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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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You can see it in many of the chess clubs. In our local club (KW chess - Kitchener, Ontario) the old guard (longtime tournament players) has been severely diminished since the Covid breakout. We have a new generation of young adults and keen youth - somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% newbies. Its nice to see new growth. To quote Bob Dylan: the times they are a changing - and they definitely have changed.
From this graph I would look at the period 2015 to 2020 and try to find out what we did as it shows a steady increase in membership. The covid effect is not our doing and hope you are not thinking to repeat it.
Prior to 2013, the CFC was pretty unpopular. I know, as I volunteered in the Kevin Pacey headed membership drive. We contacted old members to encourage them to come back. I have never been cussed out so much in my life and I have been cussed out on occasion in my life. I came to the presidency as a youth organizer and coach and I refocused on treating the kids and parents a bit more kindly. Previously there was the feeling that they were treated as cash cows. In every instance the CFC was looking for its taste of 10% not unlike the fictional Sopranos.
We gave up our taste and focused on what a non-profit should be which is interested in furthering its mission. We had problems when I started with the office and piled up receivables which were choking us. Bob Gillanders eventually came on and got things on a more even keel. Sometimes slowly but he got the job done.
The CFC became more responsive and open. I was pretty accessible as president as were most of the board members. We added some good people over the years and if everyone is helping to row the boat forward, the successes start to pile up.
The interesting thing is that Covid didn't kill us. It slightly wounded us but even in the depths we only lost about $15,000 which barely dinged our zero interest bank account.
We were starting to experience the benefits of growth before the pandemic and if you extend the approximately 10% growth rate over the intervening years and we are right where that curve was taking us.
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