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Lyle Craver
01-04-2014, 01:23 PM
Officers and Committee Chairs please post your reports here.

Paul Leblanc
01-05-2014, 01:38 PM
As of end-December 2013:

the average rating of all players rated over 1200 active in the past 12 months is 1731. This has tracked in a narrow range between 1731 and 1750 for the past 4 years. This is my main inflation/deflation indicator and shows that the system is in equilibrium;

the average rating of all players active in the past 12 months is 1380. This increased sharply from 1210 when the new bonus point formula was introduced in March 2012, peaked at 1440 in March 2013 and seems to be seeking a steady state figure in the 1350-1400 range. This figure reflects the accelerated increase in junior ratings and appears to show that that the "problem" of under-rated juniors is under control;

the median rating of the top 100 players active in the past 36 months is 2336. This compares to 2356 when the bonus point formula was introduced in
March 2012. I believe this is a healthy trend since this indicator stood at only 2271 when my data started in March 2006.

Bob Armstrong
01-05-2014, 06:27 PM
2014 Governors’ Quarterly Winter Meeting (January)

14/1/5

Public Relations Coordinator Report (PRC - Non-Executive Officer) - Bob Armstrong

Bylaw 3 of the CFC Handbook, under Duties of Officers in Section 8C, gives the mandate of the Public Relations Coordinator position ( created at the 2010 AGM ) as:

“ 8C. The Public Relations Coordinator will be responsible for promoting the image of the CFC and for promoting chess generally to the public. As such the Public Relations Coordinator will, among other things:

- deal with mainstream media to promote significant chess news, such as Canadian Chess Champions, a new Canadian GM, major tournaments like the Can. Closed, Canadian Open, Can. Women’s Closed, CYCC, etc., the various benefits accruing from playing chess and other positive aspects of the chess culture. “

Here is the update on activity since the 2013 Fall Meeting (October/13):

1. “News” Items (on the CFC Facebook page, CFC members’ Chess Chat Forum, and Twitter)

As PRC I am still responsible for the CFC Facebook page, and the members’ CFC Chess Chat Forum (which is fed into the CFC Twitter account). Duplicate posts are made on each. In mid-May/13, the CFC website news was taken over from the PRC by the “on-line newsfeed”. The PRC postings are entirely separate from the website and the on-line newsfeed, though we are all keeping up on what the other is doing. There is seldom duplication, but if there are, the duplications are significantly different since my posts are just very short news “blurbs”, while the on-line newsfeed coverage of the same item is much more detailed. Since October 1, 15 news item posts have been made. This is an average of more than 1 news post per week; this is only 1/3 the rate for the July – Oct. /13 period (about 3 posts/week). The reason is that I have been out of Toronto a lot since Oct. 1, and I am just generally busier (other volunteer time taking an extended amount of time), and have not gotten to my news bank of posts, to make the already-prepared post! I hope that the winter session will see me having my normal time again to volunteer to CFC – we’ll see. If the rate of posts does not rise, I may have to consider resigning this position.

2. Press Releases:

One currently in preparation: The U 8 Girls World Champion – Harmony Zhu. Generally, though, there are not many chess items that the general mainstream media may consider “news”. They will sometimes bite on Junior Chess successes though. So it is not uncommon to have a quarter with no press release. Local organizers/teachers contacting news media re local juniors, or local adults with a significant achievement, get more response.

4. Media Contacts:

Had a number of contacts re the WCC and directed media re setting up interviews with Canadian chess personalities, and provided general chess background information for articles.

5. CFC Facebook Page (Non-Profit Corporation):

CFC has continued incremental building of the site - grew from 318 “Likes” for the page on Oct. 6 to 356 on Dec. 31. This is a slow-down in the rate of growth of membership – 38 or about 3/wk. (down from 81new members or about 6/week during July to Oct. – abnormally high). It more reflects the first two quarters of the year, where the rate was about 4 new “Likes” per week. It seems more Facebooker’s are finding our CFC FB page. The majority of “Likes” are not CFC tournament players, and many are not CFC members. We are reaching out in the social media to the non-CFC chess-playing public. We also have many players from other countries as “Likes”, who find Canadian chess interesting, and who now follow Canadian chess.

