Pay 2 Play

EBU wins the vote of Shareholders but will they win the allegiance of the Clubs?

EBU Strategy Update: LATEST! "the foundations of the EBU were built on sand " says Chairman.

In circulation at the moment is a note from Clive (Clive who?) advertising a web site which makes points in opposition to pay to play:

"I have been thinking about the EBU’s new proposals for universal membership via the pay to play route and was wondering what other clubs had thought about the idea.

Unfortunately I could find very little comment until I came across a web site firmly against the proposals; and it makes for interesting reading. For those of you who want to consider the matter in far greater detail I suggest you log on: www.sayno2p2p.co.uk.

I found the most persuasive comments were in ‘Peter’s response’ on pages 7 and 9 – namely those most relating to clubs and what they want/get from EBU. I recommend you have a look at this web site and having done so myself, I would add the following points:

1) I very much doubt these proposals will unite all players and arrest any decline in the amount of bridge played in clubs. Indeed they may have the opposite effect.

2) Surely the EBU needs the clubs and the income they provide, more than the clubs need the EBU. P2P is bound to lose us some affiliated clubs.

3) The EBU has a very poor record implementing projects on time and within budget.

4) The EBU should be only undertaking major projects that relate to education. That is the best way to grow more new players.

5) The EBU seems to have a lot of money and probably too much of this is frittered away.

Whatever you believe, these ideas are so far reaching that you each should make your views known, one way or another, to your county committee before it is too late."

Dear County Secretary,

A few days ago you received an email from Peter Hasenson, outlining at length his reasons for opposing the Pay-to-Play scheme, and asking you to circulate that email to your clubs. I would be very grateful if you could circulate this to all those within your county who received Peter’s email.

The Board’s proposals for the future of the English Bridge Union are so important that we welcome all contributions. I would stress, though, that the Board’s Strategy Document is the result of nearly two and half years of research, data collection, analysis, extensive consultation and, all in all, some very hard work by a group of people committed totally to the service of the English Bridge Union. Whilst it would be foolish to think we have got everything right, we do believe that our projections are sufficiently sound to make the proposals viable and that the risks are containable.

I do not intend to comment in detail on Peter’s interpretations of our figures, leaving an assessment of their validity to you, but I would like to make a few general points:

1. For the EBU to survive there has to be radical change. Indeed, radical change was required fifteen years ago when the cracks in the organisation first started to become apparent. Those of us in charge then knew that the foundations of the EBU were built on sand, but it took the continuing freefall in membership from 2001 onwards for there to be a general consensus that something had to be done.

2. An indication of an awareness of this need for change was the almost unanimous support for Universal Membership by the Shareholders at last year’s AGM, a concept totally rejected eight years earlier at the AGM of 1999. The Board believes the best way of accomplishing Universal Membership is through Pay-to-Play and that the fee for the first year should be 29p per player session.

3. The Board accepts that there will be some clubs who will feel that is not in their interests to affiliate and that we will lose some initially. However, the Board is responsible for the state of the game nationally and feels that the principle of Universal Membership is sufficiently important to accept reluctantly these losses. When the scheme is operating successfully and the services that we will be providing to the clubs are seen to be worthwhile, it is hoped that many of these clubs will re-affiliate.

4. Concerning the implementation of the scheme, much of the computer infrastructure required is already in place and is well-proven, so it is neither high risk nor high cost: the £170K assigned to it is an extremely prudent figure with a large contingency built in.

The Board has the interests of this great game at heart and believes Pay-to-Play to be a sensible and workable way of financing the English Bridge Union, and one that will ensure a stable base for the game’s future development.

Finally, whilst Peter is entitled to his own views on the proposals, his suggestions in his Forward and later in the document that I, as Chairman, somehow have been ‘misled into believing such radical change is needed’ are as wrong as they are naïve. Those of you who have known me over the years, and from my published and minuted statements, will know that I have always been a determined – and often outspoken - advocate of change. For me, Pay-to-Play is the catalyst for reconstruction that I have been waiting for from the day I first joined the Board in 1988. Indeed, so convinced am I of its merit that I believe that, if it is implemented, in a few years time people will look back and ask why on earth didn’t someone think of it before.

