The Gillanders' CFC Administration

[Bob Armstrong]

Posted yesterday on the members' CFC Chess Chat Forum:

The Gillanders' Administration

The Gillanders administration has now completed 1/3 of its mandate ( July - November ). How is it doing?

I think the most telling feature is the dramatic drop in noise !! There has been virtually no criticism on the CFC members' board. There has been almost none on the private Governors' Discussion Board. And even our often raucous partner in chess, the CMA ChessTalk, has seen very little lately.

I think they are doing things right.

They have a number of good accomplishments in their first four months:

1. Budget - passage of a revised 2010-11 balanced budget;
2. Website - on the verge of getting authorized to purchase a new website;
3. Youth Chess - a very successful CYCC/WYCC, with very little criticism, compared to the past;
4. Communication - very good communication with the governors on the Governors' Discussion Board - they are using it now as their main tool to communicate, replacing e-mails to a high degree ( except for voting );
5. Governance - held the first " official " Quarterly Governors' On-line Meeting in October, and it was considered by most, very successful;
6. Outsource Contractor - improved relations with our CFC outsource contractor, EKG, who provides all our CFC office functions, including Executive Director;
7. AGM Modernization - funding for the AGM Modernization Subcommittee, to allow them to continue seeking modernization of our 2011 AGM;
8. Members' E-newsletter, Canadian Chess News - continued publishing for members of the Canadian Chess News, which, along with ratings, is a major benefit to members;
9. Members' Ratings - continued weekly updating of members' ratings;
10. Chess Promotion - some initiative on chess promotion by the issuing of press releases on significant Canadian chess developments ( and the compiling of a Canadian media e-mail list );
11. More ? - you add to the list with posts below!

I think the current administration deserves a pat on the back, and a thank you, for good guidance of our chess enterprise in the initial part of their mandate.

Bob

[Michael Yip]

Re: The Gillanders' CFC Administration

Hi Bob

"2. Website - on the verge of getting authorized to purchase a new website"

I just went to the site (I don't ususally) as if I want to keep up with Canadian Chess this is where all the action is.

Still same story,...no reason to go there unless I want to look at my CFC rating.

Homepage out of date
-Still raising money for the team that just came back
-No mention of the new <10 Canadian Champion
etc

Still no reason to visit chess.ca..Internet, the top PR tool of the current age still underused.

I know Bob Gillanders is busy, but no pat on the back yet, but his efforts are appreciated.

Michael Yip

[Peter McKillop]

Re: The Gillanders' CFC Administration

Bob Armstrong: thanks for the update and thank you for all of your hard work.

Bob Gillanders: a big thanks to you and your colleagues (governors/exec's) for your efforts to date. Maybe you can work on your game a bit. Otherwise I might kick your butt in Niagara Falls again!! :D

[Kerry Liles]

Re: The Gillanders' CFC Administration

Hi Bob

"2. Website - on the verge of getting authorized to purchase a new website"

I just went to the site (I don't ususally) as if I want to keep up with Canadian Chess this is where all the action is.

Still same story,...no reason to go there unless I want to look at my CFC rating.

Homepage out of date
-Still raising money for the team that just came back
-No mention of the new <10 Canadian Champion
etc

Still no reason to visit chess.ca..Internet, the top PR tool of the current age still underused.

I know Bob Gillanders is busy, but no pat on the back yet, but his efforts are appreciated.

Michael Yip

The website has been brutal for many years now... at least the current administration has put out tenders for bids and will be starting on a new website very soon from what I hear. ALL previous administrations did next to nothing in this regard. Let's not dump too much on the only people who are actually doing something.

PS: people who say "oh, I could put together a website in an afternoon that would be better" haven't thought about details like: importing all the rating and membership data (importing it properly!) and writing and proving that rating procedures and tournament submission procedures work properly etc. THAT is part of the reason why a proper website takes money and time and expertise - not just someone slapping some html together.

