5A2. Extending memberships due to COVID shutdown

[Lyle Craver]

This is a subject that has been discussed at length within the CFC Executive and we would like your feedback

[Fred McKim]

I am thinking out loud here - but if we take someone who expired on March 1 they have been extended for exactly 6 months on Sept 1. I'm thinking that's long enough. We have one or two online tournaments every weekend, and I know that's not everybody's cup of tea, but we need to start getting income coming back in. As it is, if you expired on June 1 you will be extended to Dec 1, if we start collecting again on Sept 1. OTB chess is resuming at Thanksgiving in the Maritimes, and I think once parents are used to children going back to school - they will be OK with them resuming OTB chess activities.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Sounds reasonable to me.

[Christopher Mallon]

Sounds reasonable to me.

To me as well, although to be fair I'd like an extension on my life membership also :)

You might see a big September drop though, waiting until October when there actually are OTB events might be an idea.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

If we had that power of extending life memberships, I think there should be a bonus of 20 years tacked on though that might get me accused of self-dealing.

[Christopher Mallon]

If we had that power of extending life memberships, I think there should be a bonus of 20 years tacked on though that might get me accused of self-dealing.


The new NFP law really gets in the way sometimes, doesn't it? :)

[Vladimir Drkulec]

The new NFP law really gets in the way sometimes, doesn't it? :)

If you want to pass gas you need to give three weeks notice.:p

[Pierre Dénommée]

It always looks bad when a non-profit looses a lot of members. We should extend membership until normal in person chess competitions resume.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

It always looks bad when a non-profit looses a lot of members. We should extend membership until normal in person chess competitions resume.


I think that is our plan. This year is going to very bad by the numbers.

[Pierre Dénommée]

I think that is our plan. This year is going to very bad by the numbers.

This year is going to be very bad for many non-profits in Canada.

We are in a worse situation because DGT confirmed that DGT boards and clocks should not be cleaned with alcohol based sanitizer.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

This year is going to be very bad for many non-profits in Canada.

We are in a worse situation because DGT confirmed that DGT boards and clocks should not be cleaned with alcohol based sanitizer.

How should they be cleaned? I understand that surfaces are not likely to transmit the virus.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

How should they be cleaned? I understand that surfaces are not likely to transmit the virus.

From the manual: "19.Care and Cleaning Your DGT NA is a durable, well-made product. If you treat it with reasonable care it should give you years of trouble-free performance.To clean the clock,use only a slightly-moistened soft cloth. Do not use abrasive cleansers"

It was before COVID.

[Pierre Dénommée]

How should they be cleaned? I understand that surfaces are not likely to transmit the virus.

Lightly dmp cloth with water and mild soap if I remember it well.

[Lyle Craver]

Well I don't know about your life membership but I'm pretty sure mine expires when I do.....

[Lyle Craver]

I think that is our plan. This year is going to very bad by the numbers.

My personal view is that membership retention needs to be the primary goal in the immediate future. This is done by enhanced the perceived value of membership to members which obviously is going to be judged differently by different people.

The hell of all this is that just as Covid has already attacked various parts of the country at differing rates, the recovery is going to happen differently between provinces as well. If PEI (for instance - I'm simply picking them as one of the lowest infected provinces) has zero cases for 6 months while it's still going strong in ON is it fair to continue the extension? Similarly within a province - presently the infection rate is MUCH higher in Calgary than Edmonton. My question is "What's Fair?" and the only answer is "it's complicated"

While there are a lot of online chess resources, the CFC "Brand" is OTB (over the board) Tournament play and while we can spread boards out to give more space between boards, other than allowing only one player at the board at a time enforcing 2 metres between white and black at a single board is going to be difficult. I don't think I've seen that at ANY tournament in 40+ years of participation.

But I do think that we won't go wrong in asking ourselves what we can do that enhances the perceived value of a CFC membership to present members and to those who have recently chosen not to renew until events in their area resume. We do need to be proactive - it isn't going to just happen!

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Very good points Lyle. Perhaps we could extend life memberships by 20 years. I think they currently expire in 2099. :)

It is complicated.

We could play online but in person as a close comparable to OTB though this could be complicated. The two players might face each other at the long ends of a table and make their moves on a computer. Can you imagine if the whole tournament lost its internet connection due to a power failure.

[Stephen Wright]

Very good points Lyle. Perhaps we could extend life memberships by 20 years. I think they currently expire in 2099. :)

It is complicated.

We could play online but in person as a close comparable to OTB though this could be complicated. The two players might face each other at the long ends of a table and make their moves on a computer. Can you imagine if the whole tournament lost its internet connection due to a power failure.

You don't have to imagine this scenario. Actually the setup you describe is manageable since presumably most of the computers being used would have a battery backup. Much more problematic is when the server goes down, which eliminated one round from the online BC Senior last June (chess.com), or the server has to reboot, which lichess seems to do fairly often with only 10 minutes warning and with no particular rhyme nor reason as to when this happens.

