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Bob Gillanders
10-01-2008, 11:50 PM
Memberships continue to inch upward. We added another 22 members during September.

Memberships now stand at 1,915 as of October 1.
at Sept 1 = 1,893
at August 1 = 1,855
at July 1 = 1,835
at June 1 = 1,832
at May 1 = 1,811
at May 1, 2007 = 1,763

It's a start !!

Bob Armstrong
10-02-2008, 12:21 AM
Hi Bob:

CFC must be starting to do some things right !

And I think we'll continue to see the numbers climb once CFC eliminates tournament memberships and those players take out annual memberships to continue playing ( one of the Grassroots' Campaign motions ) !

Bob

Eric Van Dusen
10-02-2008, 06:18 PM
Good job, Bob!

It's the excellent service you are providing,

Eric.

Peter McKillop
10-03-2008, 01:24 PM
Memberships continue to inch upward. We added another 22 members during September. ... It's a start !!

From May, 2003, until May, 2008, ordinary/adult memberships plummeted from 1,642 to 996. At least part of the reason for this, in my view, has to be the atmosphere of distrust created by incompetent executives over the last 8 years or so. Recent successes are only a very small start. I've been a CFC member since 1976. My membership is up for renewal in a couple of months and David Lavin, quite frankly, isn't helping my decision along with his secrecy approach to governance.

Egidijus Zeromskis
10-03-2008, 01:45 PM
Memberships continue to inch upward. We added another 22 members during September.

Bob, May you give some numbers for: new, renew and join again? If not, may you start such statistics in future? Thnx.

Jonathan Berry
10-04-2008, 02:59 PM
From May, 2003, until May, 2008, ordinary/adult memberships plummeted from 1,642 to 996. At least part of the reason for this, in my view, has to be the atmosphere of distrust created by incompetent executives over the last 8 years or so. Recent successes are only a very small start. I've been a CFC member since 1976. My membership is up for renewal in a couple of months and David Lavin, quite frankly, isn't helping my decision along with his secrecy approach to governance.

I don't think that the causes of the CFC's near-collapse have been stated on this board. Two more immediate causes are:
Internet chess, Internet commerce Breakdown of services to members from the CFC business office
We couldn't do much about #1, although the CFC Executive's imitation of the proverbial frog in water in a sauce pan on a stove on low--serves to reinforce your point. Our USCF neighbours also suffered losses.

Concerning #2, Bob's turnaround of office performance, doing the right thing, over the past year, combined with the more-or-less static membership numbers, shows how difficult it is to recapture "good will" once it has been lost.

The unfortunate conclusion is that the CFC cannot afford a full-time salaried employee (called Executive Director), as it has had since 1985, based upon dwindled sales and memberships. The CFC might consider going back to the model that was successful from 1973 to 1984, but it may simply be too late.

I find it interesting that the trends seem to have been affected not at all by the announcement of the demise of Chess Canada.

I would add that actions of CFC Exec do not necessarily have anything to do with membership levels. We have the example, from early in Peter's membership tenure, of an Executive that didn't do anything. They issued no Governors' Letters at all in a year. Yet the membership remained steady because it was business as usual for the CFC Business Office. It was a unit that had an incentive to be efficient.

Egis: I think that Bob's membership figures come from a script that he runs on the CFC membership database. It seems to me that, given a sufficiently sophisticated script language, it would be possible to differentiate new members (who are assigned new membership numbers).

Tony Ficzere
10-06-2008, 02:53 PM
In reviewing numbers of Alberta members 07 vs 08, I found the following

Alberta members as of August 07 191
Alberta members as of August 08 230

Going the right way. I also expect this number to rise to around 240 before the end of October, and that is after taking into consideration expired members, etc.

I would say that the increase is due to a couple of factors.

1. The CFC is functioning much more efficiently.
2. Alberta TD's and organizers are working harder to gain entries to their tournaments.
3. There are more tournaments than in the past
4. Rural communities gaining interest

Towns like Lethbridge and La Crete are gaining members, while Edmonton and Calgary are pretty much where they have been over the last few years. However, I would say that with some of the initiatives that are taking place within the ACA, you may see us break 300 members by next August. Maybe not big potatoes, but more potatoes than before.

Bob Gillanders
10-08-2008, 09:53 PM
Some interesting comments and questions raised fellas. I did a comparison of the current membership list at May 1, 2008, and October 1, 2008.

Type.......May1.........Oct1
Adult........996............993
Junior.......204............209
Jr.Part......171............270
Family........13.............12
Life..........366............369
Honorary....61.............62
Total.....1,811.........1,915

New membership numbers issued:
Adult 36, Junior & Jr.Part 70

Adults not renewing = 39 (not renewing net of returning members)
Juniors(incl Jr.Part) = -34 (not renewing net of returning) hmmm? (this strange number due primarily to large number of juniors renewing at CYCC).

The math gets a little confusing here, but with the adults, the 39 could mean that 50 adults didn't renew, but 11 returned who were long expired. (ed. those numbers are hypothetical, just to illustrate). Whereas, the negative 34 for juniors could mean returning juniors are 50 and not renewing are 16 (ed. again these are hypothetical numbers).

To get those numbers any more precise or meaningful would take mountains of analysis and clairvoyance, so don't ask.

I would hazard a few observations:

The increase is certainly coming from the junior ranks.

The juniors (or their parents) are taking advantage of the cheaper Jr.Part. rate in the absence of the magazine.

Adult membership is almost the same, which includes lost members due to cancelling the printed magazine. How many ?

Both adult and juniors are showing high retention rates. Others have posted previously that historically only 2/3 of members will renew.

I am sure this data can (and will be) be interpreted in many different ways. That's fine.

Egidijus Zeromskis
10-09-2008, 09:46 AM
Thnx, Bob for these numbers.