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Quebec Youth Championships and CYCC qualifier : $8100 in prizes
With a sample of 16 people, 6 is pretty close to half. I only counted 13 girls, thus why I said nearly 50%, but I might have missed three of the younger ones.
As I said in my second post, I was also in favour of more prizes for the girls and came up with a few solutions to present to the FQE. That said, you made me realize exactly why there are so few volunteers in Quebec. Whenever someone tries to do something, there will always be a lot of people trying to spit on them. Obviously, these are always the same people that do not do anything change the situation, besides criticizing. But after reading your comments, I will simply invest my time somewhere else.
I spend nearly 1000 hours per year volunteering for chess activities, while I turned down several part-time job offers that would have been much more lucrative. I guess it's time I start thinking about myself, like many Chesstalk posters, and stop trying to promote chess among youngsters. That way I'll finally stop receiving weekly ridiculous complaints from chess parents.
And, Felix, most of those who do the complaining do not give of themselves to help chess at all!
And, Felix, most of those who do the complaining do not give of themselves to help chess at all!
I would not number Vadim among that group. As one of the parents who went to WYCC in the UAE in 2013 with his daughter Allison he was very much a beacon of light and greatly contributed to the good chemistry of that team. He arrived early and built rapport with the organizers which was very helpful to the Canadian team later. He organized a show of appreciation to the staff that fed the players which they greatly appreciated and reciprocated with a special treat for the Canadians. I have nothing but good things to say about him and also his wife and daughter. In fact is because of people like him and there are many of them across this country that I am able to get past the existential moments of crisis and absurdity which are part of the life of any chess organizer or CFC president or director in Canada.
I am reminded at the snapping of my childhood dog at me when I was trying to remove a thorn from her paw. No good deed goes unpunished it seems from the point of view of both parties in this tempest. Vadim is trying to provide some much needed information and feedback to chess organizers and we need to take that message to heart and understand it. On the organization side everyone is busy and has the feeling that they are driving down the chess highway as fast as they can and don't always appreciate the contribution from those they might perceive as back seat drivers.
Disagreements are not always about good and evil, good and bad, friends and enemies. There is no need to create villains here. We have more than enough of them in the world at large already.
If you want to get girls to play chess you need to have role models and you need to reserve some space for the girls to play among themselves. It is hard to keep a girl interested if she is the only girl in a chess class. Add another girl and her interest increases and before you know it you have another one and another one and another one. I like to teach my private lessons in public places like the library and lately that has resulted in some positive feedback for my new students when we are approached by former students saying hello.
The best reinforcement with the new girls comes when one of the former students, a girl, comes forward and I say this is Rahma, Jeannie or Lily who finished first, second or third in Canada last year or was an Ontario champion or a Canadian champion.
Last edited by Vlad Drkulec; Monday, 13th October, 2014, 08:38 PM.
Michael, I am not sure what point you are trying to make. Yes, many players, Myriam and Kelly included, stopped playing after some time. And so do 95% of young players, both in Quebec and in Ontario. And they don't seem to regret their decision, as there are other things in life than chess.
If Quebec was that bad at retaining players, I don't think there would be as many players here as in the rest of Canada.
Felix, the point I'm trying to make is:
We, as chess organizers, could and should encourage girls to play chess.
Yes, there are other things in life than chess, but chess could help them to excel in those other things too.
Yuanling Yuan, for example, is a full-time student of Yale University, and this doesn't prevent her from playing chess and leading Canadian Olympiad Team.
Quebec has more young talented girls playing chess than the rest of Canada.
Unfortunately, no one of them has raised to Olympic level recently - since Dinara Khazieva 10 years ago.
Don't you think you could do better?
I would like to add:
Felix, you're doing good work promoting chess in Quebec, and we all appreciate it.
