$10 Limited Memberships

[Bruce Brakel]

The other change for 2009 that I noticed to be semi-significant was that if you're not a PDGA member and you pay that $10 fee, you're going to get a PDGA #, and you're also supposed to get a rule book.  Who is providing that rule book?  The TD or in the mail from the PDGA?  That's going to be CRAZY on the TD side.  You can't just ask if they have a current pdga number - I presume that they have to keep paying that $10 fee each time even though they have a number (you get a number but don't get ratings).  I read about this in the new 2009 tour standards guide.

I talked to David Gentry at Milwaukee Worlds about this. We had exchanged e-mails before that but he was very dismissive of the idea at the time. In person he listened to my complete thoughts better and I think I expressed myself better.

What I told him was that if non-pdga members were going to be paying $10 they ought to get something for the money. They should get their permanent pdga number and the pdga should track their rating and publish it on the spread sheet that they send to TDs so that TDs (and their elves) don't have to police the non-members on their own. My idea was that they would get a membership card with that pdga number but it would be like a red card or something that would stand out as a day-member card. Only the first time that they play a sanctioned tournament would the pdga send them a card. They wouldn't be obligated to take it to tournaments, TDs have the spreadsheet. But I haven't heard how they will actually implement it. It would be nice since this was my idea if they would have kept me in the loop on the implementation.

I'm interested in seeing what their take was on this. I have a few other points that I suggested but if I post them now it might just be disinformation if they aren't going to implement it like I suggested.

I wanted to respond to this, but on a different thread.  Whenever you change the format, you have to consider how that changes the operating procedures.  If your means of identifying the people who owed you $10 was to ask for a PDGA number, that's not going to work in 2009.  I think the only way to identify the non-members now will be to look up every player on the spread sheet.  I don't think you can trust a non-member who paid $10 for his non-membership card and rulebook to know he is a non-member.  If I were stupid, and obviously I am from time to time, I would think if i got a card and a rule book in the mail then I must be a member. 

I suppose the registration question will now be, "Do you have your PDGA card?" 

For 2009 we might want to consider sorting the spreadsheet by state to make looking up a lot faster. 

[pickax]

Going w/o day of registration helps in that it won't be quite as time sensitive to go through the spreadsheet.

[Fox Metro Discer]

You can always make it a point to have everyone have their PDGA card with them when they show up for registration as well.
No card, pay the non member fee.