6. Reports (M. Membership Drive Committee)

[Michael von Keitz]

Membership Drive Committee Report here.

[Kevin Pacey]

The CFC Membership Drive Committee members (Vlad Drkulec, Rob Clark, and I) have finished emailing everyone on our list of 2167 ex-CFC members that was sent to us by the Executive Director last October. As I mentioned in my previous reports, we asked ex-CFC members who wished to rejoin to contact the Executive Director. A small number replied to this committee's members instead, and as was the case in my previous reports, a total of six ex-CFC members have to date told this committee that they intended to rejoin, all of whom we refered to the Executive Director.

On 1 May 2011 the total number of CFC members was 1821, and on 1 May 2012 by comparison the total was 1859. This small increase, in the space of a year, is disappointing in view of our committee's efforts. In spite of this, to my knowledge the CFC has not previously contacted thousands of ex-CFC members via such a campaign, whether by postal or email means. In my view our effort was an exercise worth carrying out.

Last month I contacted, either by email and/or private messaging, 213 persons who were some combination of being a Canadian chess organizer, club contact or instructor, to provide them with a link to a website featuring Canadian community newspapers that was found by Hugh Brodie. This was to advise them that they may be able to obtain free advertising for chess. I also recommended free local Kijiji online classified ads, as was suggested by Vlad Drkulec. I also asked these 213 persons to consider mentioning the address of the CFC website in any advertising that they might undertake. So far I have received ten replies thanking me for the imformation, five of these from instructors and three of these from club contacts.

As I mentioned in a previous report, in the CFC's budget for 2011-12 there was no funding made available for advertising by the CFC. As I anticipated that there would be no substantial increase in funding for advertising in 2012-13, last month I recommended to the CFC President that the CFC Membership Drive Committee be disbanded, and he agreed that this would be likely the case following this 2012 AGM. I also informed him that even if the committee was not disbanded, I no longer wished to serve as chairman, or as a member of the committee, for the 2012-13 term.

At present the only practical reason I can see for not disbanding the committee (unless substantial advertising funding is provided) would be for the committee (or else a volunteer 'program coordinator') to compile an updated list of Canadian chess club contacts. This would be useful for the CFC website in any case. After that, the committee (or the Public Relations Coordinator, if he has time) could contact these clubs for whatever reasons it sees fit, e.g. to promote any possible rejuvenated club affiliate program that may be created in future.

Kevin Pacey, CFC Membership Drive Committee Chairman 2011-12
Ottawa

[Gordon Ritchie]

I would encourage Kevin to keep his committee in place and carry on the work he has begun. This will require continued effort over a number of years. The forces of inertia are challenging.

[Kevin Pacey]

Besides the PR Coordinator or a Membership Drive Committee (if not disbanded) possibly promoting any rejuvenated affiliate program to clubs (ideally after a much larger, updated list of Canadian club contacts somehow becomes available to the CFC), I'd also suggest possibly promoting to clubs greater chess education and any recreational membership class for non-tournament players that may be created later on. I borrowed these ideas from the Long-term planning committee's report thread. There Vlad Drkulec included the following as specific recommendations for the CFC:

"Shift our focus to become a more proactive force for chess education most likely with the help of partners like the CMA and local volunteers across the country.

...

Create a recreational membership class (we can call it something else) for non-tournament players which costs on the order of five or at the very most ten dollars per year. They would have access to the email newsletter and possibly access to a discounted tournament membership and the opportunity to play in sections of tournaments which offered regular CFC memberships as prizes. This would be a vehicle to recruit new tournament class members and at least partially hang on to and reintegrate people who have slipped out of the chess habit."


Regarding compiling a large, updated list of club contacts for the CFC, last year a non-governing volunteer began to attempt such, according to the CFC President in at least one post of his back then on the Public chat forum of this message board, as I recall. The idea was to contact municipalities to locate chess clubs, I seem to remember.

According to an email I received from the President last month, however, I would say success in this endeavour has been rather elusive for the volunteer I mentioned above. I don't know whether another volunteer (or else a membership drive committee) could be more successful, but aside from asking governors, organizers, people on message boards and perhaps instructors to help by providing information about any clubs they're aware of, at the moment I'm short of ideas.

Add to this the lack of funding for advertising by the CFC, as I anticipate will happen again in 2012-13, and I'm struggling for find a good reason not to continue recommending disbanding the Membership Drive Committee, unless the PR Coordinator is simply too busy to contact clubs that we have listed on our website at the moment. Even then, Vlad's recommendations I refered to above, plus a rejuvenated affiliate program being passed, would need to happen first, else I'm short of ideas at the moment as to what we might promote to clubs, beyond simply asking for their support, or proposing coordinated nationwide simuls (in support of the CFC) within a given time frame, as I discussed in the Incoming portion of this AGM.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

One thing I do want to make clear is that there is room for volunteers and professional or part-time professional coaches in this effort to focus on educating chess players on the nuances of the game. In Windsor we use a mix of paid and free coaching. In the May Quebec City meetings with FIDE they pointed out the usefulness of the 300+ page tome prepared by Tom O' Donnell for the chess in schools initiative of slightly more than a decade ago which is available for download from the CFC website:

http://chess.ca/sites/default/files/teaching-manual.pdf

The manual is aimed at inexperienced teachers who can follow the program and stay just ahead of the beginner kids that they are teaching.

[Pierre Dénommée]

I have moved a motion to create the recreational membership and the motion has been defeated. I am glad to see that there is still interest.

Recreational membership, as implemented in France, means access to all CFC rated Rapid and Blitz tournaments and access to selected regular tournaments as decided by the Assembly of Governors. We give the Recreational members a chance to see what is a Regular Tournament.


Create a recreational membership class (we can call it something else) for non-tournament players which costs on the order of five or at the very most ten dollars per year.

[Christopher Mallon]

I have moved a motion to create the recreational membership and the motion has been defeated. I am glad to see that there is still interest.

That's different than what he proposed, though.