That being said, there is always a room for improvement - please don't get offended, if somebody says that you could do better. ;)
Re: Quebec Youth Championships and CYCC qualifier : $8100 in prizes
Nevertheless, the statement regarding most is true in my view. The number of hours Felix mentioned is above what most organizers would be contributing. When I was fielding complaints it wasn't the people working, with some exceptions, who were doing the complaining.
I've only seen the kind of hard time you got regarding the FIDE election once before on a message board. That had to do with an ICCF presidency.
Nevertheless, the statement regarding most is true in my view. The number of hours Felix mentioned is above what most organizers would be contributing. When I was fielding complaints it wasn't the people working, with some exceptions, who were doing the complaining.
I can sympathize with both parties in this case.
I've only seen the kind of hard time you got regarding the FIDE election once before on a message board. That had to do with an ICCF presidency.
I have survived much, much, much worse hard times in the past which prepared me for those FIDE election battles. Of course, I was younger then and had much more energy. Having experience on my side was a help as I could see all the curve balls before they thought to throw them.
I would not number Vadim among that group. As one of the parents who went to WYCC in the UAE in 2013 with his daughter Allison he was very much a beacon of light and greatly contributed to the good chemistry of that team. He arrived early and built rapport with the organizers which was very helpful to the Canadian team later. He organized a show of appreciation to the staff that fed the players which they greatly appreciated and reciprocated with a special treat for the Canadians. I have nothing but good things to say about him and also his wife and daughter. In fact is because of people like him and there are many of them across this country that I am able to get past the existential moments of crisis and absurdity which are part of the life of any chess organizer or CFC president or director in Canada.
I am reminded at the snapping of my childhood dog at me when I was trying to remove a thorn from her paw. No good deed goes unpunished it seems from the point of view of both parties in this tempest. Vadim is trying to provide some much needed information and feedback to chess organizers and we need to take that message to heart and understand it. On the organization side everyone is busy and has the feeling that they are driving down the chess highway as fast as they can and don't always appreciate the contribution from those they might perceive as back seat drivers.
Disagreements are not always about good and evil, good and bad, friends and enemies. There is no need to create villains here. We have more than enough of them in the world at large already.
If you want to get girls to play chess you need to have role models and you need to reserve some space for the girls to play among themselves. It is hard to keep a girl interested if she is the only girl in a chess class. Add another girl and her interest increases and before you know it you have another one and another one and another one. I like to teach my private lessons in public places like the library and lately that has resulted in some positive feedback for my new students when we are approached by former students saying hello.
The best reinforcement with the new girls comes when one of the former students, a girl, comes forward and I say this is Rahma, Jeannie or Lily who finished first, second or third in Canada last year or was an Ontario champion or a Canadian champion.
Re: Quebec Youth Championships and CYCC qualifier : $8100 in prizes
The only really unusual thing about all the nastiness with the FIDE election was how public it was, but any past CFC President can attest to how much vitriol you receive in private...
Disagreements are not always about good and evil, good and bad, friends and enemies. There is no need to create villains here. We have more than enough of them in the world at large already.
If you want to get girls to play chess you need to have role models and you need to reserve some space for the girls to play among themselves. It is hard to keep a girl interested if she is the only girl in a chess class. Add another girl and her interest increases and before you know it you have another one and another one and another one. I like to teach my private lessons in public places like the library and lately that has resulted in some positive feedback for my new students when we are approached by former students saying hello.
The older woman is 90, the younger is 7. WL chess club. There are role models but it seems to be one heck of an uphill battle.
Last edited by Scott Richardson; Tuesday, 14th October, 2014, 03:21 PM.
Reason: ages
So, here we go again... with female players hitting a brick wall intentionally erected by the FQE. :( Despite all the animated discussions and protests by parents last year, the 2015 formula you just published is actually _worse_ for young girls than in 2014. It is quite unfortunate to have to repeat the same arguments every year, with everything falling on deaf ears.
1) Since 2014, the FQE explicitly styles the Championnat jeunesse (QYCC) as the CYCC qualifier, using the prestige of the CYCC and even some exaggerations in publicity to attract more participants to the QYCC.
