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Thread: Candidate for CFC President

  1. #61

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    The club scene in Canada is definitely not the same as in Europe - mainly due to distance and population density.

    During the Fischer boom, Montreal had a great club setup - YMCA's and boys' clubs formed chess clubs, and companies were liberal with money - supporting strong clubs at companies such as Sun Life, CN, CP, and CBC. It was no problem getting 15 or 20 teams out for the annual event. The matches were traditionally held on the club premises - but eventually all matches were held in the CBC cafeteria (meals available 24 hours a day). Unfortunately - security restrictions put an end to that and the team events (and the clubs - along with company funding) gradually disappeared.

    The Montreal club scene (I define a chess "club" as one with an elected executive, and an organized schedule) is negligible now, with probably two entities meeting the above definitions:

    Ahuntsic (I assume it has an elected executive) meets once a week and has regular events - although only two or three annually that are FQE rated.

    The Montreal Chess Club has an "elected executive" - but I have been to the annual meetings, and usually only 3 or 4 people show up. It has 158 "members": http://www.fqechecs.qc.ca/cms/organi...cs-de-montreal provides a link to the membership list. A $2 annual "membership fee" must be paid by all those who enter events held there (not necessarily organized by the Club - but use their facilities - i.e. the 3rd and 4th floors of Chess and Math in Montreal) - and with 50-60 players in each of the 5-round FQE-rated events held there, the number of "members" can be quite large.

    The largest Quebec team event throughout the 70's 80's and 90's was always the Intercollegiate held every Easter weekend which often attracted over 200 players. That was due to a dedicated organizer (Denis Cote) who spent many hours contacting colleges and arranging a site.

    There are other gatherings of chess players in Montreal in libraries, schools/colleges/universities, parks, coffee shops (the largest being at Cafe Pi) - most of whom are not interested in tournament chess (or not even interested in a quiet, slow game of chess).

    Quebec City and Gatineau both have several active clubs, and manage to organize small team events - but limited to their respective cities.

  2. #62

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hugh Brodie View Post

    The Montreal club scene (I define a chess "club" as one with an elected executive, and an organized schedule) is negligible now, with probably two entities meeting the above definitions:
    no more Lakeshore CC Hugh?

  3. #63

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    Lakeshore CC doesn't have an elected executive, nor regular events (mostly blitz). Even the annual club championship seems to have deteriorated into a series of 20-30 minute games.

  4. #64

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    Spraggett has weighed in on the Club System concept. He is strongly against it.

  5. #65

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    Hi all,

    I spent a couple hours last night talking to Mike about his proposed system. He said that after looking at the negative feedback and specifically at Mr. Patterson's posts, that a revamp of his idea was needed. He also said that he never intended to concretely adhere to the ideas he proposed in his platform, but that he merely wanted to use them as a starting point to allow for the discussion of how to help out Canadian clubs and gain new members. He said that he wanted to use the action plan in his platform as a starting point and rework it and tweak it to create a solid plan of action which members and governors both had a say in and agreed with. He asked me to reiterate that:

    "Ultimately, my platform is a series of talking points, most of which can be entirely divorced from the proposed membership model. I have said I am not a steamroller and I mean it - I will not implement anything without the approval of the governors."

    and that

    "I am open to discussing and appropriately modifying my views."

    He also said he was looking at a system which is a hybrid of the old affiliate system as well as his own ideas (similar to Mr. Mallon's suggestions). I hate to put words in his mouth (because I don't think he was decided on this as an alternative platform) but one of his ideas which seemed to interest me was that 10% of a person's membership fee will be returned to the club to which a person is affiliated. If the person isn't affiliated to any specific club then they are welcome to pay the current full price of the membership and the CFC will retain the entirety of their membership. (as they do now)

    Unfortunately, Mike will be travelling for much of today so he asked me to post something regarding what we talked about on the boards.

    As for my own two cents, when I said before that I didn't agree with everything in Mike's platform and that it had flaws which many people had pointed out (and I also stated that I believed there were even more that people yet hadn't), I was trying to diplomatically say that I wasn't too enthusiastic about his platform. However, after talking to him last night and listening to his new ideas, I feel a lot better. One of the other things which I like and believe is that he seems committed to both acting to better Chess in Canada; as well as doing so with ideas that the governors support.

    Rob Clark

  6. #66

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rob Clark View Post
    Hi all,

    I spent a couple hours last night talking to Mike about his proposed system. .....
    Rob Clark
    well, he did manage to paint a bright red target on himself :-).

    Although I think the particular idea does not fit for most of Canada, I do believe that the CFC needs fundamental and radical change and a serious evaluation of what it wants to and can accomplish within the resources and current environment it now faces. Not so sure what that change should be but certainly a presidential candidate with some vision, good or bad, is something we need. The status quo with incremental changes is probably just not good enough.


    The problem with a radical vision though, is that it is easy to criticize and block.

  7. #67

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    Well, he has gotten it wrong on moving to a club based membership, wrong on relations with Quebec and wrong on FIDE ratings, from my point of view.

    I'm not feeling a lot of confidence about this candidate, at this point in time.

  8. #68

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Craft View Post
    Well, he has gotten it wrong on moving to a club based membership, wrong on relations with Quebec and wrong on FIDE ratings, from my point of view.

    I'm not feeling a lot of confidence about this candidate, at this point in time.
    First of all, I would like to thank Rob Clark whole-heartedly for his encouragement and support. My intention is to contact every governor privately in the near future, to provide a one-on-one forum for those unconvinced. I hope you will take the opportunity to engage me in a dialogue, Ken.

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