I recently TD’d an event and had a blind player who needed to renew their membership. When trying to submit it online I noticed two things:
The Blind Membership is not an option to select as on the hardcopy application.
The optional Donation line is not available anywhere.
This player wanted to renew their membership for 3 years. Can the Blind membership be added in the drop down menu?
Cleric
At this time we do not support submitting Special memberships online (blind and prison) because of eligiblity validation concerns from the USCF office.
We also do not support Affiliate memberships through the TD/Affiliate Support Area, mostly because we collect substantially different information for new affiliates. That will eventually be added to the new web store.
The Bylaws only define special memberships as being purchasable for one year at a time, except for the Blind Life category.
Thank you for your reply. I truly understand things and times change. However, I do have hard copies from the USCF that offer Blind memberships for 3 years. Also, not to mention how discriminating that policy sounds, when the USCF offers many multiple year memberships to individuals and families that are not disabled!
USCF keep up the good work!
It is hardly discriminatory to restrict to a one year duration the best rate we offer to any adult members!
We’ve been trying to cut back on the number of multi-year rates we offer, because there are just too many of them and in several cases the prices that were chosen for the multi-year rates made no sense.
For example, the economy scholastic is now a one year rate, as are the two new family membership plans.
That’s not what the Bylaws said as of August 2004. Was there an amendment made in Florida?
“SECTION 4. Special Membership. A blind person may become a
Special Member of the Federation upon payment of 25% of the regular
membership rate. Any person who is incarcerated in a penal institution
of the United States may become a Special Member upon payment
of 25% of the regular membership rate.”
I assume your legal argument would be that, since the section on Regular membership specifies the rates for two- and three-year purchases, the absence of such language here means they are not allowed. I think that’s a faulty interpretation, however. The Regular section requires that multi-year memberships be offered at a reduced rate. Section 4 should be read to mean that the office may (but need not) offer Blind and Prison memberships for multiple years, but with no discount.
Note the poster is correct about the membership forms – perhaps the forms have been reprinted with the change in affiliate rates, but the ones being given out three months ago do include two- and three-year Blind and Prison rates.
The whole membership article of the Bylaws is screwed up because of constant Delegate tinkering with the language, much of it on the floor during meetings.
One year they come up with dollar amounts for each category, the next year they change them to percentages that have to be computed and rounded off. Then they change some of the percentages back to rates again, and vice versa.
In 2002, when most rates were last changed, Harold Winston stood at the front of the room with a flip chart, penciling in changes as fast as he could.
Sometimes it amaze me that anyone can figure out what the ‘final’ text should be.
Multi-year discounts on top of already heavily discounted rates are a poor economic decision.
As co-chair of the Bylaws Committee, though, I’m hesitant to introduce a motion to rewrite that section, because I don’t know that the ‘special memberships’ would survive.
Isn’t a one year $12 rate (which is below the direct cost of such a membership, not to mention transaction costs) better than no prison/blind rate at all?
This is getting off the original point, which as I recall had to do with submitting prison and blind memberships online. That isn’t likely to happen any time soon.
I quite agree. My only point was that your post was factually incorrect in stating that the Bylaws do not permit multi-year Blind memberships.
Having looked more closely at the wording, I now think that a plausible argument can be made that two- and three-year Blind/Prison memberships have to be offered as long as multi-year Regulars are (as has been the past practice). But this is really a question for the Bylaws Committee.
Perhaps they should be on the form (which is quite cluttered), but there is no requirement that they be offered online or at a discount to the one-year rate.
Besides, what happens if a member becomes no longer blind? I’ve heard of cases where a blind person falls down a flight of stairs, or gets hit by lightning, and instantly regains his vision he lost several years before. 
Bill Smythe
Certainly there is no requirement that they be offered on line. There is no requirement that any membership be offered on line, and we got along fine without them for sixty years. However, the relevant Bylaw says, "A blind person may become a Special Member of the Federation upon payment of 25% of the regular membership rate. " If someone wanted to argue the point, the fact that the Bylaws specify rates for one-, two-, and three-year memberships would imply that the USCF has to accept Blind memberships for those periods at 1/4 of those rates. There is no particular need to advertise this, of course, and I agree that the membership forms are far too cluttered with all those special-interest categories.
Given that we have only about 50 blind members and 800 prison members in the $12 special membership category, is including those memberships in the TD/A pulldown list a high priority task?
The blind membership and the prison membership, would be a low priority task. In fact, the memberships should not be given online. The membership department does need the medical records for a blind membership. If right, there is a ‘Life Blind Membership’.