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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.
Last edited by Vlad Drkulec; Tuesday, 8th July, 2025, 01:37 PM.
Don Parakin posted the following in the CFC meeting thread:
Vlad's statistics above have # of members. For giggles, I thought I'd calculate the level of tournament activity by querying the database for the total # of participants in CFC-rated tournaments.
Note that the numbers below include Regular and Rapid and OTB and Online (there is no way to distinguish Online events in the database).
I tried to post a graph but apparently it is a bit too big for chesstalk.
You can see the thumbnail back on the thread in the CFC meeting https://www.chesscanada.info/forum/showthread.php?6707-5A3-CFC-outlook-for-2025-and-beyond
Last edited by Vlad Drkulec; Wednesday, 9th July, 2025, 12:35 AM.
I love the table of actual tournament participation! It shows increased activity by organizers as well as players. Membership figures have always been a bit murky because of different types like junior, tournament, or life. And without a bimonthly magazine with tournament ads, what do ordinary players get for being a member? Rating fees pay for calculating their rating. I could pull up the higher membership numbers from forty-fifty years ago. but I think the number of tournaments and participant games is higher today. Plus many are now also FIDE rated.
I would be interested in the higher numbers from forty or fifty years ago. I remember that during the seventies and eighties thanks to the Fischer boom our membership levels were higher but for the data that is available easily we are at a more than 30 year high for members.
Canada Post killed the magazine as did facebook more recently. The functions that the magazine used to fill are now filled by news websites, facebook, instagram and youtube and to a lesser extent forums like the CFC forum and chesstalk.
Do all participants in CFC events pay a membership fee? At one time (maybe still), some/all juniors paid nothing under certain circumstances. Have FQE players been added to the totals? Can the annual counts be divided into Adults and Juniors?
I would think that the CFC membership figures would be in the annuals report of the CFC, and that archives are accessible. In the late 1960s Dobrich calculated the ratings, then Jonathan Berry. As a player, I saw figures published in the CFC magazine. I don’t know if historical data would be useful, But here’s the numbers I could find: From CFC Annual Rating lists:
Number of Rated Players (I’ve added the column of the percentage of all Canadian players.)
1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1968 1969 Per Cent69 Masters1963/65
BC 160 166 185 183 187 255 216 17 1/0
Alta 54 70 95 102 89 75 68 5.5 0/1
Sask 7 8 20 22 15 28 26 2.1 0
Man 42 38 65 51 28 11 32 2.6 1/1
Ont 125 105 141 142 167 437 535 43 1/2
Que 84 80 88 222 230 264 338 27 2/0
Marit 0 0 3 3 25 53 30 2.4 0 (NB) 24 5
(Nfld) 0 0
(NS) 29 25 Total 472 467 597 725 741 1123 1245 (100) 5/4
In 1963 (Aug 62 to July 63) rated were 28 swisses, 18 round robins, and 6 team tournaments.
1970 1971 1972 1973 Per Cent73 Masters1973
BC 225 226 168 126 6.8 5
Alta 112 113 110 199 11 2
Sask 31 34 39 42 2.3 3
Man 48 49 40 43 2.3 0 (2 Experts)
Ont 631 693 774 1044 57 11
Que 290 268 354 311 17 4
Marit 38 55 65 82 4.4 0 (NB) 8 10 9 6 0.3
(Nfld) 4 14 17 31 1.7 (1 Expert)
(NS) 26 31 39 45 2.4 (1 Expert) Total 1375 1438 1550 1847 (100) 25 In 1970 (Aug 69 to July 70) rated were 81 swisses, 73 round robins, and 9 team tournaments. The 1973 rating fee was 25 cents per player and Life Membership up to 59 years of age was $125.
From CFC Bulletin 1975 Statistiques Candiennes Sur Le Jeu D’Echecs per Bernard Ouimet Comparing CFC membership to the Canadian population. What would it be today?
CFC Members Members per PerCent75 Masters
10,000 population BC 256 1.05 10.1 4
Alta 260 1.49 10.3 0
Sask 68 0.746 2.68 1
Man 73 0.72 2.88 1
Ont 1,291 1.58 51.0 9
Que 407 0.066 16.1 8 (Marit)178 0.83 7.03 0
NB 101 1.51 3.95
Nfld 24 0.44 0.095
NS 52 0.636 2.05
PEI 1 0.085 0.004 Canada 2,533 1.12 (99) 23
Toronto has 35-40% of tournaments.
Comparison with other countries: USA has 2.9 per 10,000 population, England 17.4, and Hungary 38.8.
In 1976 the cities with the most members were Metro-Toronto 437, Montreal 208, Ottawa 176, Calgary 119, Winnipeg 101, and Edmonton 100. In terms of percent of population Smithers had 297 members per 100,000, Fredericton 100, Kingston 73, Saskatoon 48, and Ottawa 34.
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