CFC Membership Stats

[Tom O'Donnell]

The stats are now posted here:

http://www.chess.ca/MemStats.htm

At first blush, the numbers look good. Total membership went from 1811 to 1920. However, both the Junior and Adult memberships are down yet again. The statistics are "saved" by the rise in Junior Participating memberships. I wonder how many events the typical Junior Participating Member plays in. Also, why can juniors get participating memberships while adults cannot? Does anyone out there believe that the webzine (which has now been officially open for more than four months) has, say, more than $5/year per member of value?

[John Coleman]

Re: CFC Membership Stats

The only stat I pay attention to is ordinary adult members... 507 in Ontario, an disappointing 434 in the rest of Canada. Can that be right?

You think the webzine is worth $5 per year, Tom? I glance at it once a month or so, much as a nurse might glance at a coma patient. Depressing.

[Lawrence Day]

Re: CFC Membership Stats

Here's a 1909 bit from de Coubertin:
"...distinguish physical education and sports.
Physical education is a thing that is good for
everyone. It must be scientific and moderate. It is the government’s role to
ensure that it proceeds in a regular way.
Sports are something more. Sports
are a school for daring, energy, and persevering will. By their very nature,
they tend toward excess. They need championships and records; it is the
beautiful and loyal brutality of sports that make people strong and healthy."

Substitute 'cerebral' for 'physical' and it helps explain the CFC political problem.
A 'sports' group is by its nature elitist just as tournament chess is elitist compared to general chess for fun. General chess is ten times more popular than sports chess as can be seen by Canadian membership stats for the general chess.com with over 27000 Canadian fun players compared to the 2000 members for the more serious chess.ca. This is to be expected but it produces serious problems concerning conflicts of elitism and egalitarianism. For example, replacing the Master's representative with the Junior's representative on the CFC Executive degraded the sporting element. "Promoting chess" in general is for the government to do because an intelligent work force is an asset and delaying alzheimer's is a valuable health benefit. That is not the CFC's original function and it is dangerous because a trough of government money often attracts the sort of promoters whose talents emphasize financial benefits for themselves. The particular individuals don't matter; the pattern is consistent.
As regards the appalling webzine, consider the case of Nikolay's 'Secret Weapon' article. The basic choice is to put it in the free zone (supposedly promoting general chess) or in the (elitist) members only zone where people have to pay membership to read it. Not to be seen as 'elitist', the article shows up in the free section and naturally members can't see the benefit of their membership fees. This is a small issue but it shows the philosophical problem which the CFC must address.

According to de Coubertin you cannot expect the sporting aspect to take care of itself:
"athletes... tend to think that sports
sustain themselves on their own, and spread because of their very nature. On
the contrary, sports are delicate plants requiring a great deal of care to keep
them from withering and rotting."

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: CFC Membership Stats

Lawrence

Your analogy of physical education vs. sports as applied to chess ought to be worked out a little more, I think, in that little 'chess education' is necessary to play fun, or 'general'/casual, chess, which would be akin to playing casual street sports, for varying lengths of time, outside of school hours.

Learning the basic rules of chess allows one to play fun, or casual, chess almost anywhere, including at home or in school, even during lunchtime. Physical education requires use of a school gym or suitable school exercise grounds, which is something that needs to be provided by the government, as well as physical education teachers being available who supervise and plan the students' exercises. Chess education, beyond teaching the basic rules, would require competent chess teachers as well, but like physical education, all is not necessarily fun or casual for the student. That's where the cerebral fitness develops to a great extent, learning to calculate and plan rather than just pushing wood with little thought.

In any event, if a Canadian government were to get involved with chess education, it would at least sometimes be in competition with the CMA nowadays. Indeed, I have no idea if there's already some sort of a conflict brewing in BC where chess has recently been put on the province's curriculum by their government.

Meanwhile there is the CFC, which is desperate to gain members and rated tournament participants by any means. Promoting the play and study of chess is indeed among the CFC's objectives in the CFC's handbook, though I think in that document (or any future version of it) the drafters should have emphasized that the top three overriding objectives of the CFC were first of all to acquire as many CFC members as possible, and secondly to encourage members (or even aspiring members) to play in CFC rated events, by also encouraging the organization of such events. Thirdly, to promote chess excellence in Canada, including possibly providing assistance to teams or champions sent abroad or across the land. I think these have been in fact the de facto overriding objectives that the CFC has been following, or at least should have been.

I think you as a fan of chess excellence in Canada might, given your post, greatly disagree with the order that I give for these objectives, but I'd be interested to know if they would also be your top three after you read this, if you agree with me that the CFC has too many objectives given equal weight in its slightly academic and outdated constitution.

As we know, it is possible to be a CFC member and not play in any rated events. It's as though one can be an athlete or a fan of a sport, and still be a member of that sport's federation. That's the approach the CFC is trying to take with the three priorities I am giving, and personally I'm not convinced that trying to satisfy the three priorities in the order I gave them is unworkable in the long run. I think, rather, that the CFC has been badly managed over the years.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: CFC Membership Stats

Lawrence

Here's a link to the CFC Handbook, Section 2, where the corporation's objectives are outlined:

http://www.chess.ca/section_2.htm

I'd now like to address more of your post's points.

