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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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Denton – As you can see, various revenue models have been discussed over the last few years. They all depend on lower fees and greater numbers. They all depend upon some level of faith that large numbers of new members are ready to join if only they could get a break from punitive fees from the CFC.
IMHO, the argument that CFC membership dues are a barrier to new members is greatly exaggerated. I have no empirical evidence to support my beliefs, but neither does anyone else. Sure, there is anecdotal evidence of students walking away when asked for the $20 tournament fee, but would they have ever become paying members in the future? The evidence is not clear.
The CFC finances are such that we can’t afford too many failed experiments. There must be some credible debate on the topic before any proposed revenue restructuring proposal is brought to a vote.
The CFC finances are such that we can’t afford too many failed experiments. There must be some credible debate on the topic before any proposed revenue restructuring proposal is brought to a vote.
If you have such strong views, why don't you run for president? The past year has been a blast.
To increase membership an online server would be nice. Members playing other members and their server ratings automatically calculated when the game ends. Tournaments and matches paired for the players. Speed chess events and offhand games.
It would be a product which could entice people to join and maybe they'd use the membership to play in regular events as well.
The problem with this is that it'll be hard to explain to people why it was free this year, and now you want them to pay for their next year. It makes sense logically, but humans aren't exactly logical creatures.
Most chess players are logical creatures relative to the general population. My own suspicion is that if we can get a large increase in activity we won't need much of a fee, at least not how the CFC is structured now with the current level of services.
A relatively small rating fee up to $5 per tournament which replaced the $3 fee and the CFC membership fee would be livable. This would only be workable if you doubled participation and/or cut expenses as a result. You would also have to toss out the provincial associations fees or make them separate since the CFC would not realize any cost savings if they still had to administer collection of memberships.
Fees should be somewhat related to the expenses associated with the particular activities and the CFC should make itself efficient in the delivery of services and effective in choosing its priorities with the core mission always at the top of the executives' and governors' minds when choosing activities and how to spend the money entrusted to them.
By our calculations, if the CFC was to stay at current funding levels, then the rating fee would need to be $8 instead of 3. If we ditch the newsletter (the argument could be made that it wouldn't be needed anymore if membership fees are eliminated), then that amount could be reduced to about $6.50.
The problem is that this model would penalize activity and reward inactivity. We want more chess activity and not less. If this model does not lead to more activity then it is the wrong model for the CFC. The newsletter can be a useful tool but needs the CFC to grow so that its cost can be spread over many more members.
The fact is, most big tournaments already have ridiculous (in my view) entry fees.
Most big tournaments don't get a free site. The fixed costs of tournaments keep going up and these get spread over a diminishing base of players. Penalizing activity will reduce activity and accelerate this trend.
I don't think you would notice the rise in entry fees from $60 (and that's a cheap tournament these days) to $65, when in exchange you didn't have to pay a membership fee.
In the last year or so half my tournaments have had an $10 entry fee so any increase would be noticed and felt. I suppose that we could change the format to make them quadruple round robin instead of a double round robin and thus halving the number of CFC submissions without diminishing the number of games played. This solution does not help the CFC which would have to increase the fees to make up for lost revenues.
When the CFC eventually eliminates the results bonus there will be little incentive to even CFC rate our games. Largely all we do is trade points around with one or another player sometimes getting a five or ten point bonus when he wins the tournament by a sufficient margin. Eliminate the bonus and why are we so keen on sending the CFC money to shuffle points back and forth.
I think a title system could be used to stimulate interest in the case of a stagnant or deflating rating system.
As to the small club events; I don't think these would be as harmed as people think they would be. I don't think too many people would complain if their small event had a total entry fee of $6.50 + prize pool.
Someone will complain no matter what you do. A reduced first time membership or a three month membership for one third of the current cost could be one way of addressing the sticker shock of the initial membership fee or the tournament fee. If people can spread the $17 cost over three tournaments then maybe it will not seem like such a burden.
I think this approach would allow a lot of people that want to "try" chess to get a chance to play. The $50 membership fee and $20 single tournament fees are prohibitive to not-currently-serious players playing in tournaments.