[Fred McKim]

We could play online but in person as a close comparable to OTB though this could be complicated. The two players might face each other at the long ends of a table and make their moves on a computer. Can you imagine if the whole tournament lost its internet connection due to a power failure.

I investigated this option with the Convention Centre we're playing in at Thanksgiving - even with only 25-40 players, the load would be too much on their Internet. Probably a big hotel might be more robust. On the other hand, your back up is to mask up (if not already) and continue playing OTB.

[Michael Lo]

You don't have to imagine this scenario. Actually the setup you describe is manageable since presumably most of the computers being used would have a battery backup. Much more problematic is when the server goes down, which eliminated one round from the online BC Senior last June (chess.com), or the server has to reboot, which lichess seems to do fairly often with only 10 minutes warning and with no particular rhyme nor reason as to when this happens.

There are apps that two players can play LAN game via bluetooth (no internet, no server needed). This one plays between two phones, with both phones fully charged before playing (also should bring a power bank as backup battery), there will no power or server outage problem - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cnvcs.chess. I just looked this up, needs more extensive research to determine the feasibility of using this kind of app for semi-OTB tournaments.

[Michael Lo]

More resources on two players chess on PCs (laptops) without internet:
- Ethernet LAN connection: https://sourceforge.net/projects/avmnetchess/
- Ethernet LAN connection: https://sourceforge.net/projects/skychess/
- LAN, Direct Connect, and IRC: https://sourceforge.net/projects/jfchess/

But all of them are quite dated, last updated a few years ago.

[Pierre Dénommée]

More resources on two players chess on PCs (laptops) without internet:
- Ethernet LAN connection: https://sourceforge.net/projects/avmnetchess/
- Ethernet LAN connection: https://sourceforge.net/projects/skychess/
- LAN, Direct Connect, and IRC: https://sourceforge.net/projects/jfchess/

But all of them are quite dated, last updated a few years ago.

It may be dating, but using local resources, such as Ethernet, rather than remote resources, such as the Internet, is a much safer bet.

[Jose Fernandez Triana]

My personal view is that membership retention needs to be the primary goal in the immediate future. This is done by enhanced the perceived value of membership to members which obviously is going to be judged differently by different people.

The hell of all this is that just as Covid has already attacked various parts of the country at differing rates, the recovery is going to happen differently between provinces as well. If PEI (for instance - I'm simply picking them as one of the lowest infected provinces) has zero cases for 6 months while it's still going strong in ON is it fair to continue the extension? Similarly within a province - presently the infection rate is MUCH higher in Calgary than Edmonton. My question is "What's Fair?" and the only answer is "it's complicated"

While there are a lot of online chess resources, the CFC "Brand" is OTB (over the board) Tournament play and while we can spread boards out to give more space between boards, other than allowing only one player at the board at a time enforcing 2 metres between white and black at a single board is going to be difficult. I don't think I've seen that at ANY tournament in 40+ years of participation.

But I do think that we won't go wrong in asking ourselves what we can do that enhances the perceived value of a CFC membership to present members and to those who have recently chosen not to renew until events in their area resume. We do need to be proactive - it isn't going to just happen!

How can we advertise more value to the CFC membership in times of COVID-19? There is only one answer for that guys: embracing online chess. Any other OTB, or semi-OTB (as has been discussed in the last few days) would be complex, not likely to work in all provinces/territories, perhaps not even appealing to players (that is more subjective, I admit). But online chess should be a selling point (CFC-rated online chess, I am not talking about any other online chess here).

It all comes down to us accepting this reality forced upon us by the pandemic. Either we choose to keep debating and/or focus on the (undeniable) negative aspects of online chess; or we do embrace it, try to overcome problems and get things moving while the pandemic lasts (and keep in mind that "normal" normal conditions will never be reached until a vaccine is available, for a true normal situation we are looking well down 2021).

If we present and market CFC membership (roughly 40 dollars) as a gateway to play meaningful games online, we should succeed in keeping (I would dare to even say increasing) the CFC memebership.

In other threads I have posted some ideas to attract people initially (e.g., decide that one annual CFC membership comes with 5 free games online for CFC-rated tournaments). I will not repeat my ideas here, but the point is that it is indeed possible. If we are really serious on going down that road we should roll up our sleeves and start working more towards that goal.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

It may be dating, but using local resources, such as Ethernet, rather than remote resources, such as the Internet, is a much safer bet.

In that case you lose the formidable resources of the chess server to check for cheating.

[Pierre Dénommée]

In that case you lose the formidable resources of the chess server to check for cheating.


I am talking about in person tournaments in which players plays on their computers to respect social distancing. There are arbiters on the site to check both sides.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

I am talking about in person tournaments in which players plays on their computers to respect social distancing. There are arbiters on the site to check both sides.

That would work. I am not familiar with programs that allow you to play over networks and not over servers but realize there must be a number of them out there that can be adopted to this application.