I look forward to the Extraordinary General Meeting on June 4th.

Best wishes,

Peter Stocken

Chairman, English Bridge Union

2nd May 2008

Read the final version of the EBU's proposals. This affects ALL BRIDGE PLAYERS, MEMBERS OF THE EBU OR NOT.

The EBU Strategy proposals have incensed many people in the Bridge World, see for instance the many articles and letters that have appeared in Mr Bridge. Reproduced below is the recommendation arising from the considerations of clubs in the Gosport Area. These have been forwarded to us by Darren Evetts of Warwickshire Bridge and is is followed by a response he has received from the Board of the EBU.

1. Recommendation. Your Committees recommend that Gosport Bridge Club, Titchfied Bridge Club, Lockswood Bridge Club, Portchester Bridge Club, Southsea Bridge Club and the Solent Bridge League inform the HIOW Contract Bridge Association that they do not support the Final EBU Proposals and that the HIOW Contract Bridge Association Shareholder votes should be cast against them at the EBU EGM.

a. The EBU are seeking endorsement from the shareholding Counties as to whether the final EBU Proposals are acceptable or not. It is essentially a decision solely on P2P for the remaining Proposals can still be implemented if these Final Proposals are rejected. A decision as to whether a Club should affiliate to the EBU or not is a separate matter, is for consideration only if the Proposals are accepted at the EBU EGM and should not influence any Club or County’s decision as to whether the EBU Proposals are acceptable to them or not. Your Committees are also mindful of the fact that only Clubs have a mandate to represent the views of their non-EBU members. The Counties and the EBU have no such mandate.

b. Your Committees consider that the Final EBU Proposals are not a strategy to ‘…elevate and maintain the status and procure the advancement of the game of Bridge in England…’ as stated on the Cover Page. They appear to be an attempt to introduce a radical funding change under cover of stating that it is such a strategy. We note that:

(3). Almost all the Proposals for services to Clubs and Members in the main body are things the EBU should be or are doing already. The remaining Proposals are an unfunded wish list. In the case of the Software Programs to score sessions and implement P2P, £170,000 has been earmarked for a system that must be specified, developed, proven and introduced within budget in less than two years. That may be possible and we note that a financial contingency is built in to the estimate, but IT projects are notorious for being both late and considerably over-budget and P2P is totally reliant on these software programs being developed to time and to cost. This is a significant risk that may have been studied by the EBU but it is inadequately quantified or addressed in these Proposals.

3. P2P, P2P funding has been researched by the EBU but no estimate of the final P2P figure payable by players is given as the County elements have not been determined – we estimate that is likely to be about 10p in Hampshire making the overall estimated P2P fee 39p but only if the Hampshire Club EBU affiliation rate is no lower than 80% of the current number and no currently non-EBU members of those Clubs leave. However, the County P2P element could be as much as double our estimate or more for Hampshire has a higher than the National average percentage of Clubs in the County that have indicated that they are likely to unaffiliate – 36% of HIOW clubs that answered Question 6 in the Questionnaire as opposed to 20% nationally.

The Budgets and Outcomes Annex states on Page 21 ‘However, it is likely that, at least initially, some clubs will disaffiliate…could be as high as 20%…prudent assumption that it will be so, the P2P fee rises to 29p’ Page 22 also states ‘..all the evidence suggests that a projected loss of 20% of clubs may be pessimistic…’ The Questionnaire results, the EBU’s ‘evidence’, actually show that, of those that replied, 59% said they were likely to affiliate, 20% that they were likely not to affiliate, 21% did not answer the question and a third of the affiliated clubs sent the Questionnaire did not reply at all. The EBU is, therefore, assuming that, in the very worst case, all the affiliated clubs that answered the questionnaire but did not answer Question 6 will affiliate and 80% of the clubs that did not reply at all will affiliate. That EBU ‘prudent’ assumption is not mathematically sound. The most optimistic estimate that can be derived from the Questionnaire results is that at least 27% (20+20x21/59) of clubs are likely to unaffiliate. The 29p P2P estimate is, therefore, a considerable, but we assume not a deliberate, underestimate and cannot raise the funds expected. However, the whole EBU financial case is built on the premise that it will raise those funds and, if it does not, Page 22 of the Final Proposals document admits that there will be no liquid reserves to meet any funding shortfall. Indeed, the EBU is already proposing to raise a Bank Loan to fund short-term liquidity difficulties caused by P2P implementation.