[Nic Haynes]

Re: The Gillanders' CFC Administration

The website has been brutal for many years now... at least the current administration has put out tenders for bids and will be starting on a new website very soon from what I hear. ALL previous administrations did next to nothing in this regard. Let's not dump too much on the only people who are actually doing something.

PS: people who say "oh, I could put together a website in an afternoon that would be better" haven't thought about details like: importing all the rating and membership data (importing it properly!) and writing and proving that rating procedures and tournament submission procedures work properly etc. THAT is part of the reason why a proper website takes money and time and expertise - not just someone slapping some html together.

Personally, I certainly couldn't do this. However, I don't think you can use chess ratings as an excuse as to why the website is so hard to do properly.

I can't imagine it's some huge undertaking to do both the ratings procedure and tournament submissions in some easy to use program like Microsoft Excel or something.

Even if they aren't using this, we're not talking about complicated mathematics hear.... It's a person's name, some tournaments, and one number for their ratings (or two if you include active ratings).

The main problem though is that even if the necessary information is on the website, the current layout is a travesty. You got your 4 buttons on the left, all with vague, generic names, you have to scroll down like 18 pages to find anything, there is a huge number of distracting and useless pictures of people everywhere.... It's just awful. I'm not even mentioning that whole virus problem it had and the fact that the ratings database is down all the time.

In terms of a layout, I think the USCF website is a lot better.

To fix it up should NOT take a lot of money. It doesn't need fancy flash animations or graphics or anything like that, it just has to be easy to use, functional and aesthetically pleasing. Sure, if you satisfy the easy to use and functional goals, then you can think about pimping it out, but I personally don't care for websites with tones of pop ups, introductions, music playing, and stuff like that.

The USCF website has all the links you would want on the left side, a changing news scroller thing in the middle (which is fine, although it has to be updated regularly for people to care), a bit of sponsership stuff, a login box, search function, and almost all this stuff without having to scroll down. It's a bit crowded and certainly not perfect, but even that is 10 times better then the CFC website.

[Roger Patterson]

Re: The Gillanders' CFC Administration

PS: people who say "oh, I could put together a website in an afternoon that would be better" haven't thought about details like: importing all the rating and membership data (importing it properly!) and writing and proving that rating procedures and tournament submission procedures work properly etc. THAT is part of the reason why a proper website takes money and time and expertise - not just someone slapping some html together.

The code for manageing the rating system is a separate issue from the website. Having written the code to display crosslinked top 50 lists, crosstables, and players ratings both for the Victoria Chess Club database http://victoriachess.com/db/RatingOu...pe=rating_list and similar code for the CFC database http://victoriachess.com/cfc/, I can tell you definitively that the level of effort for that part of the web function should take a compentent programmer of order 1 day.

The ratings database and corresponding ratings program is unrelated (or should be) to redoing the CFC website. [although I freely conceed that rewriting the ratings program and worrying about user interface, data input, data checking, etc. is a lot of work having also done all of that before but I repeat - this is all unrelated to the website].

[Roger Patterson]

Re: The Gillanders' CFC Administration

The ratings database and corresponding ratings program is unrelated (or should be) to redoing the CFC website.... .

I should add that the RFP I saw only mentioned a content management system and certainly did not have any specifications for a ratings database so I presume the ratings database is not planned to be part of this process. I was somewhat surprized that there was in fact no specification for the display of data from the ratings database, but perhaps it is planned to do that separately.

I would be rather dissappointed to have the same data displayed actually - I rather dislike having the top 50 list for BC being headed by people who a) haven't lived in BC for 30 years b) haven't played a CFC game in 30 years. [and current active players whose membership elapses for a month dissappear from the list].

[Fred McKim]

Re: The Gillanders' CFC Administration

Certainly there will be a new database and a new interface created as part of this.

I have hated the criteria for "Top Canadian" lists since they started showing this years ago.

Certainly players who have not played in X years should not appear (X ~= 1.5).

