5.4 New Business

[Lyle Craver]

Any other items members wish to be brought forward can be posted here

[Michael Barron]

Canada is invited to participate at World Team Championship 50+, 65+ 2018 - please see:
http://www.schachfestival.de/images/2018/World_Team_Championships_50_65_2018_Regulations_EN G.pdf

Are we going to send a team?

[Hal Bond]

Canada has a team when individuals put a team together of their own initiative. The CFC has no budget for this event so we do not get involved in team selection.

[Michael Barron]

Canada has a team when individuals put a team together of their own initiative. The CFC has no budget for this event so we do not get involved in team selection.

Thank you, Hal, for clarification!

We had a preliminary talk between individuals who's willing to put a team together.

So far a possible Canadian team looks like:
David Cummings
Victor Plotkin
Michael Barron
Yury Ochkoos

It's good to know that Executives are supportive for this initiative.

[Undriadi Benggawan]

Raise CFC Membership Fees

When was the last time CFC membership fees increased?

At least increase it for the Juniors. Chess parents willing to pay $60/hour lesson. They will not object much of annual increase of say $24. That's a cup of coffee/month.

CFC need to generate revenues.

[Aris Marghetis]

Raise CFC Membership Fees

When was the last time CFC membership fees increased?

At least increase it for the Juniors. Chess parents willing to pay $60/hour lesson. They will not object much of annual increase of say $24. That's a cup of coffee/month.

CFC need to generate revenues.

I support the idea of raising annual CFC fees for Juniors. Compared to any other activity that I know of that requires national affiliation, they are comparably very low. In addition, from what I understand, a disproportionate amount of volunteer/Executive/committee efforts are regarding Juniors. But I'm open to being corrected if I'm mistaken.

[Bob Gillanders]

I support the idea of raising annual CFC fees for Juniors. Compared to any other activity that I know of that requires national affiliation, they are comparably very low. In addition, from what I understand, a disproportionate amount of volunteer/Executive/committee efforts are regarding Juniors. But I'm open to being corrected if I'm mistaken.

CFC membership dues are comprised of 3 components: the CFC share, provincial dues, and taxes (GST/HST)
Provincial affiliates decide their dues, and tax rates differ across Canada.
The CFC share is Adults $36 / year, Juniors $24 / year.
Thus, to equalize the adult and junior rates at the CFC level, increase junior memberships by $12/year.
For me, that's about 8 coffees /year ( Tim's small regular, just in case anyone wants to buy me a coffee!)

[Vladimir Drkulec]

i am not in favour of any increase in CFC dues unless someone gives me a good rationale for it and explains what we will do with the money. It appears that we are headed for a record year revenue wise. Doing something with youth dues seems less unreasonable but I wouldn't look at any large increases anywhere. Lets increase the numbers and we can make do with the current fee structure.

[Undriadi Benggawan]

CFC record year revenue is good.
Wouldn't it be nice if we have more money to support Youth team to international tournaments.

Good coaches will want to be paid more than $500 to spend 2 weeks travelling with the team.

What is wrong to have more money in the bank?

[Michael Barron]

CFC record year revenue is good.
Wouldn't it be nice if we have more money to support Youth team to international tournaments.

Good coaches will want to be paid more than $500 to spend 2 weeks travelling with the team.

What is wrong to have more money in the bank?

Undriadi,
This is a question for the Youth Committee.
But in my opinion, for non-for-profit organization it's wrong to have more money in the bank - money should work for the benefit of the organization.
To have more money to support Youth team to international tournaments we need to organize more youth tournaments in Canada and increase participation.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

What is wrong to have more money in the bank?

We have over $400,000 in the bank counting the foundation and our bank accounts. We have to be careful as a non-profit.

In the case of youth chess we raise revenues with only one tournament which is CYCC. Probably we need extra players to pay more to pay for the actual costs of sending them. We can already do that as it is built into the original motion that set the level at $150 and $300 for those who did and didn't attend CYCC. If we go back to the original intent which was that you had to finish in the top 3 at CYCC to go to WYCC then we could easily afford to pay the coaches more because we would only need one for each tournament and their hotel and food would be paid for by the organizers.

[Undriadi Benggawan]

Michael,

We should have some money in the bank.
Does CFC have money for 2018 Olympiad?

In theory, membership fees that is paid by members in this year has not been fully accrued.
For example December fees should still be in the bank. January 2017 membership fees has been accrued.

CFC should be growing at least sustainable. The more budget we have the more we can do. We should look for sponsorship. If we don't have the talent in house, look for one.
We recruited Brett as PR Coordinator this year I was hoping he can double up as fund raiser but his plate is too full. Has anyone seen any progress?


Cheers,
Undriadi Benggawan

[Vladimir Drkulec]

We have members complaining that they want us to lower our fees. I don't think that is reasonable but if we put forward the idea that we want to raise fees to grow our bank account we could easily alienate our regular members and we can easily be headed in the wrong direction. If we lose 400 regular members we can go from a surplus to deficit. This has happened before when the CFC had a book business and members had to beg to get their orders fulfilled. This led to the closing of our retail division and also the loss of our office condo and large operating losses for a number of years. We can't afford to alienate people as we would be doing by raising fees when it is really not necessary. We have made pretty good progress over the last six years or so because then we will be talking about what programs we have to cut and not what we can add. We are operating near the break even point so every new membership goes straight to the bottom line. If we want more programs then we should work on increasing the number of members.

We are a non-profit. We are not supposed to make a profit. I had previously been somewhat pessimistic about the medium term financial situation but our recent results have been so good that while we are going to have the problems that I expected over the short term we have already grown our way out of them.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

As far as junior memberships, I would focus less on raising membership fees and more on perhaps making more players join the CFC. For example if you play in a provincial youth championship you have to have a CFC membership.

[Pierre Dénommée]

We have members complaining that they want us to lower our fees.

I am not in favour of lowering the fees. I have ounce moved a motion to introduce a recreative membership for playing rapid chess only, but the motion has been defeated.

A non-profit in Montreal did try to attract members by offering registration fees for a competition that included a one year membership at a ridiculously low price. After one year, not only did the none of the new members renewed, but the old members were also unhappy about the gift that have been made to the new members. In the end, the sole members of this organization were the members of the Board of Directors for which membership was mandatory. The Directors have been compelled to disband the now useless organization.

A membership that cost nothing will be perceived by the members has having little value. They will wonder why they need it and move away.

[Michael Barron]

As far as junior memberships, I would focus less on raising membership fees and more on perhaps making more players join the CFC.

Thank you, Vladimir!
I agree - more members and more tournaments is a way to grow.

[Paul Leblanc]

I'd like to make two points:
- it's better to increase rates by a small amount to keep up with inflation rather than leave it until a large increase is necessary some time in the future.
- we have national championships that need financial support; few organizers are able to put on a Canadian Open or Canadian Closed without CFC support.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

I think in the case of the Canadian Open we need to award the tournament two or three years out which will give the organizers time to raise any money that is required. When we wait until the last minute we are asking for complications as happened in 2015 when there was no tournament. Governments and tourism bureaus will often be able to offer incentives for holding events but their horizon is several years in the future and not the next six months.