If a Canadian government were to promote chess, how might it go about it? Well, aside from chess education in schools and colleges, there could be Participaction style ads for playing chess, the way there were for encouraging citizens to maintain physical fitness at all ages (that's aside from students remembering any words of warning to keep exercising after completing school, from their physical education instructors).

In such government ads the CFC (and even the CMA) could receive a plug, the way other sports federations in Canada might not. In the case of the CMA, I'm assuming that the government could co-operate with them in some way in the field of chess education, should that ever threaten to become a problem.

Other than such ads, at the moment I don't see what a Canadian government would wish to do, short of always or occasionally providing 'a trough of government money', as you put it, for the CFC or any of it's provincial affiliates (or if there's a way, for the CMA). You wrote that this often attracts promoters who like to benefit themselves, but I am not sure that this is not something of an exaggeration. The recent case of the misused OCA's Trillium grants may be an example you can point to, but in my opinion this is as much the fault of the provincial government in question for not attaching more strings, or not following up on complaints of abuse that were made (perhaps/probably out of fear of embarassment should the matter become very public).

The conflict you say exists between elitism and egalitarianism as far as some of the CFC's decisions in practice are concerned is a conflict that that will continue to exist as long as the CFC is not a league closed to all but a relative few members, e.g. a professional sports league like the NHL. However the CFC could certainly have done a better job trying to resolve this conflict over the years, in making better attempts to satisfy everyone, or give at least something more satisfactory to everyone. The example of the Master's Rep on the Executive being replaced was clearly an unwise decision. Why not have a Junior Rep on the Executive without replacing the Master's Rep, if there was going to be one?

You imply the webzine gave away too much in the free access zone by putting the 'Secret Weapon' article there, but this was in fact the consequence of a dilemma the CFC was faced with when it discontinued the print magazine. There is no way to show one average joe what he is missing as a non-member by giving him a copy of a webzine, without showing it to everyone, unlike in the case of handing out a single print magazine. Looking at it this way there is no question of egalitarianism, rather it is a deemed necessary evil of giving out a single valuable freebie to everyone, which I think many members might not resent.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: CFC Membership Stats

In my previous post I wrote:

...If a Canadian government were to promote chess, how might it go about it? Well, aside from chess education in schools and colleges, there could be Participaction style ads for playing chess, the way there were for encouraging citizens to maintain physical fitness at all ages...In such government ads the CFC (and even the CMA) could receive a plug, the way other sports federations in Canada might not...

There may be any number of snags when it comes to convincing a government to promote chess, I ought to have mentioned. The failure to get recognition of chess as a sport by the Canadian government could be partly because if it recognized chess, it might have to recognize bridge, poker, tiddley-winks...

Even if the fight to have chess recognized as a sport in Canada has been largely given up by the CFC, why should a government even care to promote chess, if any number of other activities can be shown/argued to satisfy Lawrence's selling points for chess (that it cultivates an intelligent workforce and [arguably] tends to stave off alzheimer's disease)? For example, crossword, sudoku and other such puzzles, or other chess variants or related games such as Shogi (Japanese chess), not to mention other games of pure skill such as checkers, reversi, the oriental game of Go...then there's bridge, poker and even euchre, which are at least partly games of skill requiring some level of concentration.

Furthermore, a government might with clear consistency decide to do Participaction style ads for cerebral fitness in general, not specifying chess only, but mentioning any number of the above games and mental activities...the ads might simply encourage citizens to exercise or use their minds more often :)

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: CFC Membership Stats

In this post I'll give my own answer to a question I posed in my last post:
why should a government even care to promote chess, if any number of other activities can be shown/argued to satisfy Lawrence's selling points for chess (that it cultivates an intelligent workforce and [arguably] tends to stave off alzheimer's disease)?

To persuade the government to promote chess, and chess alone, the way it promotes physical fitness there has to be a more compelling argument on the whole than just Lawrence's two given selling points for chess, for the reasons I gave in the previous post.

What makes chess special? Well, to start with it is the most popular board game of pure skill in the world. It has a cultural and sporting appeal in most countries, but this may not impress a North American born government official, unless possibly if it is pointed out that promoting chess may be of interest to many potential new voters from many other countries.

Why not promote all the other games of pure skill? Compared to shogi or Go, at least I myself find chess is normally has a pleasing (not to mention educationally and highly cerebrally nurishing) balance of planning (including strategy) and calculation (including tactics), at least over the course of several chess games, whereas shogi is heavy on the tactical aspect, while Go is the opposite. Checkers and reversi are lightweight by comparison to these oriental games, or to chess (poker and even bridge involve at least some element of chance, so chess has that edge over such games). So, based on these points, as well as others that could be made, I would concur that an argument can be made that playing or studying particularly the game of chess is an excellent and economical means to cultivate an intelligent workforce, especially if there is chess education made widely available.

[Jason Lohner]

Re: CFC Membership Stats

Meanwhile there is the CFC, which is desperate to gain members and rated tournament participants by any means.

