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View Full Version : 19. Membership Drive Committee



Lyle Craver
09-30-2011, 04:16 AM
Kevin Pacey is leading this discussion.

Kevin Pacey
10-01-2011, 12:20 PM
I wish to propose striking a CFC Membership Drive Committee. I understand that there was a (one man) Membership Drive Committee in 2010-11 (Bob Gillanders), but that there is no such committee for 2011-12 at present. I am willing to serve on such a committee, should it be struck.

I am willing to contact ex-members by email (if the CFC is not currently doing so), as part of a possible membership drive, if I can be provided with a list of ex-members' email addresses.

Fred McKim
10-01-2011, 03:08 PM
I wish to propose striking a CFC Membership Drive Committee. I understand that there was a (one man) Membership Drive Committee in 2010-11 (Bob Gillanders), but that there is no such committee for 2011-12 at present. I am willing to serve on such a committee, should it be struck.

I am willing to contact ex-members by email (if the CFC is not currently doing so), as part of a possible membership drive, if I can be provided with a list of ex-members' email addresses.

We had set aside a budget item of $500 in the 2010/11 budget. We were planning to use this money to print pamphlets (perhaps splitting costs with clubs who could use 50% of the pamphlet for their own material).

Kevin Pacey
10-01-2011, 03:38 PM
We had set aside a budget item of $500 in the 2010/11 budget. We were planning to use this money to print pamphlets (perhaps splitting costs with clubs who could use 50% of the pamphlet for their own material).

I knew of the proposed pamphlet program, and the delay in its implimentation. I haven't heard yet from Bob Gillanders whether he or the CFC plans to impliment his proposed pamphlet program this year, or if Bob plans to [re-]join a Membership Drive Committee for this year too, should one be struck.

I am not sure how sustainable such a 50%-50% advertising pamphlet program can be, in the long run. People have pointed out that the CFC had a 'Passport to Chess' pamphlet, for many years (if not still now?), but I agree with anyone who believes a 50%-50% club-CFC advertising pamphlet would be more effective, assuming the CFC can sustain the production and distribution of such pamphlets.

Lyle Craver
10-01-2011, 06:46 PM
Why does the CFC need to actually publish the pamphlet?

Could we not prepare the pamphlet as a .doc file with a block for local clubs to download and add their own material then let each club print off what they need? Leaving a small print copyright clause should serve the Federation's needs. (Which are basically to prevent the 'club block' section of the pamphlet being used for purposes not sanctioned by the CFC)

I'd like to see a 'club resource' web page anyways where commonly used documents like wall charts, pairing cards etc could be posted and shared. This could even be done as a sub-forum on this forum if the cost of creating a new webpage for this is deemed too high!

Kevin Pacey
10-01-2011, 07:52 PM
Why does the CFC need to actually publish the pamphlet?

Could we not prepare the pamphlet as a .doc file with a block for local clubs to download and add their own material then let each club print off what they need? Leaving a small print copyright clause should serve the Federation's needs. (Which are basically to prevent the 'club block' section of the pamphlet being used for purposes not sanctioned by the CFC)
...


My guess (in that I'm not knowledgable about printing) would be that an assumption behind last year's proposed 50%-50% pamphlet printing program is that clubs might wish for a certain quality of paper/glossy brochures (that the CFC would provide) that can't be easily produced with an everyday printer, instead of at a printshop.

If that's not the case, there's not much incentive for clubs not to just print up their own 100% club advertising content on regular printer paper, and not bother with including CFC advertising content if they don't care to.

Christopher Mallon
10-01-2011, 08:11 PM
One idea we had a few years ago was to make up a CFC brochure but leave one of the panels blank (perhaps the back one) for the club to fill in with their own information.

Kevin Pacey
10-02-2011, 09:29 AM
One idea we had a few years ago was to make up a CFC brochure but leave one of the panels blank (perhaps the back one) for the club to fill in with their own information.

That's possibly an improved version of the old CFC 'Passport to Chess' brochure, if it's correct to assume the brochure would be of printshop quality paper/glossy. Clubs could naturally still feel free not to distribute it, but if they do distribute it then it is more useful to them than the old 'Passport to Chess' brochure, and they wouldn't have to pay 50% of the cost.

The drawbacks for clubs would be the time consumed filling out their club info on many brochures by hand, and the fact that the quality of the brochure would look somewhat less professional after filling in the club info by hand.

Christopher Mallon
10-02-2011, 09:46 AM
No, that's not what I had in mind. We were thinking about doing a whole new brochure and sending it electronically to clubs, who could add info to the back panel and then print it themselves.