I think it would be be reasonable to have a list that includes expired members that meet the activity criteria.

Any changes to the actual rating formula program are not part of the RFP.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: The Gillanders' CFC Administration

Certainly players who have not played in X years should not appear (X ~= 1.5).

I think it would be be reasonable to have a list that includes expired members that meet the activity criteria.

What!!!

You figure my rating should not appear simply because I haven't played a CFC rated games in close to 40 years?

[Gary Ruben]

Re: The Gillanders' CFC Administration

Hi Bob,

Are the membership numbers up significantly?

I wouldn't call a lower noise level success. Last I saw there weren't enough donations to support the Olympic teams. Apathy isn't success.

[Fred McKim]

Re: The Gillanders' CFC Administration

Hi Bob,

Are the membership numbers up significantly?

I wouldn't call a lower noise level success. Last I saw there weren't enough donations to support the Olympic teams. Apathy isn't success.

Increases in membership were a goal of Bob Gillanders. The basis for these increases would be 1) the new Web Site and 2) the membership drive.

We started working on the web site RFP in August. We may be in a position to announce a contract winner within a week. The membership drive will follow and hopefully be ready to roll out in tandem with web site.

[Paul Beckwith]

Re: The Gillanders' CFC Administration

The RFP deadline was 5 weeks ago. How long are the RFP prices valid for? I am sure that Bob has been pushing to get a decision from the governors on choosing someone to do the website.

Another week makes it 6 weeks. Come on governors, what is your problem; can you not make decisions??? This is not rocket science...

[Ken Craft]

Re: The Gillanders' CFC Administration

The Governors just received a motion to vote on Friday, November 5, 2010.
Moved: Robert Gillanders; Seconded: Fred McKim
Motion – with respect to the CFC purchase of a new website,
1. The CFC will spend up to $ 18,000 ;
2. the executive is authorized to determine the most acceptable bidder, and to negotiate and enter into a contract of purchase.


Deadline for voting is this Thursday.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: The Gillanders' CFC Administration

Increases in membership were a goal of Bob Gillanders. The basis for these increases would be 1) the new Web Site and 2) the membership drive.

We started working on the web site RFP in August. We may be in a position to announce a contract winner within a week. The membership drive will follow and hopefully be ready to roll out in tandem with web site.

I see. Membership increases would be dependent on a new web site and a membership drive. Both in the future.

When I was doing administration for the CCCA, one of the benchmarks I used to assess my effectiveness was membership numbers. Another was participation. The number was around 700 members which isn't that bad for chess by mail when you consider the CFC is currently not more much that twice that number.

This being the 21st century, if I were planning a new web site for a nation organization, which I am not doing, it would definately include a server attached so I could sell memberships to people who wanted to play server rated chess with the national federation. There are a lot of Canadians playing server chess these days.

I play my correspondence games on the ICCF server these days. It calculates the ratings and the lists are generated as often as they wish. Servers are getting to be pretty standard.

Of course, to go that route you'd need a plan of what you wanted to do with a server before building one. As an example, login and find a waiting opponent for a game. Scheduled events. Team events. Qualifiers for OTB events. Interprovincial team events. The list goes on.

Basically, any offbeat sport or idea has the potential of one tenth of one percent of the population. That's the rough idea of how many people for a potential membership. In Canada that would be about 33,000 members for the potential.

I've previously discussed this with people on an international message forum. Some European nations have roughly this percentage or close to it. I forget the details now as it's been several years since we discussed it.

[Bob Armstrong]

Governors Are Fast

In defence of governors !!

1. the executive only posted information and request for questions from the governors on Oct. 29. The executive have since then been answering governor questions on the bids generally - took a bit of dialogue.

2. We were only asked by the executive to vote on a motion to approve a purchase on Friday, Nov. 5.

3. We were asked by the executive to vote by Thursday, Nov. 11.

Seems the governor part of the process has been pretty speedy.

Our Motto: " Governors are fast.........but not loose !! "

Bob