New CFC funding structure

[Denton Cockburn]

First a question, Does the CFC make money from the newsletter? I'm assuming so since they still have it going.

Has the CFC governors thought of having a per tournament rating fee increase and eliminating the membership fee?

This would make it more tenable for new or less serious tournament players to come play in tournaments. Right now it doesn't really make sense to play in even ONE tournament unless you can see yourself playing in at least 10 for the year.

I'm thinking something like $8 adult rating fee, and $1 all-junior rating fee.
The downside is that it would make tournaments appear more expensive. The current serious members wouldn't have a problem with it as they would know that it's in exchange for a $50 membership fee. New players wouldn't notice the difference at all as they would just think that some tournaments are expensive. The cost of running the CFC would be hidden in entry fees where people feel less overwhelmed.

You have no idea how many University students I've had to watch walk away when they ask what it would take to play in a tournament and I tell them that they'd have to pay a $50 membership fee to the CFC, plus pay $10 more to play in the tournament. I'd rather just tell them, "Oh, it's $15 to play". They can play in that tournament and maybe come back for another one, or that could be it and they just walk away after the first one. Either case is really a win for the chess community.

Another upside is that the rating fees would only be known by the TDs/Organizers. These individuals are already the most dedicated chess activists.

Right now we need to broaden the base of people that are willing to play in tournaments. I think the current CFC membership fee is actually hurting chess.

I've been made aware that the B.C. Chess Federation does this currently, charging $4 per tournament entry, so it's not a crazy untried idea. As I've heard, it's actually working out nicely in BC.

What do you think? and what does the CFC think?

Denton Cockburn

[Bob Armstrong]

CFC Membership/Rating Fee Restructuring Committee

Hi Dennis:

A few on-line meetings ago, the CFC governors struck a Membership/Rating Fee Restructuring Committee. But it never got staffed, because it was felt that we needed to see how the new website came out, and how it would play into new member recruitment.

And yes, a governor has floated your idea already.

Your idea, and others on $$ restructuring of the CFC, are to be canvassed by this committee, and they are to present a report and recommendation to the governors.

It will now be up to the new CFC Executive elected on July 12, to take the bull by the horns, get volunteers, and a chair, for the committee, and have them go to work, with a rather short reporting deadline.

Bob

[Denton Cockburn]

Re: New CFC funding structure

Thanks for the response Bob.

Hopefully this or some similar idea is adopted. I'd love to see more players get into tournament chess, and anything that encourages that is good.

Denton

[Gary Ruben]

Re: New CFC funding structure

First a question, Does the CFC make money from the newsletter? I'm assuming so since they still have it going.

The CFC didn't always have a magazine. In the early 70's there was a private magazine written and published by some of our top players.

I went to a meeting in Kingston where the shape of the organization was changed. They voted a magazine which, as I recall, justified a healthy (at the time) increase in membership fees. This magazine replaced a small booklet with only ratings which was published once a year, as I recall. My memory from 40 years ago is dim so if the publication of ratings was more often than that maybe someone else recalls.

Anyhow, now it's on to more important tasks for me. I intend to watch the live games from the Canadian Open, if they are on the internet. It's always fun to see whose version of the French Winawer loses most brilliantly to a higher rated player.

[Paul Leblanc]

Re: New CFC funding structure

Denton, there is some merit in your idea. As an organizer I always cringe at having to sell a $36 annual membership or a $20 tournament membership to a new player in addition to provincial dues and rating fees (which are hidden costs here in BC since they are absorbed out of entry fees).
As for how much the (hidden) rating fee would have to be bumped up to offset the membership revenue loss, let's say for example that the average CFC player plays in 3 tournaments per year. That would mean adding $36 divided by 3 = $12 to the rating fee for a new rating fee of $18 per player per event.
Another possible way of approaching the problem would be to give a large discount on membership dues to new members. The revenue loss could be offset by increasing renewal dues for existing members by a small amount.

[Fred McKim]

Re: New CFC funding structure

First a question, Does the CFC make money from the newsletter? I'm assuming so since they still have it going.

What do you think? and what does the CFC think?

Denton Cockburn

The budget line cost of the newsletter is $18,000. I suppose one could argue that having the newsletter increases membership, so perhaps the cost is not quite $18,000, but we certainly don't make money from it.

The Executive and Governors obviously feel that this is a benefit to the members that is worth keeping. There is not 100% unanimity, but presumably a majority.

[Paul Leblanc]

Re: New CFC funding structure

Correction, $15 would be the new rating fee in my hypothetical example.

[Kerry Liles]

Re: New CFC funding structure

First a question, Does the CFC make money from the newsletter? I'm assuming so since they still have it going.

...removed other interesting stuff

Denton Cockburn

I don't see that the newsletter can be a profit centre... I believe the advertising for it can bring in some revenue, but I would have to believe overall it is a 'loss-leader' (the editor is paid to produce it, contributors may be paid for articles etc).