LOL the CFC is doing everything possible to discourage average people from playing in CFC rated events. The problem is that certain CFC members/governors believe that if someone likes to play chess that they will automatically join the CFC. NOTHING is farther from the truth. Just look at your average internet chess service and see how many Canadians are playing chess... now compare that to the CFC membership. Thanks for providing disincentives for playing in CFC events! The 'elites' are killing the CFC.

[Tony Ficzere]

Re: CFC Membership Stats

LOL the CFC is doing everything possible to discourage average people from playing in CFC rated events. The problem is that certain CFC members/governors believe that if someone likes to play chess that they will automatically join the CFC. NOTHING is farther from the truth. Just look at your average internet chess service and see how many Canadians are playing chess... now compare that to the CFC membership. Thanks for providing disincentives for playing in CFC events! The 'elites' are killing the CFC.

I couldn't agree more. Instead of creating polices to bring players to the board, they constantly shoot themselves in the foot. That's gotta hurt.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: CFC Membership Stats

LOL the CFC is doing everything possible to discourage average people from playing in CFC rated events. The problem is that certain CFC members/governors believe that if someone likes to play chess that they will automatically join the CFC. NOTHING is farther from the truth. Just look at your average internet chess service and see how many Canadians are playing chess... now compare that to the CFC membership. Thanks for providing disincentives for playing in CFC events! The 'elites' are killing the CFC.

Yes, I ought to have said that the CFC SHOULD be desperate to obtain members and tournament participants by any means.

Your points show why I put my three overriding priorities for the CFC in the order that I did. First, develop better policies to acquire as many members as possible, including those who just read the [e]magazine. If it's allowed, the CFC might consider providing token gifts for donations to the CFC, which would always include a largely symbolic 'CFC supporter' type membership, along with gift(s) proportional in value to the amount of the donation given. This is the way public TV stations like PBS proceed to obtain 'members' and donations. It's also not just developing better policies, it's also developing a better image and publicity for the CFC.

Second priority for the CFC: develop better policies to encourage members (or aspiring members) to participate in CFC rated events. I also could include the matter of the CFC trying to arrange a deal with an online chess service, which was the case for a short time before the arrangement was allowed to fall apart somehow.

Third priority for the CFC (pointedly below the second priority in importance): develop better policies to encourage chess excellence in Canada. Yes, there is a need to care for the sporting elite aspect of Canadian chess, if that's what you meant by your reference to elite. However building the membership base and domestic tournament participation levels needs to take priority before seeing that elite chess is well looked after. The CFC should measure the $ spent on elite chess with care and not squander it big time or it will have a disaster, both financially and for relations with the rank and file members. That's indeed what happened not many years ago, if memory serves.

I believe that the CFC has tried, or ought to have tried, to follow these three overriding priorites all along, but has failed miserably in terms of execution and, as you say, in it's policies.

[Peter McKillop]

Re: CFC Membership Stats

... both the Junior and Adult memberships are down yet again.

In fact, adult memberships are down by almost 43% from where they were in spring, 2003. I wonder if anyone at the CFC has made an effort to find out why? I mean actually find out; not just speculate on what the reasons might be.

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: CFC Membership Stats

The $20 a tournament for non-cfc members sure helps matters :D

[John Coleman]

Re: CFC Membership Stats

At the risk of being called negative, I am not sure that the CFC actually wants to increase members.

Recent initiatives have raised the cost of playing, and reduced the benefits. No magazine, a moribund webzine, a pathetic equipment store... and the ratings fees have increased. Are these the actions of a business wanting to grow? (Grow bigger, I mean, not grow smaller.)

For some people, chess is one of the finer things in life, and should not be available to the great unwashed. Next thing you know, all the peasants will be wanting diamonds and Chanel.

-----------------
John Coleman
Windsor
(the moat monster)

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: CFC Membership Stats

In fact, adult memberships are down by almost 43% from where they were in spring, 2003. I wonder if anyone at the CFC has made an effort to find out why? I mean actually find out; not just speculate on what the reasons might be.

Based on my own experience a number of years ago, the answer is probably no.

I prepared a questionnaire for ex-members to be sent by the office at the time, as the ED did not have the time to spare to make a questionnaire up. After the results came back the ED never found the time to show me the results, nor distribute the results to the rest of the governors and executive.

I seem to recall that more than one CFC wag has stated historically there is an annual membership turnover rate of about 1/3, i.e. 1/3 of old members are lost, replaced by new members that year. Evidently one or more unusual things happened since spring 2003 so that adult memberships are down so badly. I can name a few, but you don't want such speculation I gather.

Evidently CFC staff like the ED are simply too overloaded with everyday tasks to be involved with proactively trying to acquire more CFC members, or find out why they have left in droves. Governors don't volunteer for this sort of task, nor others, normally I gather. One can only hope the Executive occasionally gives it thought.

[Roger Patterson]

Re: CFC Membership Stats

The $20 a tournament for non-cfc members sure helps matters :D

actually it does increase membership, in a perverse sense. ""Some"" of those who were paying tournament memberships will buy full memberships now. Of course, the remainder just stop playing.