The naivety factor outlined in Para 4b below will certainly erode Club affiliation levels even further and that, together with the loss of non-EBU members from affiliated clubs outlined in Para 5 below, will significantly reduce the number of Player-Sessions that the EBU has calculated P2P can be applied to. The only possible conclusion that can be drawn is that it would not be sensible for any Club or County to base it’s decision on whether to accept or reject these proposals on the premise that the EBU P2P fee will be as low as 29p. Both the EBU and the Counties will have to set an initial P2P fee at a very much higher figure when Club contracts are returned in September 2009 and an accurate level of affiliation is known. That final combined EBU and County P2P fee could easily be more than 50p. Unfortunately, the actual amount will not be known until long after an irrevocable decision has been taken at the EBU EGM on the basis that the 29p EBU P2P estimate is accurate, when the County P2P elements will still not have been determined with any accuracy, when over half the EBU’s liquid assets will have been spent and Clubs have had to agree to pay whatever final P2P fee is set by the EBU and the Shareholding Counties by signing a contract. To vote for these proposals given that scenario would not be a responsible action by any Club or County in our view for it could not only inflict permanent damage on the EBU and the Counties but it is clearly not in the interest of the people they represent, their currently affiliated Clubs and their members.

These proposals are also stated to be ‘revenue neutral’. If that is the case then there will be no finance available for the extra services the EBU promises for some time after P2P is introduced due to cash flow and liquidity difficulties and the EBU's current liquid assets will be permanently at least halved.

Finally, the EBU claims that P2P is the result of ‘..Research into best practice of the most successful national bridge organisations in Europe..’. In fact, the EBU only researched three countries. Of those, two of them use P2P, France and Sweden. The third was Holland, the European country with the highest proportion of bridge players per head of population and therefore, arguably, the most successful, which does not use P2P. The EBU seems to have ignored the claims of Italy, Germany, Norway and Iceland to be among the most successful European nations despite their outstanding performances in recent World Championships. As far as we know, none of them use P2P. How the EBU can claim that P2P is ‘best practice’ from their very limited research is a mystery to us.

a. The proposed increased services to clubs and EBU Members are not impressive and the significant efficiency savings the EBU expect at Aylesbury probably amount to the services of one member of staff. Not much of a saving for an organisation that has created at least two new posts and recruited two new full-time members of staff in the past year or so and which will have spent in the order of £170,000 to achieve the claimed efficiency improvement. Most of the efficiency savings hoped for are related to the removal of counting and registering LMPs. That is achievable today by simply giving Clubs a date after which LMPs must be submitted electronically. CASS and ScoreBridge can do that now and even an e-mail from a club detailing the awards every two months would greatly reduce Aylesbury’s administrative workload.

b. These proposals are also naïve. There is nothing to stop clubs in a District arranging for only one of their number to affiliate to the EBU. The minority of EBU members in those Clubs that do not affiliate would also join the Club that does even if there is no intention of playing there in order to preserve their EBU Membership (Direct EBU members in the area will probably do the same). However, all of the District Clubs would continue to run Simultaneous Pairs Events in which one reasonable result will provide as many Black Points that most members who want to collect them can earn in a year from normal Club events. The collective EBU and County income from those District Clubs and their members will be a fraction of today’s payments and the EBU and shareholding Counties will have to levy such a high P2P fee to achieve the required income level that it will become self-defeating.