6. Discussion Boards:

I posted numbers of times on the members’ CFC Chess Chat Forum, and the CMA Chesstalk, answering CFC issues raised.

7. New Media Links:

Crisis – my computer got killed by a nasty virus on Oct. 8/13. I got most of my directory transferred to my upgraded hardware/software, but of those missing, my media groups (Print & Radio/TV & On-line) were among them. So I am now having to reconstruct my groups again from scratch practically. There may be some still among my individuals in the directory – a rather long and tedious task. So if you have a contact, please e-mail me so I can again start building the CFC media e-mail groups.

Any comments/suggestions/criticisms - constructive :) are welcome.

Bob

Bob Armstrong
01-07-2014, 09:59 PM
I forgot to mention re the CFC FB page: I intend this year to introduce some chess-related material, other than just CFC news reports. I will report at the April meeting on the response to this - people may find it of interest, and induce more people to come more regularly. On the other hand, there are many chess FB pages that already do this, and so it may be seen as simply too duplicative (much of the materials will come from other FB pages I belong to, and maybe some from CMA's Chesstalk).

Bob A, CFC PRC

Richard Bérubé
01-08-2014, 05:52 PM
TOURNAMENT COORDINATOR REPORT (JANUARY 2014)
A number of national tournaments still have to find an organizer. Here is the situation :
1) Canadian Junior 2014 : No organizer on the horizon, at least no that contacted the Tournament coordinator. We know that Chess and Maths (Larry Bevand) declined the invitation to organize the tournament. The form of this tournament is so that it’s difficult to organize it on a simple weekend. The best time of the year is probably easter. In the next few days, I will contact some organizers to know their possible interest about this tournament : Aurora, RA Chess Club in Ottawa, Outaouais Chess League …

2) Canadian closed : Canada has to organize a zonal before the mid-year of 2015. From the organizer point of view, a Zonal is a lot more interesting than a regular championship. I contacted potential organizers and one in Trois-Rivières might be interested. Mr Roger Greiss is well known in Quebec and he is an experienced organizer. Lately he tried to prepare a bid for the World Junior Championship 2016, but lacking support from the city of Shawinigan, he decided not to go further. He still wants to put an end to his career as a chess organizer with a big event and the Canadian closed might be a good idea if, he said, the FQE could bring a support. More about that soon.

3) Women Championship : No organizer yet. Considering the low number of participants, I think this tournament can be combined with another national tournament, like per example, the Senior or even the Junior and this might be done over a long week end, this on a permanent basis.
4) CYCC 2014 : The organization of this tournament is under way for some time. It will be held in the luxurious, but at reasonable rates, Queen’s Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal.

5) Canadian Open 2014 : Beginning one day after the CYCC in the same hotel, the tournament already counts on the participation of 10 GMs. A special feature this year : Provincial association will be ask to determine an IM from their province who will be officially invited free of charges by the organization of the CO.

6) Canadian Open 2015 : Last year, the FQE presented a bid to obtain the 2014 Canadian Open and CYCC. Accompanying this bid was an offer to help organizers in Nova-Scotia to present a bid for 2015 for both tournaments. This offer is still on the table. This help can be translated into tournament material (clocks, chess set) and a paid arbiter. Some representation can also be done with Marc Poulin, CEO of Sobeys and Executive Director of Empire Holding. The Headquarter of Sobeys being in Nova-Scotia, there is some possibilities to get a sponsorship.

Richard Bérubé

Vladimir Drkulec
01-08-2014, 06:19 PM
Thank you Richard, Bob and Paul for your reports.

Sobeys is very helpful in the Windsor area junior chess programs in providing us a place to play for free in their community room for both tournaments and our junior advanced class.

Michael Barron
01-08-2014, 10:05 PM
Thank you Richard, for your report!

A few questions:
1) As you said, Women Championship can be combined with another national tournament. Could it be combined with Canadian Closed that you discussed with potential organizers?
2) Probably, Canadian Junior can be combined with another national tournament for the same reason as Women Championship. Is it possible to add U20 sections at CYCC?
3) As President informed, this year we will have very little time between CYCC and WYCC, which could affect our ability to register Canadian players for WYCC. In the future FIDE has plans to move WYCC even earlier - to beginning of September or August. Does it make sense to organize CYCC earlier - in March or April - to avoid such problems?