How, then, can the FQE conveniently "forget" despite all the protests that the CYCC is played under different rules and different format, i.e., in a gender-segregated fashion, with boys playing in Open U08 - Open U18, and girls in Girls U08 - Girls U18?! All other provinces hold their qualifiers according to the format of the main event. They have separate Open and Girls sections, and rules on merging (if there is not enough girls registered) generally follow the CFC Handbook 702, e.g., sections are merged by gender, vertically, not by age, horizontally. Quebec is the only one that willingly and deliberately liquidates Girls sections and forces all female players to register in the Open sections.
Think about it for a moment. If a meet to qualify for Team Canada for 100m sprint in summer Olympics was set in such a way that women were forced to run in the same heats as men, and only top 3 overall would make a team or get prizes, wouldn't the organizers be laughed out of the stadium by the IOC, the IAAF and our own Canadian public?! This is exactly the same situation. The FQE is free to organize any events in any format, but when it sells an event to the public as a qualifier for a national event, it has to make sure that players _at least_ compete in the same discipline as in that main event. Since the CYCC rules explicitly specify that girls compete in "female chess" (and for those who'd want to argue about the wisdom of doing so, the clear argument is that the CYCC is the qualifier to the WYCC and therefore follows the WYCC format) a qualifying event has to provide to the girls an opportunity to compete among themselves only.
2) To a straw man argument that is always paraded as a first automatic response: "There is not enough girls registering for the QYCC to justify having separate girls sections" - we, the parents, say: "It is exactly because you discriminate against them and stack the deck against them that many smart girls don't want to register in such a tournament!" If you, the FQE, don't care about girls and don't know how to attract them, just give this qualifier to Larry Bevand and the AEM - not forgetting, of course, to allocate the prize fund from the FQE's fonds de développement jeunesse! - and you will see how this tournament will blossom and there will be as many girls playing as they are in Ontario!
3) Vlad, Bob G., Fred, CFC Governors from Quebec and other provinces:
Could you please give the CFC's view on the matter?
4) The very unfortunate aspect is that many Quebec parents who have a privilege to have daughters, including myself, already had this discussion with the FQE last year. As you probably remember, the FQE wouldn't budge - until someone pointed out that the Ministere de l'Education, du Loisir et du Sport was prominently listed as a tournament sponsor, and offered to call the Ministere, or the Secrétariat à la condition féminine Québec, and ask them how do they regard their sponsorship and relations with the FQE in view of the blatant gender discrimination. Surprisingly, the very next week the rules of the 2014 Championnat jeunesse were bent, the new flyers printed instead of the old ones to give some token recognition to girls - and the parents were told by the two people in position of authority that things will be done "completely right" in 2015.
As I hold those FQE people in high respect, I wouldn't like to believe that we cannot rely on their word. Do anxious parents need to jump through the hoops every year? As a FQE member and supporter, I am horrified that the FQE seems to be digging itself such a hole, practically inviting a class-action lawsuit that would tarnish its image. I hope very much that the advertisements you published are just an honest error, a regrettable oversight on the part of the FQE, which will be fixed decisively, once and for all.
Thanks,
--
V.T.
Parent's voice is hardly heard in chess in Canada as I noticed in the past(except in Windsor). I support V.T.'s opinion.
The qualifier event should try to have same rule/format as the major event, however because of no enough players, a combined section may also be reasonable. Just like OYCC (I think the organizer Patrick is one of the other best organizers besides John Coleman in Canada) has combined section in younger age group as well as separate girls group in older age. if there is combined group, trophy or prize should award to girls separately if possible to encourage girls.
Currently there is not enough effort to keep girl players for various reasons, it is quite possible that less and less girls playing chess when they are getting older unless they are encouraged somehow. anyway, no complaints, many believe chess belongs to men as most sports do.
Quebec would have even more stronger girl players though it currently has a couple of strongest girl players in Canada.
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