c. Of all the Sport and Leisure activities in the UK that have a National Organisation, the EBU requirement for Clubs to sign an annual contract before knowing what they and their members will be required to pay must be unique. The comments we made in the consultation phase remain relevant in our opinion and were ‘The proposal that each Club sign an annual contract of affiliation gives the impression that the EBU trusts no-one and is employing big brother tactics. It will drive Social Clubs away for they are getting very little, if anything, from the EBU in return for the P2P fee and who would want to belong to an organisation that is so distrustful? In addition, how will it be policed, what happens when the person who signs it leaves a Club, what will the EBU do if the contract is breached and the proposal that clubs will have to sign a new contract every year is risible.’

5. Non-EBU Members. It is the Non-EBU members of clubs that will be most affected by these proposals and they constitute a highly significant 60% of the voting membership of Hampshire EBU affiliated clubs. The EBU Proposals assume all of them will remain club members if their Clubs affiliate. However, the benefits they will receive - a diary, magazines, LMPs, etc – are not required or wanted by almost all of them. Most play in three clubs each in our area and currently contribute about £20 annually to the EBU (the current LMP charge). This will at least treble if the full P2P costs are passed on to them and be even more if the EBU estimates are wrong and we are certain that they are. Worse, most non-EBU Club Members deplore the coercion implicit in these proposals. They will have no choice but to be an EBU member whether they like it or not and pay considerably more for their pastime if their club(s) continues to affiliate to the EBU. That will be unacceptable to many of them and they will inevitably vote to disaffiliate at Club EGMs if these proposals are endorsed at the EBU EGM. That will be unlikely to fail, particularly if local clubs organise themselves and only one Club affiliates, but even if it does fail, most will vote with their feet by limiting their attendance to only unaffiliated Bridge clubs which will not be difficult in our area. That would make the financial viability not only of the EBU and Counties but also of the affiliated clubs concerned worse and in many clubs it is already marginal. Note: In their P2P calculations, the EBU have assumed that all current non-EBU Club members of Clubs that do affiliate will remain members if the Final Proposals are endorsed at the EBU EGM. Obviously that is implausible and a significant loss will occur. As an example, if half of Club non-EBU members were to leave those clubs that affiliate if these proposals are endorsed at the EBU EGM, the total number of Player-Sessions will be reduced and P2P annual income will be about £210,000 less than the EBU currently estimate. The actual shortfall will not be known until some months after P2P begins in April 2010 for the EBU and Clubs will not know the extent of Non-EBU member loss until then. For example, in Gosport Bridge Club’s case, they would not know until the start of their Membership Year in September and Titchfield Bridge Club’s Financial Year starts in January but the loss of player sessions would start before both those dates in April. There will be no EBU liquid assets to cover any shortfall and the choice for the EBU will then be bankruptcy or a very large P2P increase that would itself destroy the EBU. Clearly, P2P is a Lose – Lose Proposal and there is no point in voting for it. Of course, if the EBU does become bankrupt, the Shareholding Counties could well find themselves picking up the bill both for the EBU and any shortfall in County income from poor EBU P2P assumptions.

6. Solent Bridge League. The EBU Proposals offer the Solent Bridge League nothing in return for a £6 rise in affiliation fee and an additional £38 P2P fee (14x(£5-6x38p)). Even automatic EBU Membership will not be offered to League players, they will have to join an affiliated Club as well. As there is nothing to gain from affiliation, Leagues, including the Solent Bridge League, are likely to not affiliate for a few years to see if the EBU does become bankrupt and, if so, whether some other body takes over control of Bridge in England.

7. Counties. The EBU has left it to Counties to decide how their income will be collected. There are basically two options open to them, an annual County Membership Fee or an additional element to the EBU P2P Fee. However, most Clubs financial year does not begin on 1^st April. The membership numbers when Clubs sign an affiliation contract – September 2009 - will not be the same when P2P starts in April 2010, a significant number of currently non-EBU club members may well decide to leave or not play when they see the level of P2P fee set by the EBU in October 2009. The actual club membership numbers will not be known until the club financial year starts, up to 9 months later. An educated guess will only be possible when P2P has been running for some months and the number of club Player-Sessions in those months is known.

