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14/4/6
Public Relations Coordinator Report (PRC - Non-Executive Officer) - Bob Armstrong
Announcement:
I will not be standing for election at the April GTCL AGM for GTCL CFC Governor. I mentioned this in my report for the last meeting. I have enjoyed my volunteer time for the organization, and some of my major concerns initially have now been at least partly dealt with. Time to move on, since I have accumulated more new non-CFC projects than I had when I first became a governor, and I need back some of my volunteer time for them.
I have also decided, that though I could run as an ordinary member for the Public Relations Coordinator position, it is time to move on. I enhanced this position in the CFC Handbook initially, and became the first holder of this CFC Non-Executive Office. There is always benefit in new blood and new ideas.
I have however, spoken to Vlad about the possibility of splitting off the PRC news postings, and outsourcing them to my chess services company, Canadian Chess Consulting Service,….free for one year. I would then continue doing them for the company. This would free up some PRC time, that could be spent on other chess promotion activities. I imagine this would be a matter for the AGM.
General PRC Duties
Bylaw 3 of the CFC Handbook, under Duties of Officers in Section 8C, gives the mandate of the Public Relations Coordinator position (Created at the 2010 AGM) as:
“ 8C. The Public Relations Coordinator will be responsible for promoting the image of the CFC and for promoting chess generally to the public. As such the Public Relations Coordinator will, among other things:
- deal with mainstream media to promote significant chess news, such as Canadian Chess Champions, a new Canadian GM, major tournaments like the Can. Closed, Canadian Open, Can. Women’s Closed, CYCC, etc., the various benefits accruing from playing chess and other positive aspects of the chess culture.”
PRC Activity for the Quarter
Here is the update on activity since the 2014 Winter Meeting (January/14):
1. “News” Items Postings (on the CFC Facebook page, CFC members’ Chess Chat Forum, and Twitter)
In mid-May/13, the CFC website news was taken over from the PRC by the “on-line newsfeed”. The PRC postings (as noted in the heading) are entirely separate from the website and the on-line newsfeed, though we are all keeping up on what the other is doing. There is seldom duplication, but if there are, the duplications are significantly different since my posts are just very short news “blurbs”, while the on-line newsfeed coverage of the same item is much more detailed. As PRC I am still responsible for the CFC Facebook page, and the members’ CFC Chess Chat Forum (which is fed into the CFC Twitter account). Duplicate posts are made on each.
Since January 1, 38 news item posts have been made (where only 15 had been made in the last quarter of 2013 – this had been an abnormally low total)! This is an average of more than 3 news posts per week; this is similar to the rate for the third quarter of 2013 (July – Oct. /13).
2. Press Releases: None. Generally there are not many chess items that the general mainstream media may consider “news” – this is a hard nut for the PRC to crack. They will sometimes bite on Junior Chess successes though. So it is not uncommon to have a quarter with no press release. Local organizers/teachers contacting local news media re local juniors, or local adults with a significant achievement, seem to get more response.
3. Media Contacts: None (had quite a few though in the last quarter of 2013, when the WCC was on).
4. CFC Facebook Page (Non-Profit Corporation): CFC has continued incremental building of the site - grew from 356 CFC FB Page “Likes” on Dec. 31/13 to 378 today, April 6. This is a slow-down in the rate of growth of membership. 2013 was generally more like 4-5 new “Likes” per week. But slowly, more Facebooker’s are finding our CFC FB page. The majority of “Likes” are not CFC tournament players, and many are not CFC members. We are reaching out in the social media to the non-CFC chess-playing public. We also have many players from other countries as “Likes”, who find Canadian chess interesting, and who now follow Canadian chess. I have significantly changed this page, by now making it a general chess information/news board, in addition to the posts of CFC news. This has been well received. So there are often more than one new posts per day - this fact of ongoing new material daily, brings page "Likes" back to the page more frequently, and so there is more exposure as well to the CFC news appearing from time to time during the week.
5. Discussion Boards: posted numbers of times on the members’ CFC Chess Chat Forum, and the CMA Chesstalk, answering CFC issues raised.
6. New Media Links: This is a problem for the new PRC. I had to get a new computer in Oct./13. Unfortunately, in the transfer of information, some of my e-mail directory was lost. And unfortunately, two that were lost were my Canadian Media Digital/Print E-mail Group, and my Canadian TV/Radio Media e-mail Group. So the new PRC will again have to re-build the CFC media directories, used for press releases.
Median rating of Top 100 active in past 36 months: 2338. Has been stable at around 2345 plus or minus 10 since late 2009
Average Rating of players >1200 active in past 12 months: 1722. Has been stable at around 1720 plus or minus 30 since early 2009
Average Rating of all players >1200 active in past 36 months: 1702. Has been stable at around 1690 plus or minus 10 since late 2010
Average Rating of all players active in the past 12 months: 1364. After a steep climb from 1180 levels (2004 to 2010), this average peaked at 1440 in March 2013 and appears to be settling in somewhere near the current level.
Average rating of all players active in the past 36 months: 1216. This average has been climbing steadily from 1090 levels (2004 to 2010) and will probably find an equilibrium somewhere below the levels for players active in the past 12 months.
Changes in the latter two averages were likely attributable to the migration of 30 minute junior events from Regular to Active rating and hence the reduced production of low rated juniors.
There is no concern of inflation or deflation. The bonus point system appears to be working satisfactorily.
Hi again Paul:
There is some feeling of concern about the rating system sometimes in the membership/public. They hear some saying our CFC system is inflationary (elite players ratings are too high compared to their FIDE ratings); others that it is deflationary (older players ratings are going down). Your report shows stability in the system now.
Can I suggest that you post your report on the CFC News Forum, and on CMA's Chesstalk? I will then repost it on the CFC FB Page (which gets fed into our CFC Twitter Account). This may help counter some of the misconceptions as to where the CFC Rating System is NOW (as opposed to where it may have been in years past).
Bob A
The rating system seems indeed to be more stable now... However, before stabilizing, ratings were already extremely inflated. Ideally, the CFC should do something to go back to more representative ratings... However, I guess most people prefer to have higher ratings, and so it's perhaps better for the CFC, from a business point of view, to keep the ratings like this.
If we look at CFC versus USCF for some of the same players I am getting the impression that the CFC ratings are deflated at least for Windsor juniors which is the group that I am most familiar with. I understand that CFC ratings are inflated relative to FQE ratings.
I was comparing to FIDE or FQE. USCF ratings are also inflated. However, as I said, perhaps inflated ratings are a good way to retain players (as ironic as it may seems).
That can only happen if the two rating systems were merged. As long as one maintains 2 separate rating systems, there will always be differences between the ratings, particulary if the calculations are performed differently.