I added a new member to the Team USA Southeast roster today, and I decided to look at our membership in more detail.  What I found really disturbed me.  Of the 367 members we have as of 7/25/10, many have not signed into Chess.com for quite some time.  Seven of our team members have not been on-line since 2008, and 57 more have not signed on since 2009.  24 have not even been on-line in the last 4 months.

These 88 missing members represent 24% of our team roster, and their presence as "members-in-name-only" artificially inflates our team size.  If you have been following our team in the World League, it often appears that we are overmatched and have a hard time fielding the requisite number of boards.  I believe that the primary reason for this is that we are in Division A, the World League category for the largest teams, but we do not draw our match players from as big a pool as do our competitors since we are not actually the same size as our competitors.  Keeping our membership artificially high is handicapping us.

As Super Admin for Team USA Southeast, I am proposing to drop only the 64 members who have not been on Chess.com since their last sign-in in 2008 or 2009.  Their accounts with Chess.com will not be affected, but they will no longer be affiliated with Team USA Southeast.  I am putting this plan forward, with the understanding that if team members do not voice serious objections, I will make the team roster changes in September 2010.  I would also propose to drop team members each subsequent year who had not signed into Chess.com at all in the previous year.

Thanks for your attention--now, what do you think?

I agree, and support your decision.

Sounds great.

Thanks for taking a closer look at what's happening and for proposing a solution.  I agree that a process for purging the roster is in order and believe September allows ample time for members to respond if they do not want to be dropped.  However, I think there could be a participation requirement instituted that allows for more dynamic ongoing roster maintenance.  I wouldn't want to discourage people from joining the team but if its effecting our ability to compete, its a thought.  Since I don't know what current participation levels are I can't assess what the expectation should be.  Again, thanks for the info and service.  

I don't think those who would be dropped would notice or care. So I'm for dropping them.

Seems reasonable

Sounds like a good idea.

We should have some kind of standard that demands the members to be active. I would say we should have a 3 or 6 month max for time since last logged in, and afterwards you can re-instate yourself with the team.

But for this being a new idea, I think 1 year is fine.

I agree 100%.  Thanks for your leadership and all you're doing for this team!

yup, sounds reasonable...if you can send a note to accompany the notice to them, you might say something like "if this cancellation is in error, please contact your admin..."

I agree 100%.

I agree. I do have a question as to what is the percantage of the active members particapte in the team matches? How many of the team members are casting votes on the Vote Chess matches? Being a member in the group mean you are supposed to compete in the related team matches. Just something to look at.

i c absolutely no reason not to they obviously arent gonna miss the group too much.

As of the October 9-10, 2010 weekend, in accordance with the wishes of our team members, I have dropped all our Team USA Southeast members whose last log-in into chess.com was a year ago or more (i.e., October 2009 and earlier).  We have added some new members, too, and so we are currently at 311 members. 

I do not think this team roster reduction will affect our placement in Division A in the 2011 World League.  We played Team Germany (only 272 members) and Team Portugal (only 81 members) this year.  We are still larger than two of the five other Team USA groups (USA South-Central 290 and USA Northwest 194), but we are definitely in the lower half in terms of team size among the Division A teams.

A year seems overly generous - how many have not been on for 60 days? To me, that's long enough. They can always rejoin.

He's right... rejoining is always an option, however I would say more like 90... otherwise I agree!

+1

drop'em

There are 11 more members that will be coming off the roster soon since they have not logged in since Nov. or Dec. 2009.

I've checked our updated roster just now and there are another 70 members of Team USA Southeast that have not logged on at all during 2010 (up through August 2010).  I will start dropping them, too.

Hello Every body.....

I am a new member here, ....I am an Iranian -American, who is proud of his dual citizenship..,and proud of both countries.....I decieded not to join the "TEAM IRAN" ,( because of its government ) but carry only its flag....

I have been an Atlanta resident for the last 22 years ,and active in USCF,and Atlanta chess club........

It is good to be here ! 

I have deleted those last few remaining Team USA Southeast members that have not been on-line to play since 2010.