5f. Past President's Report

[Michael von Keitz]

Past President Report here.

[Bob Gillanders]

As I sit down to write my report, my mind wanders back to the chaos of 2007. The good old days you say….well no! Runaway structural deficits, poor governance, and crippling hostility in all quarters of the organization that nearly killed the CFC. As I look down this agenda, I see mostly housekeeping motions, and that is a good sign.

We have successfully wrestled many of our demons to the ground. The runaway deficits are history, our public online quarterly governors meetings are the very definition of transparency, and we have dedicated volunteers serving on the executive and in non-executive roles. On top of all that, we have a new website, a peace treaty with the FQE, a new rating bonus plan in effect, an excellent (yet fledging) YCC qualification system, and early successful bids for the 2013 Canadian Open and CYCC. So all is good you say, well not quite!

The biggest challenge remains. How do we grow the membership? How do we attract sponsors, media attention, and make chess attractive to the average Canadian? There are no magic solutions, but there are CFC initiatives underway:

Motion 2013-C. CFC Membership Sales Affiliate Program
An incentive program for organizers to sell memberships. I plan on taking advantage of this program myself if it passes. It really isn’t a lot of money, but hey, as an organizer, I am already acting as an intermediary for memberships anyway, I may as well get a small commission for it.

CFC Class titles – This program was started last year, but has been largely been ignored. We can’t all be Grandmasters, for the vast majority of players achieving a class title is a big deal and should be celebrated. The Mississauga Chess Club will be participating in this program shortly by sponsoring the nominal $10 charge and will present the certificates to our graduates of our junior program.

The YCC qualification system is a great way to spur junior chess in your area. We tried it in Mississauga this year, and loved it. The CFC package provided makes it easy.

Can we grow the membership? Yes, working together.

[Bob Gillanders]

I would like to explore this question a little more with respect to the conversion rate from junior member to adult.

I think most of us operate under the assumption that promoting chess amongst the youth will pay dividends down the road. Some of them will continue playing chess as adults. Having nurtured a interest in chess at a young age, it becomes a lifelong hobby or passion.

But how many kids do we need to nurture in order to maintain our current adult membership? For the sake of argument, to maintain an active adult membership of say 1,000, do we need 10,000 kids to learn the game (10% conversion) or 100,000 kids (1% conversion rate)?

Of course the quality of the introduction to chess is important. A kid who shows talent, gets encouragement and coaching, and tournament exposure is more likely to take up the game as an adult, as opposed to a kid who plays in one school tournament to avoid classes. But does anyone have any actual data or even a gut feeling about this?

We are in a constant struggle to maintain our membership base. We hope our efforts with the youth will deliver future players, but are we winning or losing ground? Anybody know, or care to comment.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

I think the conversion rate is closer to 1% than 10% and probably even less. With kids we have to compete with hockey and soccer and karate and a million other activities that compete with chess for share of mind. You have to plant a lot of seeds to get a few trees a few years down the road.

[John Coleman]

I've been running kids events for several years... during that time I guess-timate 10,000* kids have been involved.

I know of exactly TWO who play chess after high school... Melissa Lee and Brendon Lee. There might be others, but I can't think of who. Dad Frank Lee is a chess teacher and just became a CFC governor.
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*Average of 1400 players for 14 years of the Windsor Chess Challenge, with some overlap from year to year.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

I've been running kids events for several years... during that time I guess-timate 10,000* kids have been involved.

I know of exactly TWO who play chess after high school... Melissa Lee and Brendon Lee. There might be others, but I can't think of who. Dad Frank Lee is a chess teacher and just became a CFC governor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Average of 1400 players for 14 years of the Windsor Chess Challenge, with some overlap from year to year.

I think that we will have a few more from the current crew of kids. Eric who attended Friday nights a few years ago is still reading chess books much to the surprise of his father.

In my high school days we had a strong high school chess league which made it more likely that kids would continue into their university years. Currently we have little for the high school kids. As far as I know only Jim Daniluk and myself continue to play CFC chess from those post Fischer boom high school players.

[Christopher Mallon]

I wonder if the non-requirement of CFC membership for kids events is indirectly leading to fewer of them becoming CFC members later? It's not really "retention" since they were never actually members...

[Vladimir Drkulec]

I wonder if the non-requirement of CFC membership for kids events is indirectly leading to fewer of them becoming CFC members later? It's not really "retention" since they were never actually members...

It is retention in the sense that the kids are chessplayers, involved in chess clubs, chess classes, chess lessons and tournaments. A lot of the stronger Windsor kids play in the U.S. where memberships are required for most tournaments and all but the very youngest participants in one popular scholastic tournament have to be members.

[Pierre Dénommée]

If you try to sell a CFC (or FQE) membership to a child, the perception of the parent is too often that we want their money.

We should strive to get rid of that bad perception. The client should perceive that he his getting value for his money.

I wonder if the non-requirement of CFC membership for kids events is indirectly leading to fewer of them becoming CFC members later? It's not really "retention" since they were never actually members...

[Ken Craft]

Really? I bought a CFC membersghip as a child. Requiring children to have CFC membership even for all junipor event never seemed to be an impediment in those days.