Kevin Pacey
10-02-2011, 09:54 AM
No, that's not what I had in mind. We were thinking about doing a whole new brochure and sending it electronically to clubs, who could add info to the back panel and then print it themselves.

In that case, I'm not sure why clubs wouldn't just print up their own brochures, if they don't mind not having them of printshop quality paper/glossy. That's unless clubs actually care to give the CFC a plug in a club brochure, along with their own advertising.

Christopher Mallon
10-02-2011, 10:14 AM
In that case, I'm not sure why clubs wouldn't just print up their own brochures, if they don't mind not having them of printshop quality paper/glossy. That's unless clubs actually care to give the CFC a plug in a club brochure, along with their own advertising.

What is the #1 complaint when you try to get clubs to run more CFC events, or to even go CFC-Only as some of the larger ones are?

They have trouble "selling" the CFC to prospective members.

Well here's a chance for the CFC to help them with that and at the same time help themselves.

Kevin Pacey
10-02-2011, 10:29 AM
What is the #1 complaint when you try to get clubs to run more CFC events, or to even go CFC-Only as some of the larger ones are?

They have trouble "selling" the CFC to prospective members.

Well here's a chance for the CFC to help them with that and at the same time help themselves.

Well, at the moment the only thing I think I can see the CFC helping non-CFC oriented clubs (i.e. those who don't run CFC rated events normally, or require CFC membership) with is to save a (small?) bit of time. That's if they are using a printer at a club member's home to print out a brochure pre-designed for them by the CFC, rather than having that club member designing a purely club advertising content brochure from scratch and then printing it out on their printer.

If we wish to get even that type of club (which may well be much more common than CFC-oriented clubs) to advertise the CFC through their brochures then at the moment I think a printshop quality 50%-50% cost-shared CFC-club brochure may be more advisable.

Vladimir Drkulec
10-02-2011, 11:12 PM
No, that's not what I had in mind. We were thinking about doing a whole new brochure and sending it electronically to clubs, who could add info to the back panel and then print it themselves.

That seems more sensible and flexible than printing up a bunch of expensive pamphlets which could quickly become dated.

Kevin Pacey
10-03-2011, 06:49 PM
That seems more sensible and flexible than printing up a bunch of expensive pamphlets which could quickly become dated.

Yes, after thinking it over a bit, I've concluded it's not worth trying to improve our chances of having non-CFC oriented clubs advertise us by means of having expensive 50%-50% cost-shared pamphlets. That type of club could well prefer to go ahead and make their own 100% club content expensive pamphlet if they felt like having an expensive pamphlet at all.

As I look at a Hull (Gatineau) club pamphlet at home, I see it's printed on the same size non-glossy printer paper that I have at home. Their pamphlet includes a logo and photographic images. I don't know how much difficulty it took to produce. There were 3 seperate sections of printed material, on both sides of the paper, which was simply folded twice to show each of the three sections of printed material.

Paul Leblanc
10-04-2011, 10:18 AM
We handed out hundreds of flyers for the Victoria Chess Club in 2009 and 2010. We posted them on notice boards, we had them in the libraries. Then we asked every new player who showed up at the club how they heard of us. Almost every single one said they found us by searching the web for Victoria Chess Club. No one mentioned the flyers.

Vladimir Drkulec
10-05-2011, 12:50 PM
We handed out hundreds of flyers for the Victoria Chess Club in 2009 and 2010. We posted them on notice boards, we had them in the libraries. Then we asked every new player who showed up at the club how they heard of us. Almost every single one said they found us by searching the web for Victoria Chess Club. No one mentioned the flyers.

I think that any advertising strategy which doesn't rely primarily on an online presence and web searches is probably a waste of time and money in this age of internet and smartphones.

Michael von Keitz
10-10-2011, 12:15 AM
I wish to propose striking a CFC Membership Drive Committee. I understand that there was a (one man) Membership Drive Committee in 2010-11 (Bob Gillanders), but that there is no such committee for 2011-12 at present. I am willing to serve on such a committee, should it be struck.

I am willing to contact ex-members by email (if the CFC is not currently doing so), as part of a possible membership drive, if I can be provided with a list of ex-members' email addresses.

Kevin Pacey presented his proposal that a CFC Membership Drive Committee be struck. $500 had been set aside in the 2010/11 budget for the production of pamphlets. The main suggestion brought forward in discussion was that of pursuing this pamphet program for the current year, where anecdotal evidence seemed to suggest that web-based advertising was to be preferred. In addition, it was suggested that if pamphlets were to be produced, perhaps they should be offered electronically as a club resource on the CFC website. With Kevin chairing, the committee will further investigate various advertising strategies.