Whichever County collection method is chosen, Counties will be faced with a financial ‘Morton’s Fork’.

If they decide on an annual Membership Fee, a very busy County Membership Secretary will be required to collect it and its amount will be a pure guess. It will prove very difficult and expensive to collect for current non-members of the EBU will be very reluctant to pay it, many will consider the EBU revealing their names and addresses to the Counties as a breach of the privacy option the EBU offers in their Final Proposals and it could be the ‘Straw that breaks the Camel’s back’ and precipitate a significant loss of club members. Also, if someone is an EBU member, and all club members will be under the EBU Final Proposals, but does not pay the County annual Fee, what will be their status and what will the County do to make them pay? Any action by the County will be counter-productive.

If Counties opt for the easy option, an addition to the EBU P2P fee, they will also have significant problems. Their membership income, like the EBU’s, will not be available at the start of an EBU season but in smaller amounts starting at least two months in arrears. That will create a cash flow problem that will have to be met from County liquid assets. The number of county clubs that affiliate will be known 6 months before P2P starts but the number of non-EBU club members that leave those clubs will not be known until many months after P2P starts. The EBU assumes that all current club non-EBU members, who form 60% of the membership of Hampshire affiliated clubs, will remain club members of clubs that do affiliate if P2P is introduced. That is, of course, most unlikely to be the case and some, probably many, of the current non-EBU club members will desert those Clubs and join an unaffiliated one. The county P2P fee will also have to be set quite high as more Hampshire Clubs that answered Question 6 in the EBU Questionnaire said they probably would not affiliate than said they probably would. However, if the County element of P2P is set too low, it could bankrupt the County as well as the EBU. If it is set too high, it will drive more of the current non-EBU members away, P2P will then have to rise driving more members away etc etc. Again, both the EBU and the Counties could bankrupt themselves. Finally, many clubs that do decide to affiliate if these proposals are endorsed at the EBU EGM and sign the contract could well tear it up when they discover how high the EBU plus County P2P will actually be and they will have 5 clear months to do so. To ask for an irrevocable decision to proceed from the Shareholding Counties in June 2008 long before most of the information is available to make a reasoned decision is very financially risky for the Shareholding Counties. They will have to live with that decision if it proves to be disastrous but Clubs do not. They can opt out at any stage.

Your Committees believe that a strong National body to organise and regulate the game of Bridge in England is essential. Sadly, we believe these Final Proposals are a recipe for disaster both for the EBU itself, Counties and for many Clubs and the only way to preserve those Clubs, Counties and the EBU is to reject them. The EBU will not die if they are rejected but there is a strong possibility that it will, or at least be financially crippled and become much less influential, if these proposals are endorsed by the Shareholding Counties. Rejection would not only preserve the EBU but would save a considerable sum of money which could be used to identify the reasons for the current decline in membership and provide funds to implement vigorous action to reverse that decline. That would be a much more logical action to take for P2P itself will not invigorate Bridge in England, it is just a very risky alternative method of funding the EBU which will permanently remove at least half of the EBU’s liquid assets before it can even start.

a. Do not meet the stated aim ‘..to elevate and maintain the status and procure the advancement of the game of Bridge in England…’, they are merely a flawed funding exercise

b. Do not properly address the reasons for the decline in EBU club affiliation and EBU Membership or identify realistic actions to correct the situation.

c. Make unjustifiable assumptions regarding the number of Clubs likely to affiliate if these Proposals are accepted and, consequently, significantly underestimate the P2P fee required to balance the EBU budget. That misleading underestimate is being used to ‘sell’ P2P to Clubs and Counties.

d. Make predictions on costs and timeframes for IT systems that have neither been properly specified yet nor been subject to risk analysis – the scoring and P2P computer programs – but which are essential for the implementation of P2P. Such programs are notorious for cost and time over-runs.

