13. Membership / Rating Fee Restructuring Committee

[Lyle Craver]

please post your report here

[Bob Gillanders]

Okay, so we have several governors with various ideas to restructure our revenue base to hopefully increase memberships. Motion 2011-A was introduced recklessly at the last quarterly meeting without debate. The motion was to have a flat membership rate of $30. On the other end of the spectrum, there is a proposal to scrap membership dues and hike rating fees to $8. I see problems with both these ideas. So we deferred the discussion to this meeting to give everyone a chance to review their proposals.

So if everyone would please present their proposals on this thread, we can discuss them. To avoid rushing into a decision, this meeting is for discussion only. Any motions brought forward to amend our membership dues or CFC rating fees will not go to a vote at this meeting.

As for motion 2011-A, I would like to void it, to clear the deck. Do I have the consent of the assembly? It could easily be reintroduced at a later date.

[Bob Armstrong]

1. On the Motion 2011-A thread, I have now moved to adjourn the motion to the 2011 Spring Quarterly Meeting, for vote. Debate can occur in the interim on the Governors' Discussion Board.

2. I still think the Membership/Rating Fee Restructuring Committee, legitimately passed and instituted at the 2010 Fall Meeting, should be staffed and get to work ( even though I am far from convinced on any amalgamation of membership and rating fee ). The committee can investigate that option, and Motion 2011-A, and all others, and make a report to the 2011 Spring Meeting, to guide us on the vote on Motion 2011-A, and to bring any other motion they may see as beneficial at that time.

Bob

[Michael Barron]

The CFC's mandate is to promote and encourage the knowledge, study and play of the game of chess in Canada - please see http://www.chess.ca/about_us.shtml

It means - we should encourage people to play chess - the more the better!
One way of encouragement - to eliminate rating fees.
The more tournaments a player play - the better for the CFC!

We all understand, that the Federation needs money to maintain rating system.
To get the money, we need membership fees.
These fees should cover all Federation's expenses, including rating system.
This is the main benefit what a member gets from the Federation.

We should encourage as well non-members to play chess.
For them should be another fee - "pay and play", no strings attached.

A player could choose to buy a membership - and play whole year without any additional fees.
Or to pay "tournament fee" every tournament - be it once per year ot ten times per year.

Such model will promote chess in Canada.

[Paul Leblanc]

I don't mind this idea of Michael's myself and I would be happy to pay the $80or so that this would require as an annual membership. Then the hidden rating fees that many players don't even realize are taken out of a tournament budget would no longer be hidden.
I also support his idea to charge players by the event if they don't want a membership. The cost probably could remain at the current $20 per event.
However, most players would probably balk at the higher membership cost and claim that the rating fee savings would be scooped up by the organizers!

[Stuart Brammall]

Recognizing that ratings are the only real reason people give money to the CFC, I think it is clear that we should not be charging membership at all, and should just be charging rating fee / tournament fee.

It seems to me that charging everyone $8-$10 per tournament (I worked it out at during the last online meeting) is far more reasonable, considering everyone plays a different number of events.

I am always disturbed when taking registrations at Hart House, and some newbie comes in and pays $43 (or even $20) and I realize that because this is his only tournament of the year he is paying almost 10 times what I pay per game to have those games rated.

Having a per tournaments fee would encourage new players to come out.

[Paul Leblanc]

I expect there would be some reduction in overhead as well if we did not have memberships per se. I remember Stuart's suggestion but don't remember the analysis. There probably would be less revenue from those of us in provinces that have low levels of chess activity but it would be made up by higher revenue in Ontario.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Michael:

For 2009-10 the revenue from annual memberships and rating fees were:

Membership - $ 46,767 ( Adult annual rate for CFC part - $ 36 )

Rating Fees - $ 28,582

Total - $ 75,349

If we were to try to raise all this by membership, we would need a 61 % increase, which would be $ 58/yr .

1. Is this acceptable?
2. What about the argument that members play at different rates during the year, and so those who play less are really subsidizing the active players.
3. Stuart Brammall has suggested a pay-as-you-play fee, tournament by tournament, as treating chess players more equally - the more you play, the more you cost the CFC, and the more you pay. What do you say to that?

Bob

[Fred McKim]

If we ever get any kind of a concensus on this, I'd like to see the rating fee for active events half that of regular events.

This basically becomes a tournament membership, and it doesn't make sense for full two or three day weekend events to be the same price as a 5 or 6 hour tournaments.

Organizers would then have a choice if they wanted to have an event for novices, the CFC charges could be less.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Stuart:

I was not following your discussions on rating analysis with Roger Patterson a while ago. But I thought one of the conclusions he came to was that the absolute number of tournament players per year was decreasing ( OTB is in decline )?

Is this a concern for your proposed Pay-as-you-play scenario? Will CFC be on a continually declining revenue base? Will it be more pronounced than any annual membership decline we are suffering?

Bob