New CFC membership fees:

[Gary Ruben]

Re: New CFC membership fees:

1. If an organization needs income to break even, IT MUST improve good services to atract customers. Increasing the costs hoping the customers won't have other alternate solutions is more of a socialistic way of dealing with it. I lived that for 30 years and my parents quite a few before that. IT IS NOT the answer and WILL NEVER be!

2. BC offers way more than CFC does for the portion of the membership fee. One of the other posters in this thread has already explained what that is!

3. Well, you SHOULD care since it is very much related to the topic. I pay my membership fees to CFC for about 12 years now (that's why I mentioned a while back you did not...), regardless of what they offer in return. When we needed to be protected by CFC from the WYCC 2005 organizers, we were (and still are) left out in the cold; just for that reason alone I should never rate another tournament with CFC. It is possible the yearly ratings fees I pay (ALWAYS on time) would add up to income lost from others doing like me. What will you preach then, eh?!...

4. No, this is not your time. Your time has passed! Agree you've done the best you knew and could. Now it is our time if you like it or not! So far CFC has used up all the income gathered from different sources and it still is in shambles. I am sure there are enough successful, well educated and strongly motivated people in this country to stop this horrible slide and put us on a different course.

This is not your era anymore! There's huge competition form several side organizations, the internet and chess engines. You either adapt to these challenges or die; so far it looks like those in charge have chosen to die. However don't make juniors and their parents scapegoats! All they wanted/ want is to play chess, get a rating and see it yo-yo, plus get the money they deserve if they finish 1st. This is how it is in any civilized country. We must be able to do that!

I have no idea how it was in your time. Back in Europe I grew up in a different chess system. You never see me argue your experience even if you repeat it over and over again. Why do you think you know what juniors want TODAY? When was the last time you were in a junior club to see the reality. If you wish I will pay for a return ticket so you could come and visit us here in Vancouver; at least this way you will talk based on today's facts, not from 30 years ago!...

Everyone who was there in what you call my time knows chess was better then. Big clubs, lots of big events, many members and a decent magazine. Probably you were still in diapers then. When your generation is back in diapers again there might be a chance to improve chess because your generation sure isn't doing it.

Let's look at what you are doing with "your time". Why do you come here to Chess Talk and cry about the 2005 WYCC? You are a governor and you should be making motions to try to get whatever you think is owing? You sit and do nothing but complain. Why is that? Is it because your complaint has no merit?

You talk about the horrible slide of the CFC. You say this is "your time". What do you do to make it better and stop the slide?

The system here in Canada is different from what it was in many East European nations when you were growing up. The government doesn't support chess. The players must do that. Still, many like you look on the CFC as a replacement for the government and expect them to invent money to support chess players who will not pay for services. They don't have a money tree they can shake. They have to get the money somewhere. Since you are a governor you are one of the people who has to try to invent methods of getting money to support the projects.

Chess wasn't always the way it is now. Your generation has run the game into the ground. You don't know how to build a membership and compete with the internet in the 21st century.