Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

[Joseph Shea]

I've been a CFC member for well over a decade and have organized & directed some local regular & active tournaments here in Nova Scotia. It doesn't seem too long ago that the CFC was a functional organization that provided a magazine (usually delivered on-time), annual catalog, reasonable rating fees, and dependable goods and services. So what the hell happened?

My annual membership expires the beginning of November. My current annual membership provided me with exactly one magazine, two CFC entries into local tourneys and a CFC is dire financial trouble (where it is expected to be corrected by increasing rating fees). Not exactly what I signed up for. To renew now I will get exactly zero magazines, higher rating fees (ergo lower prize funds), and a deficit with looming litigation that could cost the CFC its very existence.

I believe it is time for drastic measures. The current CFC hierarchy is archaic and non-functional. I cannot see it evolving without dissolving. Each year we get a change of executive with new ideas but never enough time to implement however enough time to really screw things up. For the most part it is the same "old boys club". I am tired of all the increasing politics which has festered from a minor irritation to a systemic infection.

In all of this, I believe that the CFC has forgotten who holds this organization together -- it is people like myself -- just regular guys and girls that want to play chess. We don't want the politics.

My solution -- I believe that the provinces and other sub-groups should opt out of the CFC and let it resurrect itself as a new entity whereby it isn't restricted by its anemic existence. New constitution, new government, one member one vote.

I plan on running local tournaments with no connection to the CFC. I hope to convince the local players that we can thrive without being stymied by the CFC.

Unless someone can convince me to renew my membership, I won't be back until the CFC gets it stuff together. I expect lots of criticism but then again this is Chesstalk. Most would just walk away (like all those disappearing memberships) -- by getting this off my chest before I leave, I hope that I can generate honest discussion that can assist in making the CFC what it should be in the 21st century.

Joe
CFC # 109017
45 days remaining

[Jason Lohner]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

There is no good reason to renew...

The CFC just wants you to bend over and take it because 'you play chess'. Forget about actually getting a quality product for your money you HAVE to support the CFC if you enjoy playing chess and wish to support chess in Canada. forget about running non cfc tournaments... all the elite players won't play if it isn't rated. Forget about players actually playing because they enjoy chess... ratings mean everything! Remember that the CFC wants the average player to pay (and pay and pay) so the select few can be supported.

[Ken MacDonald]

Resurrect itself?

Lest we forget...........

One of the biggest assets the CFC has is its Charitable status. Mr. Bunning continues to fight to maintain that.

Does anyone think a new organization "rising from the ashes" would ever get that again?

[Kerry Liles]

Re: Resurrect itself?

Lest we forget...........

One of the biggest assets the CFC has is its Charitable status. Mr. Bunning continues to fight to maintain that.

Does anyone think a new organization "rising from the ashes" would ever get that again?

Interesting point. Can you explain the value of having "charitable status" other than reduced overhead by avoiding real accounting governance and the need to pay taxes (if one ever earned a profit). I am hard pressed to see any big advantage other than simplicity of operation by not being a corporation. I suppose one could argue that if the CFC was for-profit it would have died long ago and spared us the protracted death march.

[John Coleman]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

It could be worse, Joseph. If you moved to Ontario, you would have the OCA extortion racket to deal with as well.

One reason I won't organise CFC events is because I cannot in good conscience promote CFC and OCA memberships. I have started a local rating system, so players can play rated chess. Very few locals play out-of-town, and we get very few visitors, so a local system seems to make sense. Certainly, there is little value in paying $3 per player to the CFC.

For international players, there are FIDE ratings; for players who play in important events, or national events, there is the CFC. For the vast majority, who play only in local events, local ratings are more appropriate.

Cheaper too.

[Ken MacDonald]

Benefits of Charitable Status and Other Miscellaneous Thoughts

It depends on your viewpoint. Would people contribute if there were no tax receipts? Even 1/2 the amount they would contribute with a receipt? Would Canada then have olympiad representation, especially a female team?

