Motion 6.1 - Membership Renewals

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Originally Posted by Paul Leblanc

I recently renewed my USCF membership after a 4 month gap and my new expiry date is 12 months and 2 weeks from the date of payment.
I do acknowledge that there would be some drop in revenue but those were ill-gotten gains, as Vlad points out. I also think the revenue loss will be pretty small but I don't have data to prove it.

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Okay, so instead of assuming the number is pretty small, let's do the math, shall we?

Current membership numbers (May 1, 2013) excluding Quebec:

Adults 928
Juniors 455

Let's assume the proposed motion is adopted, and members take up the practice of not renewing upon expiry.
That will net the member between 1 and 3 months of saved dues.
CFC dues before taxes and Provincial dues are:
Adults $3 per month
Juniors $2 per month

I will take an educated guess here and say that on average, members will save 1 month per year.

Foregone revenue of CFC:
Adults 924 x3 = 2,784
Juniors 455 x 2 = 910
Total = $ 3,694

Hmmm.....that seems high, so lets call it "the worst case scenario".
Considering that not everyone renews each year anyway, let's say renewal rate of 70%.
$ 3,694 x 70% = $ 2,586.?

IMO, the best way to keep members renewing in time is to organize more and various tournaments.

I'll support this motion, as even I from time to time delayed renewal to 10-15 days (or maybe more LOL

I assume there some cost involved with not-renewed members (remove an email from Newsletters), some charges could be imposed for renewal after 1 month.

Bob's numbers imply a membership increase of about $2 per year to recoup the lost revenue. I don't see a problem with that. When was our last increase not counting when we started collecting HST?

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Originally Posted by Ken Craft

An alternative would be to have all of our memberships run from January 1 to December 31 regardless of when an individual paid their membership fee. This however would bring with it a whole host of other problesm although I know other groups do it.

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About half-a-dozen people have "replied" to Ken's post, but no one seems to have considered his idea of having, standard membership "year". Every other organization that I am involved with has a standard membership "year", and any renewal requires full annual payment, or at least a semi-annual late payment.

I think this is a great idea primarily due to to all the hidden savings to both the office and Organizers/TDs! The only challenge is picking the best dates for the new standard membership "year". Maybe I'm mistaken, but I would propose September to August as the best framing of the Canadian chess "season". Comments?!

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Originally Posted by Aris Marghetis

I think this is a great idea primarily due to to all the hidden savings to both the office and Organizers/TDs!

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I don't see any hidden savings. You will still have members renewing throughout the year, only now you will have either a graduated annual rate? or have some very angry members expected to renew late in the year and asked to pay for a full year?

Also, having renewals throughout the year nicely spreads the workload out over the year, else you get a big work bottleneck for the office at renewal time.

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Originally Posted by Paul Leblanc

Bob's numbers imply a membership increase of about $2 per year to recoup the lost revenue. I don't see a problem with that. When was our last increase not counting when we started collecting HST?

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I do not support any increase in membership fees at this time or likely into the future. At the moment the lost revenue is merely theoretical and is probably less than the hole in revenues from last year's CYCC membership fee debacle which will not be repeated this year. By my calculation overall membership revenues will be up even if nothing else changes. My feeling is that whatever we lose in revenues we will gain in good will which in the long run will be reflected in an increase in revenues. We simply look really bad when someone renews and only gets eight or nine months for his one year membership. The goal is not to extract the maximum number of dollars from every transaction. The goal is to increase the amount of chess that gets played. By charging more you build resentment among the chessplaying public. This resentment may not be reflected immediately in reduced memberships but over time the trend has been pretty clear. We have a public relations problem and it would be wise to take what steps we can to reduce that problem. I think that the original proposal is an excellent step in the right direction.

I agree with Vlad entirely. Bob is conscientious in pointing out that there might be a financial cost and it is wise for us to be aware of it.
We are doing out best out here in BC to increase participation and with some success. As a result, we're seeing a bit of a move away from tournament memberships and towards annual memberships. Many of the members are aware of the 8 months for the price of 12 and it is a black eye for the CFC that we can address.
I must be reading Aris' proposal incorrectly. Is he really advocating selling as little as one month of service for the price of 12?

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Originally Posted by Bob Gillanders

I don't see any hidden savings. You will still have members renewing throughout the year, only now you will have either a graduated annual rate? or have some very angry members expected to renew late in the year and asked to pay for a full year?

Also, having renewals throughout the year nicely spreads the workload out over the year, else you get a big work bottleneck for the office at renewal time.

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I would see this working like almost any other national membership. For example, on August 1st, the office notifies everyone it is time to renew. As of September 1st, anyone playing in a CFC-rated event would have to have renewed him/herself. The cost would be the same whether done in August, September, even up to December. For the first few years, we could offer 50% off for anyone who renews only after Christmas. All members would expire August 31st. In my humble opinion, having a single expiry date, and at most 2 renewal rates (100% before Christmas, 50% after Christmas) would indeed result in hidden savings. In my humble opinion, the costs of any bottleneck would be offset by the economies of scale of doing the vast majority of renewals within the "slower" August month. Finally, this system, familiar to most people engaged in other organizations, would avoid the bitterness that might be engendered by backdating months, etc.

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Originally Posted by Aris Marghetis

I would see this working like almost any other national membership. For example, on August 1st, the office notifies everyone it is time to renew. As of September 1st, anyone playing in a CFC-rated event would have to have renewed him/herself. The cost would be the same whether done in August, September, even up to December. For the first few years, we could offer 50% off for anyone who renews only after Christmas. All members would expire August 31st. In my humble opinion, having a single expiry date, and at most 2 renewal rates (100% before Christmas, 50% after Christmas) would indeed result in hidden savings. In my humble opinion, the costs of any bottleneck would be offset by the economies of scale of doing the vast majority of renewals within the "slower" August month. Finally, this system, familiar to most people engaged in other organizations, would avoid the bitterness that might be engendered by backdating months, etc.

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I think a set membership start date is only useful to organizations/sports that have a set season start and end ...... ie leagues and seasonal sports

This is true, but what prevents the CFC from beginning to promote teams chess, clubs and Leagues beginning on September 1st?

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Originally Posted by Fred McKim

I think a set membership start date is only useful to organizations/sports that have a set season start and end ...... ie leagues and seasonal sports

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