CFC online governor's meeting in progress

[Alan Baljeu]

Re: CFC online governor's meeting in progress

No, I'm Ontarian, and I wasn't addressing those fees. I was talking about your 42$ proposal.

[Kerry Liles]

Re: CFC online governor's meeting in progress

No, I'm Ontarian, and I wasn't addressing those fees. I was talking about your 42$ proposal.

Gary was speculating that $7/month (84/year) would not be too much for an adult CFC membership... I think your $42 comes from his annual total divided by the two tournaments per year you plan to play.

In any case, CFC memberships are a hard sell now, doubling the price without any marketable increase in benefit would be a risky strategy. The e-magazine is not (in my opinion) worth the investment of $$$ that it requires.

IF the CFC can gradually improve service and sponsorship money for National events - then it can gradually increase the membership rates. External sponsorship has to be found to accelerate that process.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: CFC online governor's meeting in progress

IF the CFC can gradually improve service and sponsorship money for National events - then it can gradually increase the membership rates. External sponsorship has to be found to accelerate that process.

In 2003, the adult membership was 1642 not counting life members. In 2012 it's 932 again not counting life members. They lost close to 45% of the adult members. The adult member numbers in the 900's has been steady for a few years.

http://chess.ca/membership-stats

To lose that large a percentage one has to look at how the organization changed. I forget the year the paper magazine disappeared.

It they double the fees, the most they are likely to lose is half the membership. That will still leave the same amount of income as they are getting before the increase. I doubt such a large membership loss and certainly didn't see that when CCCA doubled the annual fees years ago. What I saw was the membership first staying steady and then growing. An advantage was fewer people would join and drop out in the middle of events. We were getting members who were taking their games more seriously.

Back then the club got to around 700 members or a few over and most were adults. That for a correspondence chess association. Maybe that's why I find it so odd the national over the board federation can't get the membership over 1,000.

I'm not a fan of small annual increases. I like to get the bad news out of the way and go from there, which I why I think a double is the way to go. Of course, if they don't know how to use an increase in income and have no vision toward which to work there's no point in raising the annual dues.

As a point of interest, I still get a printed copy of the CCCA's publication mailed to me. They publish 4 times a year.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: CFC online governor's meeting in progress

The feeling was the benefits of saving money do not outweigh the "downside" of less human involvement.

Why does it take so many governors to administer such a small organization?

[Ken Craft]

Re: CFC online governor's meeting in progress

A culture of silence is prevailing. The executive in the summer held a straw poll topic where they sought advice from the governors. The President ruled that this advice was in the form of an election and therefore he would not release how individual ballots were cast. That ruling was challenged by Governors Craft/Mallon. The President has subsequently ruled that how people cast their votes on the challenge will remain secret. That will be the next ruling that is challenged.

[Kerry Liles]

Re: Re : CFC online governor's meeting in progress

Besides the fact that the CFC-FQE deal is now called "a peace treaty" (I was not aware that a war ever existed...) I cannot find a word on the current state of that deal among those reports and discussions. For example, did the FQE made its first payment to the thrust fund (which might explain how the CFC managed to finance his team at the olympiad) that is supposed to take care of that money ? And has this trust fund even been set up and with what people ? Because according to the deal, only that fund jointly run by representatives of both federations could approve expenses.
Of course I have already repeatedly asked those questions to the FQE president but for some strange reasons he has chosen to remain totally silent as if those things should not be made public. I wonder why if everything has been done properly, that is according to the terms of the deal which indicated a first payment one year from the signature date... in 2013.

In a somewhat oblique fashion, it seems like the trustees of the joint fund have been established:

"Richard Berube and Bernard Labadie have been appointed as the FQE's Trustees"

- from the 4th paragraph in a somewhat casual post by the CFC President in the Governors Online Meeting October 2012 (semi-private area) of the CFC bulletin board here:

http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/sh...0076#post20076

[Gary Ruben]

Re: CFC online governor's meeting in progress

A culture of silence is prevailing.

I call it a tyranny of the 2%.

The math works like this. There is 1 governor for every 50 members of part thereof. That works out to roughly 2% of the members. The only way to trim the plethora of governors is for people not to renew their membership.

[Christopher Mallon]

Re: CFC online governor's meeting in progress

A culture of silence is prevailing. The executive in the summer held a straw poll topic where they sought advice from the governors. The President ruled that this advice was in the form of an election and therefore he would not release how individual ballots were cast. That ruling was challenged by Governors Craft/Mallon. The President has subsequently ruled that how people cast their votes on the challenge will remain secret. That will be the next ruling that is challenged.

You forgot to mention that despite the supposedly sealed ballots, the Executive is in fact aware of who voted yes and no and are merely refusing to release this information to the Governors.

[Fred McKim]

Re: CFC online governor's meeting in progress

You forgot to mention that despite the supposedly sealed ballots, the Executive is in fact aware of who voted yes and no and are merely refusing to release this information to the Governors.

That is incorrect, Chris. Lyle obviously knows and I suppose Michael.

[Christopher Mallon]

Re: CFC online governor's meeting in progress

That is incorrect, Chris. Lyle obviously knows and I suppose Michael.

If even one person knows, then it's not a secret ballot.

You yourself were the one to release a breakdown to the Governors thus implying that the whole Executive has access to that information.

[Fred McKim]

Re: CFC online governor's meeting in progress

If even one person knows, then it's not a secret ballot.

You yourself were the one to release a breakdown to the Governors thus implying that the whole Executive has access to that information.

Usually two people know the result of a secret ballot - a counter and an observer. I was simply relaying the summarized results I received from Lyle.

[Christopher Mallon]

Re: CFC online governor's meeting in progress

Usually two people know the result of a secret ballot - a counter and an observer. I was simply relaying the summarized results I received from Lyle.

Usually those two people do not know who voted in which way.

[Marcus Wilker]

Re: Re : Re: CFC online governor's meeting in progress

Simplistic solutions to complex problems rarely work. CFC members are already paying a hefty price for what they get. Asking for more may bring a little more money short term, but in the long run it would stiffle growth. No serious organisation can live on dues only. Others sources of income must be developped, sponsorship for events and advertizing in CCN for general expenses. But as it is, CCN is a rather unattractive vehicle for advertizers. It does not appear often enough and it does not reach enough people. Somehow it should appear weekly (in a smaller size of course) and be free. As it is non-members can find ways to have it free anyway. The CFC might as well spread it around and multiply its readership, while making it more attractive to advertizers.

I would like it to be free, with CFC promoting access to it, rather than going out of their way to restrict it. Even a little advertising revenue could probably cover the cost of losing revenue from nonmembers who currently purchase CCN.

As far as content, actually I'd just like it to look better, in terms of layout aesthetic.

[Roger Patterson]

Re: CFC online governor's meeting in progress

The feeling was the benefits of saving money do not outweigh the "downside" of less human involvement.

I recently got this link http://www.tornelo.com/ in the email. (from Austrailia so maybe they confused "Victoria Chess Club" with something there - that happens every so often). Of course there are many other such organizations as have been posted by others previously.

If the CFC does not learn to cope with doing rating efficiently and structuring it's membership accordingly, someone will eventually eat it's lunch.