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Thread: The Elephant in the Room - Thread 2.0

  1. #1
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    Default The Elephant in the Room - Thread 2.0

    An old thread started by Bob Armstrong a little over 10 years ago began as follows:

    The Elephant in the Room

    The saying “ No one will talk about the elephant in the room “ describes a situation where something is large and obvious and uncomfortable, but no one wants to take a chance on raising the issue.

    Well CFC has an elephant in the room....


    Today, in 2020, I believe the CFC just might have another big 'Elephant in the Room' (maybe far more real or concerning than the one raised by Bob long ago).

    That is, if the covid-19 pandemic were to last many more months, or well into 2021, say due to a 2nd (or even 3rd) wave of it eventually forcing more lockdowns, would the CFC be able to survive (i.e. not go totally broke)? With revenues that would plummet over time, perhaps the CFC might not make it to, say, the 2021 Annual General Meeting. At the least the CFC might have to look at cutting the infrequently delivered online magazine, at least until the pandemic completely subsided.

    CFC rated online events are still coming in at a trickle right now, as far as I can tell. Even if the CFC and organizers scrambled much faster to create more rated online events, and publicize them much better somehow, it's not clear to me why that would motivate many people to join the CFC in time, so as to create enough revenue to avoid a collapse of the CFC. Please someone, tell me I am (or may be) worrying too much for the sake of the CFC.
    There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
    Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kevin Pacey View Post

    That is, if the covid-19 pandemic were to last many more months, or well into 2021, say due to a 2nd (or even 3rd) wave of it eventually forcing more lockdowns, would the CFC be able to survive (i.e. not go totally broke)? With revenues that would plummet over time, perhaps the CFC might not make it to, say, the 2021 Annual General Meeting. At the least the CFC might have to look at cutting the infrequently delivered online magazine, at least until the pandemic completely subsided.

    CFC rated online events are still coming in at a trickle right now, as far as I can tell. Even if the CFC and organizers scrambled much faster to create more rated online events, and publicize them much better somehow, it's not clear to me why that would motivate many people to join the CFC in time, so as to create enough revenue to avoid a collapse of the CFC. Please someone, tell me I am (or may be) worrying too much for the sake of the CFC.
    Kevin. THE CFC Annual Meeting will be held in about 5 weeks. I'm sure COVID-19 will be one of the main discussion points. We have had surpluses over the past several years, and are fine for the time being, but obviously something will have to give the longer this goes on.

    Fred

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    Okay, Fred. I had wondered how urgently the crisis needed to be dealt with.

    Incidentally, in the old thread started by Bob A. that I alluded to earlier, I found mentioned that the CFC had received emergency loan(s) from the Chess Foundation (i.e. just over 10 years ago). That might be feasible again this time, if it should need to come to that:

    http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/sh...light=elephant
    There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
    Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio.

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    Here are the 2019 CFC Financial Statements. Last spring we had a healthy bank account balance ($90,000) and a secondary source of funds ($45,000), if ever needed, invested with the regular Chess Foundation funds.

    fiscal2019b.pdf

  5. #5

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    Kevin wrote:
    "CFC rated online events are still coming in at a trickle right now, as far as I can tell. Even if the CFC and organizers scrambled much faster to create more rated online events, and publicize them much better somehow, it's not clear to me why that would motivate many people to join the CFC in time, so as to create enough revenue to avoid a collapse of the CFC. Please someone, tell me I am (or may be) worrying too much for the sake of the CFC".

    Here lies the conundrum that, so far, has not been resolved by the CFC. Yes, CFC-rated online tournaments are coming, but they are relatively sparse and comprise less than 30% of all CFC-online activity right now. How did I get to that 30% or less figure? Well, if you see the most active CFC clubs playing online now, most of them are having 3-4 days/week of games being played (more than 16 days/month), but only 1-2 of those days/month are actually CFC-rated. The other games do not count towards CFC ratings, is just online chess. And that may not attract many people (because, how is that better than just playing FREE chess games online in Chess.com, Lichess, Chess24, etc.?). I mean, why would I play 40-something dollars/year to be part of the CFC to only/mostly pay unrated games online (and, mind you, even using the same Chess.com or Lichess platforms which allow the user to play for free!).

    Now, picture this: The CFC advertises (in Lichess and Chess.com) via a post that it is now running CFC-rated games using those platforms available to anyone that is a CFC member. This is what the USCF and some European organizations have done. There, you would be addressing that HUGE audience of chess players (millions worldwide, 16,000+ Canadians) and advertising that, if some of them are interested in getting official ratings, then you can join the CFC and get that. Of course, not everyone is going to jump to that offer -but even a few extra hundred players would mean a few extra thousand dollars for the CFC. At NO cost -other that some CFC officer spending some time to draft the announcement.

    Want to go even further than that (more aggressive/attractive marketing)? You could even say something like this: "The annual CFC membership this year gives you the chance to play X CFC online-rated games for free". By "X" I would suggest 5 or 10 online-rated games free, as a way to entice people to try "for free" (but not really free, they would still have to pay the 40-something dollars for the annual membership!) what means playing for an official organization and getting an official rating. Again, what does it cost? ZERO. What could it bring? Lots of revenue.

