Friday night for your Saturday tournament and you have one from Harold Foote from Omaha, Nebraska, with no USCF ID and no dues payment enclosed, just the entry fee.

You can’t find anyone named Foote in Nebraska or any player with a name similar to Harold Foote, so you assume this is someone who does not already have a USCF ID assigned and make a note that you need to either see a current USCF membership card from that person or collect dues. (That now includes the tournament membership option.)

If you have an address for that individual (on the entry form, on the check or on the envelope the entry came in), you can go ahead and assign a USCF ID for that person NOW, by entering him as a new non-member.

That way you have an ID, which you can use to enter a dues payment or a tournament membership later on, and you can also enter it into your pairing program so that you have a USCF ID for reporting purposes.

If it turns out that Mr. Foote can show proof of current membership, then you’ll probably have to change the ID in your pairing program, and you’ll probably want to check to see if he has an existing rating.

You should also send a note to the USCF office to flag the new ID you had created as a duplicate (giving both IDs, of course) so some other TD doesn’t use it by mistake.

If you have net access from your TD site, you can do even more work during the event to help get your event ready for rating.

Once the first round is over, take the first round results and upload them as a rating report. I’m told it is possible to create DBF files from WinTD with NO pairing data in them before you have first round results entered, but I’m not sure how. As far as I can tell, Swis-Sys will not create DBF files until after the first round results are in.

Uploading that event will check for membership issues you haven’t already found. All we ask is that you remember to DELETE that test event from your work area, otherwise we’ll start sending you e-mail about it every week, assuming it is an event that hasn’t been submitted for rating yet.

This is also a good opportunity to remind people that they should delete their completed membership batches at some point. It is YOUR work area, you’re responsible for keeping it cleaned up. (We will take care of the rating report files for rated events, those are usually deleted the week after the event is rated.)

4

Mike:

That is good news. There are two major reasons for this, one is a scholastic tournament in January; the second, the scholastic chess teams at the East Kentwood High School and the Freshman Campus. If the club member plays in the tournament or wants to join, all I would need is the money for the membership, as the new members information is on file.