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I find even the $2160 figure to be grasping at straws. We have how many annual adult members? If each Governor were given a list of 20 from their province we could probably establish how many might be seniors.
Or even take a random sampling of 100 members and determine what % of those are seniors to have a rough guess.
There are 323 players on the CFC list for BC. I know about half of them and I counted 17 that I believe are over 65. Probably of the ones I don't know, most are juniors. I did not include the life members, many of whom are over 65. Let's call it 6% non life member seniors for BC.
For the record, I'm philosophically opposed to ANY special memberships. I believe EVERYONE should pay the same, regardless of age.
Can we get some idea of how many CFC members are over 65? Is the 6% estimate for B.C. applicable for other regions?
I continue to dislike financial proposals that have no cost estimate attached to them. What are we exactly agreeing to do? There are helpful hints about cost and there may well be a reserve of seniors that will join the CFC at the new membership. These folks are not known to me. Therefore I cannot support this.
Organized chess is already an inexpensive activity. Are there some financial hardship cases among chess playing seniors? I would let the Executive & the Executive Director deal with those individuals on a case-by-case basis rather than changing the membership rates for everybody.
I think that the idea may have merit.
Paul's estimate may depend upon how many current senior members are life members.
Of course we do not currently collect birthdates for adult members. We may have dates on file for those who first joined as juniors.
Since a life member's payment depends on age, I guess we would have dates of birth for life members.
Can we determine from this the number of life members who are seniors?
I also fail to see CFC membership fees as something stopping significant numbers of seniors from playing. Reducing their rates in Ontario (for example) from $48 to $say $30/year is nothing. Other cost factors (memberships to clubs, transit costs, tournament rating fees, weekend tournament fees, etc), make up so much more of the cost of playing chess, that the CFC membership fee is trivial in comparison.
If you want to get more seniors to play chess, then provide easier access by providing transit, clubs where they play their age peers instead of juniors and so on. Reduced CFC memberships are not the way to go.
Yikes! I find myself agreeing with the Ottawa boys!
Chess for Seniors with its Alzheimers mitigation properties is ringing louder each year and the demographic is growing so I can understand the appeal of doing something. I would prefer to see a specific campaign/promo like "seniors month" or a free trial/tournament permit for unrated seniors.
Keep in mind that the World Seniors Championship splits this year into a +50 and a +65, and this will be reflected in the Canadian Senior. This is not a huge carrot but it is a nod of sorts to our senior players.
One thing I haven't heard yet is how the proponents plan on collecting date of birth information. Presumably as part of membership renewals on the same basis as juniors BUT just like juniors it needs to be clear to organizers that the fact that an event has the word senior or junior in the number necessarily "proves" a particular date of birth. In other words it needs to be crystal clear that memberships taken at the discounted rate won't be accepted without date of birth and if that holds up rating of their event? Well we are truly sorry.
I'm still undecided on whether offering a new class of membership is a good thing or not but am definitely not satisfied by what I'm not hearing on the administrative side.
For what it's worth the USCF has two catagories of regular membership (both with and without print magazine ($46 and $40 respectively) a seniors membership ($40 but with print magazine) and two catagories of youth memberships (for U24 and U15). They also have 2 and 3 year memberships which is something I've always felt we erred in getting rid of. (https://secure2.uschess.org/webstore/member.php)
Ever since I first got involved in chess politics back in 2007 there has been a persistent constituency determined to lower membership dues in the belief that it will drive up memberships and revenues. (and I would guess the argument has been raging longer than that). Anyhow, I have always argued against it, believing that our already cheap membership rates are not a significant barrier to participation. A few new members is plausible, but a drop in overall membership revenues is likely. I still believe that,……
But, I am actually considering voting Yes! (but undecided at this time)
My reasoning is that maybe we treat this as an experiment. Since the seniors are a small group of the CFC membership, our financial risk is limited to the 2k (+/-). If hordes of new members don't appear, then we have our answer, and we can stop having this argument every year.
So, if I do vote Yes, that is why. It has nothing to do with my age! :)
It has been suggested that the CFC membership fee is actually a small part of the cost for any active chess player.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Gillanders
Hal points out that it is certainly a good idea to encourage seniors to play chess, but there may be better ways to do this, such as "seniors month" or a no-fee trial/tournament for unrated seniors.
It deems to be a bad time to introduce a new category of membership.
It's complicated to introduce collecting the player's date of birth.
I think that Lyle suggested waiting at least until the NP situation is resolved.
I shall vote no.