Denton
It is a lot cheaper to hang on to the customers you have and get them to use your services more than to try to get new customers. The CFC should not build its strategy around dabblers who are not very interested in chess.
... There must be some credible debate on the topic before any proposed revenue restructuring proposal is brought to a vote.
That's what I thought Denton was trying to do; i.e. initiate some serious discussion on the topic. Rank-and-file members are no longer allowed to see what the governors are discussing (the fear of being called a dumbass apparently stifles some voices). Whether it's here or on the CFC talk board, there is no good reason why members can't participate in their own discussions on CFC topics. In fact, if it wasn't for member discussions at places like this over the last decade and more, and the questions and ideas often generated therefrom, I think the CFC would be in a lot worse shape than it is now. Speaking generally**, I don't think the governors' and executives' overall record is such that they should be trusted conducting the affairs of the CFC in secrecy.
** Yes, I know there are exceptions and situations where good people made tough decisions.
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
That's what I thought Denton was trying to do; i.e. initiate some serious discussion on the topic.
I agree. Denton's comments are most welcome. I would be happy to discuss the issue at length with him or anyone else with an open mind. There are many angles to this complex issue, and I have found nobody yet who has adequately addressed all the relevant issues. All the proposals have merit, but they all have risks too. Everyone is convinced their solution is the right one, but the risk always falls to the CFC finances if the experiment fails. :(
If we can get the Membership/Rating Fee Restructuring Committee staffed and functional, it can, as part of its mandate, generate and guide open discussions on these issues, on the CFC members' Chess Chat Forum, and here on the CMA board, to canvas member opinions. This input would be welcomed by the CFC.
If you have such strong views, why don't you run for president?
Ah, Gary. You keep pretending you would like to see me as Prez for another year, but I know better. ;)
Actually, I do not have strong (rigid) views on this topic. I believe the current mix of membership dues, tournament fees, and rating fees does work well. Maybe some tweaking is in order. However, maybe a radical change would be a better solution. I have given it considerable thought and had many discussions on the topic. Some of the proposals do have merit. However, before we implement any radical changes they will have to be properly vetted, and gain wide acceptance, otherwise the CFC Treasurer maybe become a very unhappy camper. :(
Denton – As you can see, various revenue models have been discussed over the last few years. They all depend on lower fees and greater numbers. They all depend upon some level of faith that large numbers of new members are ready to join if only they could get a break from punitive fees from the CFC.
IMHO, the argument that CFC membership dues are a barrier to new members is greatly exaggerated. I have no empirical evidence to support my beliefs, but neither does anyone else. Sure, there is anecdotal evidence of students walking away when asked for the $20 tournament fee, but would they have ever become paying members in the future? The evidence is not clear.
The CFC finances are such that we can’t afford too many failed experiments. There must be some credible debate on the topic before any proposed revenue restructuring proposal is brought to a vote.
I think that the current CFC fees are not a huge barrier to serious players which by and large are the CFC's core constituency. I don't think that the CFC should significantly raise its fees or its spending at this time or in the future at more than the rate of inflation. Raising rating fees significantly would simply give someone more efficient the room needed to come in and compete with the CFC.
A competitor could come in and offer to rate tournaments for $1 per person per tournament and probably still make money at it. There are groups that are doing it for even less. If that competitor could put together a program of sponsored tournaments which could be modest by comparison to other sports and activities but generous in terms of competitive chess events you could see a large shift from the CFC in as little as a few months. If that organization aggressively and strategically targeted the GTA/Hamilton/Kitchener/Guelph area with a program of tournaments that siphoned off half of the current players the CFC could not survive for very long in its current form.
As long as the CFC manages to stay real, this competitor will not materialize. Gouge people who just want to play chess (or put too many obstacles in front of them and organizers that provide them with that opportunity) and such a competitor could quickly become very real.
The FIDE trump card is probably only relevant to about 300 players in Canada. The CFC shouldn't try to overplay it.