If the CMA has Charitable status, it might be the organization to rise from the ashes and take over chess in Canada. Then we would still have the status to send teams to the olympiads. If it doesn't have that status and works through the CFC, they would also lose something.

"Be careful what you wish for......."

I see that, once again, the leader of the CFC is being attacked on CT. He has only had authority for 2 months and all, it seems, that some worry about is the process, not the accomplishments. I have no inside knowledge of what the Governors have seen, voted on or decided so far, but I'll bet that David Lavin and his team have not allowed the deadwood to sit on their hands and that some good decisions have been made so far. I will also bet that some real action will take place soon.

When an organization is close to bankruptcy (my thoughts based on the financial statements submitted at the AGM) or at least whatever the equivalent of Chapter 11 is in Canada, we may have more to worry about than "parliamentary procedure."

I would be surprised if the CFC continued to pay for players' titles, e.g., or for transfers of titled immigrant chess players (did they even do this previously?). That is expensive and there will be no more cash for those niceties.

When I see someone asking if the CFC will help anyone enter the Mind Sports games in Beijing, I wonder if anyone read those financial statements.

THERE IS NO MONEY!

Don't carp about how we arrived here, just remember that we are here. All the problems of the past matter not at this point. What matters is how are we going to move forward.

Am I preaching? Oops! LOL

[Christopher Mallon]

Re: Benefits of Charitable Status and Other Miscellaneous Thoughts

Getting attacked on Chesstalk is part of the President's informal job description. Perhaps we should have a motion to include it in the handbook? :p

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

all the elite players won't play if it isn't rated.

If by elite you mean FIDE titled, then my experience is that almost no Canadian elite player cares about their CFC rating.

[Bruce Harper]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

I don't think there's any reason to belong to the CFC and that's why I haven't been a member since 2004.

That doesn't mean the CFC has no purpose, though. As far as I know, it has its charitable status (although it has apparently come close to losing it), and that allows people to donate money to chess and receive a tax credit for doing so. That's important.

The CFC is also the connection to FIDE. While FIDE currently is of little value, that may change in the future.

Finally, the CFC has a rating system. I think CFC ratings should either be: a) abolished, because they cause many people not to play (although there are many other reasons why people stop playing organized chess); or b) expanded to include all time controls and forms of chess, to make them unique (as compared to FIDE ratings, which are the ratings of choice for the truly obsessive competitive players); but others swear by them and, if the CFC rating system has integrity (which is debatable), then that's another justification for its existence.

That's why I favour a CFC with no membership fees, rather than a CFC with no members (which is where we are currently headed).

But I don't think it's fair to include the current CFC President in with the previous executive members who failed to see the CFC collapse coming. David seems to be doing something, and while I don't personally agree with everything he is doing, the steps being taken (getting rid of the magazine and the sales business) are long overdue and necessary. The CFC will soon discover, though, that people will not continue to renew (or join) just to have their games rated.

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

I'm on the side of not-renewing... paying 48 a year for what... nothing? When I was paying something like 15 a year as a junior membership that's fine, but now there's no magazines.. and even if there were, 4 magazines for like 30 bucks more isn't worth it at all, now with no magazines, basically charity money. Too bad when the new year comes, the discount of having 4 magazines to no magazines is only 5 bucks less - 48 to 43, at-least in Ontario that's what I heard. If it was 48 to 30, that would be more realistic, but... that's another story.

[Lawrence Day]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

FIDE costs Canada about $11,000/yr. If you want FIDE ratings, titles, opportunities to compete internationally etc this money must come from somewhere. Would you buy a membership if it gave you access to a site where Canada's FIDE-titled players would annotate their games, explain opening theory or just write blog-style for the general membership?
If so, how much would you pay?

[Ben Daswani]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

If by elite you mean FIDE titled, then my experience is that almost no Canadian elite player cares about their CFC rating.

I don't even have a FIDE rating, but I have the necessary games to get one at the next rating update, and I already don't care about my CFC rating. Who the hell would? It's an inferior rating system.