    In my mind, the true elephant in the room is the fact that OTB tournaments may take several more months to be possible (and the return to "normal" levels of OTB may take a long time). So, online games are here to stay for the mid-term future. We can choose to ignore that (or even worse, to treat online games as some sort of nuisance that we have to put up with, like many other social distancing things implemented due to the coronavirus). OR, we can take this opportunity to grow the CFC base by addressing that huge crowd there that might be two clicks away from joining us, if enough reward is shown and attractive advertised is implemented.

    None of the above negates the much higher value of OTB games. It is just understanding that either we get creative (as MANY organizations are now doing, just Google "online rated chess"!), or we risk becoming irrelevant -which would be worse than just weathering the storm based on a previous/solid financial situation.

    There are GREAT examples of CFC officers already doing great things. Fred comes to my mind first (and all of the Maritime chess clubs), but also Bob and Amer in Ontario, and Brendan Woodroff in BC. And some others I do not know or have not had the chance to communicate with. Regardless, all of them could improve things, by providing more CFC-rated options, and advertising to a larger audience. [By NO MEANS I am criticizing them, on the contrary, my sincere respect and appreciation for what they have done!].

    The CFC has also failed to attract Canadian elite players to online CFC-rated tournaments, and this is weird, as most of the chess elite worldwide has happily and actively engaged in online chess competitions... Here I have no idea on what to do, as I know nothing about how CFC works... My ideas above come from contrasting what CFC has done and what other organizations have done about online chess.

    To finish this large post, and I sincerely apologize for this. We could do better, we can organize more CFC-rated tournaments (with different time controls, in different formats), we can advertise to a larger audience in Chess.com and Lichess, etc. I remain optimistic that, even if online chess is the only way for the near future, this does not translate in a loss but on the contrary a gain for Canadian chess.

    Cheers,
    Jose Fernandez-Triana, Ottawa

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    Before I saw Fred's CFC financials, depending on what they were I might have said the CFC might be quite prudent to go all-out straight away, to get lots of internet chess games CFC-rated, in the event of a worse case scenario (i.e. covid-19 lasts well into 2021). However, the financials show the CFC does have quite a cushion right now, fortunately. I'm no financial wizard, but my guess is the CFC can, with some pain, withstand covid-19 lockdowns going up to April 2021, if that were to happen (covid-19 lasting up to/beyond August 2021 I'm not so sure about, but then the whole world would be in big trouble economically anyway, to say the least).

    As it is our nation is slowly re-opening right now, and will stay that way with any luck. In any case, the CFC moving towards having way more CFC rated online games at some point seems well worthwhile.
    There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
    Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio.

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    We are fortunate financially because we have been cautious. Fiscal 2019/20 was well on its way to being a record breaking year, at least in recent memory. We obviously cannot withstand years of this current status quo but then again who can? We seemed to be on the verge of a financial breakthrough going into March of this year. The net result of the Covid 19 crisis will be that 2019-20 went from being an outstanding year to being a good year financially as we lost most of the last two months (Fiscal years end on April 30th). Fiscal 2021 will be a bit of a hot mess but that's why you save in good years so that the bad years don't wipe you out.

    There are government programs which can help soften the blow and they will buy us a few extra months if we can get it together with the bank.

    Obviously we won't be spending as much with everything on hold (no Olympiad for example though at this point the Olympiad is delayed one year and the plan is to hold another Olympiad one year later so this could be a worry though it is not realistic to believe that an Olympiad could be held with cases rising around the world). I can see us lasting as long as two years without having to tap Foundation funds. We can probably last three years without any favourable breaks and without any remedial actions. Of course we will have to take some remedial actions long before that time and so we will make it through this crisis and we will be stronger as a result.

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    Online play is definitely something which we are interested in but cheating remains a problem and not every platform has a good handle on the situation. Chess.com does have a good handle on it though perhaps they sometimes are overly aggressive in their pursuit, though on balance they are good. I have been talking to organizers about this extensively.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vladimir Drkulec View Post
    Online play is definitely something which we are interested in but cheating remains a problem and not every platform has a good handle on the situation. Chess.com does have a good handle on it though perhaps they sometimes are overly aggressive in their pursuit, though on balance they are good. I have been talking to organizers about this extensively.
    I'm having my 6th online tournament this Saturday, but even with anti-cheating measures I just can't bring myself to hold tournaments with $40-50 entry fees on this medium. We have to keep the risk greater than the reward (of cheating).
    http://mcc.devastation.ca/mccqck620.html

  10. #10

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    The Quebec Open is scheduled for July 25-31 - online with regular time controls and round times. Entry fees are the usual - most pay close to $100, with $5,000 in prizes based on 100 entries. So far, there are 29 entries. Mandatory webcam surveillance.

    I'm not interested in this format - and it looks like a lot of others aren't as well.

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