In other words, the newsletter is one of the benefits of being a CFC member. Measuring what effect that has on revenue is not a trivial job.

The same is true for the previous Print version, except the production and distribution costs were much higher, so in that sense, the online newsletter has to be more cost effective.

[Fred McKim]

Re: New CFC funding structure

Correction, $15 would be the new rating fee in my hypothetical example.

Plus the provincial fee, you guys already have this.....

[Stuart Brammall]

Re: CFC Membership/Rating Fee Restructuring Committee

Here it is, straight from the governors forum, Oct. 2010, posted by yours truly:

The idea behind moving to a single fee (one that should in my opinion replace the rating fee) is that, in reality, the rating of tournaments is the only thing of value the average player recieves from this organization. Sure we have a news-letter, but we all know that no one pays a membership if they do not plan to play in tournaments.

When do you use a CFC membership except when playing in tournaments? Never.

We provide one service; we should charge one fee.

When I write a cheque to the CFC, I do it to get my games rated--- That is to say that I am viewing the money from both my membership and the rating fees collected from the events as both going to pay for the rating my events.

The reason why I thing the single fee should be what is now the rating fee is simply because not everyone plays the same number of events. Oubviously this new single fee would need to be significantly higher then the current rating fee--- looking at the budget right now I can see we get aprox. $31,000 from rating fees, this indcated aprox, 10,300 rating fees paid. To make up the total of the current mempership fees + rating fee (aprox $82,000), the new fee would need to be aprox. $8. ---- Probably should be a little higher since I have assumed everyone is using SwissSys and paying the low rating fee.

Why is this more fair?

This way you're not asking someone planning to only play one event to pay $9 per game (($43 ontario membership +$3 rating fee)/ 5 games in a weekender) while I sitting across the board from him am getting my games rated for $1.5 each(($43 ontario membership + (9X$3 rating fee)) / (9 tournaments X 5 games per event))

What it means:
-If you play less then six events per year you would pay less to the cfc
-If you play more then six events you would pay more
-Service remains the same
-Much easier to attract new participants when you don't ask them to pay twice what the guy next to them in line just handed over.

Oubviously these figures are rough, but certainly they are not arbitrary.
One issue would be determining how much of the current rating fee revenue is from junior only events, since this is not recorded in the database.

Just so it's clear-- there was significant and vocal opposition to any such change to the fee structure...

[Roger Patterson]

Re: New CFC funding structure

The budget line cost of the newsletter is $18,000. I suppose one could argue that having the newsletter increases membership, so perhaps the cost is not quite $18,000, .

Plus the office costs of managing the distribution list

[Fred McKim]

Re: CFC Membership/Rating Fee Restructuring Committee

Here it is, straight from the governors forum, Oct. 2010, posted by yours truly:


What it means:
-If you play less then six events per year you would pay less to the cfc
-If you play more then six events you would pay more
-Service remains the same
-Much easier to attract new participants when you don't ask them to pay twice what the guy next to them in line just handed over.

Oubviously these figures are rough, but certainly they are not arbitrary.
One issue would be determining how much of the current rating fee revenue is from junior only events, since this is not recorded in the database.

Just so it's clear-- there was significant and vocal opposition to any such change to the fee structure...

One of the big problems with this is that not all CFC events are created equal. For example a small club event vs a provincial open - yet both would be taking the same amount from the player. This would kill a lot of the smaller club events.

[Ken Craft]

Re: New CFC funding structure

The key to lowering the membership fee is to massively grow the base. We can think of creative ways in which we can create cheap membership rates for children and newbies.

[Denton Cockburn]

Re: New CFC funding structure

The budget line cost of the newsletter is $18,000. I suppose one could argue that having the newsletter increases membership, so perhaps the cost is not quite $18,000, but we certainly don't make money from it.

The Executive and Governors obviously feel that this is a benefit to the members that is worth keeping. There is not 100% unanimity, but presumably a majority.

$18000 and the CFC has what, 1200 members? That's $15 per member.
Please tell me that I'm completely wrong about the number of members, because if that's correct, then the price of the newsletter is most definitely not worth the cost.

There are a lot of online chess magazines right now. We may lose some members by eliminating the magazine, but we'd gain more members (in my view) from the reduced (or eliminated) membership fees.

Denton

[Kerry Liles]

Re: New CFC funding structure

$18000 and the CFC has what, 1200 members? That's $15 per member.
Please tell me that I'm completely wrong about the number of members, because if that's correct, then the price of the newsletter is most definitely not worth the cost.

There are a lot of online chess magazines right now. We may lose some members by eliminating the magazine, but we'd gain more members (in my view) from the reduced (or eliminated) membership fees.

Denton

Well, without the newsletter, the CFC offers nothing whatsoever except a rating service (which is additional cost anyway) and interface with FIDE. Try selling that collection of nearly nothingness.