[Jason Lohner]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

If by elite you mean FIDE titled, then my experience is that almost no Canadian elite player cares about their CFC rating.

Actually my term 'elite' has a broader definition. Let me give some examples of an 'average' player

At my job one of the secretaries plays chess every day! she goes home and logs into yahoo and plays a couple of games. She loves to play, but what incentive does the CFC offer to attract someone like her? they offer absolutely NOTHING. She plays for the love of the game, not for a rating.

I play on chessworld.net Canada is ranked fourth amongst all of the countries on this UK based server. I have played alot of Canadians on there. When I check their 'homepage' and they have there real name I check the CFC site to see their national rating. I have yet to come across anyone there who belongs to the CFC. Most of these people pay $60/year to play on this site. It offers great value (IMHO) for the money. What the CFC has to do is offer some Value for these 'average' people to join.

Heck lets look at the local club scene. How many people in the local clubs are CFC members. In my small club in tiny town salmon arm, I am the only CFC member. These are just 'average' chess players. Yes there are alot of people who are 'average' people who play in tournaments but from the declining participation in the events here in BC, they are fewer and fewer.

This weekend I am driving 5 hours down to Vancouver to play in a non CFC rated tournament. The TD is a 1200 rated player who has set up an invitational tournament with a Simul with a former BC Champion. The TD is Not a CFC member but plays in one CFC tournament/year using the tournament membership. All the people who are playing are 'average' chess players.

My definition of 'elite' is a player who expects funding from the CFC. From what I can see the CFC is broke and these players have to realize that there just isn't funding with this level of membership.

What the CFC needs is to stop concentrating on the select few and start promoting chess to these 'average' players. Perhaps then the CFC would have the money to help out our 'elite' players.

[Valer Eugen Demian]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

Agree with Bruce CFC needs to change; at least he has a history of being an active member like a few other posters here. What I am a bit disappointed about is the reaction of the younger players! Most of the times it feels like they know it all already...

http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speech..._Kennedy/5.htm

[Valer Eugen Demian]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

Actually my term 'elite' has a broader definition. Let me give some examples of an 'average' player

At my job one of the secretaries plays chess every day! she goes home and logs into yahoo and plays a couple of games. She loves to play, but what incentive does the CFC offer to attract someone like her? they offer absolutely NOTHING. She plays for the love of the game, not for a rating.

I play on chessworld.net Canada is ranked fourth amongst all of the countries on this UK based server. I have played alot of Canadians on there. When I check their 'homepage' and they have there real name I check the CFC site to see their national rating. I have yet to come across anyone there who belongs to the CFC. Most of these people pay $60/year to play on this site. It offers great value (IMHO) for the money. What the CFC has to do is offer some Value for these 'average' people to join.

Heck lets look at the local club scene. How many people in the local clubs are CFC members. In my small club in tiny town salmon arm, I am the only CFC member. These are just 'average' chess players. Yes there are alot of people who are 'average' people who play in tournaments but from the declining participation in the events here in BC, they are fewer and fewer.

This weekend I am driving 5 hours down to Vancouver to play in a non CFC rated tournament. The TD is a 1200 rated player who has set up an invitational tournament with a Simul with a former BC Champion. The TD is Not a CFC member but plays in one CFC tournament/year using the tournament membership. All the people who are playing are 'average' chess players.

My definition of 'elite' is a player who expects funding from the CFC. From what I can see the CFC is broke and these players have to realize that there just isn't funding with this level of membership.

What the CFC needs is to stop concentrating on the select few and start promoting chess to these 'average' players. Perhaps then the CFC would have the money to help out our 'elite' players.

You might be surprised to hear that not too many countries experience the same attitude of their "average" players as the one you mention. You keep on pointing what CFC does not do for you as a player, but very little about what you would like to see in order to change this situation. Personally I see you driving down to Vancouver (where I am) for a non-CFC rated tournament rather disappointing. I would not brag about it, but this is just me...