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In itself the size of the membership is meaningless. Increasing numbers should not be a goal in itself if they are only temporary and the result of artificial measures. For example, overnight the CFC and CMA could strike a deal upon which every CMA kid who has ever touched a chess piece would become a CFC "member" for let say a nominal price of 2$ per year. Overnight the CFC so called membership could triple or quadruple for whatever it would be worth. But in actuality nothing much would be changed by that. Most of these kids would still not be "real" chess players, most of them would still have a hard time figuring out the en passant capture, many of them would remain unfamiliar with chess notation (thanks to CMA's unwillingness to have mandatory score keeping in its events, even the top ones), and most of them would still give up chess at the first opportunity.
The 10,000 figure is based on the current model of paid memberships (mostly junior memberships) and not a discounted model though I would really love to sell 1 million memberships at $2 each as an alternative to the current fee structure. Its just hard to get from here to there.
It is possible that I am living in a fantasy world and chess is a much harder sell everywhere else than it is here.
The CFC has the foundation so they aren't exactly destitute of cash.
If the membership is increased by 1,000, as an example, and they all opt for life membership there will more than a 50% increase of players and with that membership money going into the foundation they will have Bupkis to do the administration. What's needed is a "reallocation" of funds.
Most of the membership increase will typically be junior age players. They are unlikely to sign up for life memberships.
A large part of the administration is due to rating of tournaments. This should be covered by the $3 plus HST rating fee.
Jean, my memory may be faulty. I thought the math curriculum included a segment on chess and was contributed to the strength of Quebec chess.
You are talking about a short-lived experiment that went on about 20 years ago on a very small scale. The chess content in that math program was very small and did very little for Quebec chess, although it apparently improved math results. Currently only some classes in a small number of schools spreaded all over Quebec (probably they can be counted on your fingers) benefit from chess lessons during regular hour classes, thanks mostly to individual efforts and contacts.
By comparison, french schools in northern Ontario are way ahead of us in terms of penetration into the regular curriculum. The Nadeau family (Denis, Ellen and François) and Pierre Hardy spent last fall between 250 and 300 full days teaching chess in various schools belonging to the french school boards (and getting paid for it by the school boards). And it seems that more people will be needed next year since that teachers and school principals appear extremely happy about the positive impact that learning chess has on the kids.
Two weeks ago in Sudbury they had their annual "tournoi d'échecs franco-ontarien" with over 250 french speaking kids (remember, this is Ontario!). I took part for the third year in a row as special guest and speaker.
I wish that this kind of effort could spread elsewhere, but unfortunately neither the federations nor CMA seem to be interested in lobbying for chess lessons within the regular curriculum.
By comparison, french schools in northern Ontario are way ahead of us in terms of penetration into the regular curriculum. The Nadeau family (Denis, Ellen and François) and Pierre Hardy spent last fall between 250 and 300 full days teaching chess in various schools belonging to the french school boards (and getting paid for it by the school boards).
The Chess Institute of Canada do similar things in Toronto downtown.
Every year Windsor [actually John Coleman with the help of an army of volunteers] holds a scholastic tournament over two days (once over three days) where 1400 children in grades 1 through 8 come together for a one day tournament (approximately 700 each day).
Any chance to organize more tournaments like that in Windsor?
IMHO, only regular competitions produce strong players who might stay longer in chess and could become CFC members.
Any chance to organize more tournaments like that in Windsor?
IMHO, only regular competitions produce strong players who might stay longer in chess and could become CFC members.
Apparently London has a similar event though slightly smaller. Also they don't feed players into the OYCC as Windsor does. If anyone is aware of similar events in other cities I would love to hear of them.
As pointed out on Chesstalk, Hamilton has a similar event though for checkers and not chess.
Chatham has a smaller event of 200 to 250 players run by John Coleman (the man does get around). I helped in Chatham the last two years. He has a well oiled machine with teacher and high student volunteers running the grade school sections. Chatham adds a small high school section to the grade schools. Chatham has no playoff like Windsor does.
In Ontario, high school students are required to do a certain number of volunteer hours in order to be able to graduate. Both the Windsor and Chatham tournaments provide some high school students the opportunity to earn credit for some volunteer hours.
The GTA would be a logical place to start as there are enough local organizers and children playing chess already. Perhaps there are already such events outside of the CFC and CMA that I am not aware of.
Optimists organize chess tournaments in the York Region (above Toronto). Regional winners go to Ontario challenge.
Any idea of how many children play in the tournaments?
The Optimists sponsored tournaments in Windsor in the past. I think scouts and guides would be natural groups to look at with organizing or sponsoring such events for their members.
For those of you more familiar with players in the York Region than I am, about what percentage of the players in e.g. the York Region final (pick a couple of random grades) are:
a) active CFC players/members
b) active CMA players
c) neither of the above (probably this is the only event they play in)
For the membership to reach 10,000, I think it will have to include more than Southern Ontario.
I always looked at building a membership in steps.
1. Interest people in joining and enroll them in the organization.
2. Entertain the member during the term of their membership.
3. Retain the member and register a renewal.
This should be the basic CFC three step.
You'll always get a certain percentage of turn over in the membership. However, the base number should be higher than it is now.
Did you know a Canadian finished 4th in the First Junior World Cup? He tied for first in his section of the preliminary round and finished 4th in the final round. It's an International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF) event.
In Guelph the Catholic Board runs an event separate from the Public School Board. Between them they draw close to 400 players. The Catholic Board has seeded players to the Chess Challenge but they waver on this practice because too few of the kids want to step out of their comfort zone. The public schools do a team event - 4 board matches in primary, junior and intermediate, but this is a cumbersome format and they are looking at going grade by grade next year.
I like Jean Hebert's idea of writing down the moves but this is a huge step for them. Gotta find a way to make them want to do it!
I like Jean Hebert's idea of writing down the moves but this is a huge step for them. Gotta find a way to make them want to do it!
Kevin Spragget has picked up on this topic on his blog.
I like Jean Hebert's idea of writing down the moves and I haven't really seen it as a huge step for the kids. The kids don't seem to mind and they even want to do it so that they can be real chess players. I have taught two groups of beginners over the course of six or seven weeks and in each case the kids were learning to record their games by week four. Many of the kids ask for scoresheets to record their casual games. I emailed them scoresheet templates so that they can practice at home. We practiced by showing a series of short games of about 25 moves on the projector and having the kids record the game. Of course they were able to compare their results with their neighbor. There didn't seem to be any difficulty to transition to recording their own games afterwards.
I introduced clocks in the fifth and sixth weeks. Of course Windsor has clocks in all of its tournaments and classes (even the CMA events) as a legacy of the Trillium grant associated with the 2010 CYCC and also as a result of John Coleman's stock of clocks which were previously used for the Windsor Chess Challenge.
We had one young boy who is going to CYCC who was attending the intermediate class (a successor to the beginners class) who went to the advanced class where recording is mandatory since there are no casual games there. He was reluctant to record his moves but I explained to him that we couldn't help him to get better if he didn't record his games so that we could see the mistakes that he was making now and correct them so that he didn't continue to make the same mistakes. He seemed to accept this explanation and there have been no more complaints about recording the game. He is now attending the intermediate class and the advanced class ahead of CYCC.
Last edited by Vlad Drkulec; Sunday, 27th May, 2012, 12:41 PM.
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