I think that you Bob, first in your work as Executive Director when you turned around the CFC office which had clearly lost its way, really helped to prevent things from deteriorating even more and stabilized the somewhat terminal patient. Hal Bond tried to institute some reforms that basically were performed by David Lavin after the governors balked initially. A testament to your work is that the CFC survived the Van Deusan term. The fact that Eric managed to beat David Lavin in a narrow vote might be put down to one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" moments right up there with the guy that jumped into the tiger's or polar bear's enclosure at the zoo just before feeding time.
The new website will not be the panacea that everyone seems to think that it could be. I think that the CFC overpaid for what they got by Windsor standards but that is probably what things cost in the GTA area. It looks nice and what it cost is a sunk cost so lets all move forward.
Enough chit chat. Time to start heading down towards the Canadian Open.
The CFC finances are such that we can’t afford too many failed experiments. There must be some credible debate on the topic before any proposed revenue restructuring proposal is brought to a vote.
actually maybe they can afford one experiment. Try it on active rated tournaments. AFAIK the CFC active tournament revenue is a bust. Nothing to lose.
Do you know if any of the presidential candidates have proposed a strategic plan for their upcoming terms? and could the last strategic plan be linked to the new website. I tried the search function but no luck. sorry if I missed it.
This is primarily in response to Vlad, as it would be getting pretty long to keep quoting.
1. It "punishes" individual activity, not overall activity. The way we're looking at it, a member would have to play over 10 tournaments per year to get "punished" based on current fees. I don't think there are many such members in the CFC (note that I would be one of those). Perhaps we could cap the amount of rating fees an individual pays, such that they get a refund at the end of each year.
i.e. (Total fees - 3 * #Tourneys - $50) * 0.8. That would still "punish" players that play more than 10 tourneys, but they would get most of it back.
The vast majority of CFC members play less than 10 tourneys a year, including the many (that I guess) don't play any because they don't want to put down $50 ahead of time. All these individuals would get a reduced fee from this proposal.
Again, doing it this way is also intended to reduce the operating expenses of the CFC. It would be silly to change the funding structure and keep the CFC expenses as they are now.
2. Fixed tournament costs: The proposal is designed to INCREASE the number of players. Again, there aren't enough players playing over 10 tournaments that would stop because of the new funding structure (because to be honest, those are the ultimate chess lovers). With even a few more people just trying out tournaments, the per player cost would decrease.
3. Assuming all else stays the same, would you stop playing in the WCL tournaments if the entry fees were increased from $10 to $13? I doubt you would. That's because you, like me, is addicted to serious chess, and would still consider that a bargain for playing.
4. I would like to pair this new funding structure with a push for University members. We have so many kids who play chess as juniors when it's cheap (no memberships). We lose a lot of those at the University level when they are told to pay $50 up front even if they may only play 1 tournament.
5. I think we should also mention that most CFC members don't control how many tournaments they play in. In Toronto, there may be access to well over 20 tournaments a year. In Windsor, that's also true for all but the top group of players. For most players in most small cities, there may be only a few TDs around, and most of them not willing to put on a lot of tournaments. I would DEFINITELY not be willing to pay a $50 membership fee if I only got to play 5 tournaments for the year.
Come on guys, don't you ALL think it's ridiculous for us to ask someone to pay $10 per tournament JUST to have their games rated by the CFC (assuming 5 tourneys)? The newsletter is not a real membership draw. If your tournament is 4 rounds that's $2.50 per game. That's nuts. It's also not sustainable.
Most people have busy lives and demanding families. There are only 52 weekends in a year. There are a lot of people that would like to play a chess tournament every once in a while, but can't commit to 10 a year. We currently have no incentives for these people right now. Let's be honest, asking people to pay a $23 rating fee just to play in ONE tournament is exorbitant.
P.S. Even in our small club in Windsor, I know at least 3 people that I could convince to try a tournament. They know they wouldn't be playing in a lot of tournaments, but would like to see "if they still have it". Also remember that one of the things that helped us grow the adult memberships in Windsor was our membership fee refund initiative. I was one of those people that started playing in tournaments again because of that.
Denton
Last edited by Denton Cockburn; Saturday, 9th July, 2011, 03:14 PM.
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