e. Take a significant financial risk. The EBU has no liquid assets available to cover any underestimate of the number Clubs likely to unaffiliate or any cost or time over-runs on the essential computer programs required. We consider both to be high-risk areas and the only remedy the EBU has if any of them does go wrong, and your Committees consider a higher than estimated Club unaffiliation level to be a certainty, is to impose a very much higher P2P fee than the 29p the EBU currently estimate.

f. Seriously underestimate the resentment felt by non-EBU members of currently affiliated clubs at the coercion implicit in these proposals and the significant increase in cost being imposed upon them. The EBU P2P calculations assume that 100% of them will remain members of affiliated clubs if these Proposals are endorsed at the EBU EGM. That is an obvious mistake, yet another indication that P2P is a Lose-Lose Proposal and will plunge the EBU into a substantial deficit that is likely to reduce the EBU’s liquid assets to zero.

g. Require Clubs to sign a financial commitment to pay before knowing what level of P2P fee will be imposed upon them.

h. Are naïve in that they do not recognise that EBU membership can be retained without paying any P2P fee by joining an affiliated club but not playing there. Indeed, most of the highest ranking players in Hampshire and probably the country already play so little Club Bridge that they will pay almost no P2P fees (County and National events do not attract a P2P fee) and will be effectively subsidised by the lesser players who do if these proposals are implemented. That is likely to be seen by many as evidence that the EBU is far more interested in International and County elite players than the affiliated Clubs and their Members who finance both them and the Shareholder Counties.

Dear County Secretary

You have received a document from a group of clubs in Hampshire about the EBU’s proposed universal membership through Pay to Play. Whilst we recognise that everybody is entitled to an opinion we must correct the key errors that are being presented as facts. We have also been asked to point out that their communication has neither the authority nor the mandate of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Contract Bridge Association through its Management Committee. If you decide to circulate the Hampshire document to your clubs we would ask you to circulate this document with it.

· The EBU has spent two and a half years researching, and nine months consulting on, its proposal to create a strong foundation on which to develop duplicate bridge in England.

· The project is revenue neutral but we aim to reduce costs by streamlining Aylesbury and implementing systems that are relevant to the 21^st Century. We recognise effective management is key to the success of the new EBU.

· The EBU does not intend to embark on a complex software development project. The majority of the software for both uploading data from clubs and for processing this at Aylesbury already exists. Arrangements have been put in place for a market leading software scoring program to be made available to those clubs who do not have scoring software. In addition, those clubs that have their own favourite scoring program will not be required to change, just to provide us with a compatible file in a format that will be provided. All clubs who have sought clarification have been informed of this.

· We have budgeted £170,000 for the implementation of the whole Pay to Play system with a 50% contingency included in this figure. This is not purely for IT development .

· The national Pay to Play fee of 29p in today’s money will be in the contract that goes out to clubs in July 2009 along with any county Pay to Play component.

· The club/EBU contract will be the same as any contract between a service supplier and its client. The EBU agrees to provide services and the affiliated club will agree to pay for them. Clubs will remain entirely sovereign in every respect. The contract will be “evergreen” with a club being able to opt out at the end of any financial year by giving three months notice.

· The financial assessment in the document is based on our survey data and business judgement. The risk assessment shows what will happen in a worst case scenario. This risk should be balanced against the current risk of continued loss of membership and diminishing returns.

· Our potential services to clubs are based on consultation and need. Clubs go through life cycles, some are currently successful and may not need the full range of services we are offering. However, our organisation exists to develop duplicate bridge especially at club level. This means growing clubs and helping those clubs that hit hard times.

· We are trying to create an organisation with true representation. All the members of all the clubs who remain affiliated will be able to vote through their county and thus can affect the future of duplicate bridge in England. We have committed to establishing a Club Standing Committee to ensure that club members have a voice in setting EBU policy and strategy.

· We have based our proposals on the belief that our members are honest and will not devise ways of getting round the new system. This is the only way in which any organisation can proceed.

Yours faithfully

Sally Bugden

Vice Chairman

For and on behalf of the Board of the English Bridge Union