Mr. Lafferty is, of course, correct here, but I have no idea how to solve this problem. It would be great if we could get the huge number of adults who are 100-400 strength playing tournaments, but I don’t know how. Thoughts?
Alex Relyea
One thing is pretty clear, reaching those players will require innovative non-traditional promotional techniques, and possibly events designed specifically for them. These people aren’t reading Chess Life, they probably aren’t reading the online TLAs (and may not understand them if they do happen to look at them) and it’s questionable if they’re visiting our website at all.
I may have had more experience attracting these non-traditional players to tournaments than most people, because for 25 years I ran the Cornhusker State Games, which is membership-exempt and has a full-time staff promoting the event statewide all year long, usually attracting between 10,000 and 14,000 entries across 40+ sports every year, the largest sports are team events like soccer, basketball and softball. We got state-wide publicity in the media, at various events (there’s an annual torch run) and on their website. (They used to print and distribute thousands of entry booklets, but went online-only a few years back, that didn’t seem to impact turnout in chess or overall.)
For the first few years, we used the $2 per game option, I think one year that added up to over $80, but then the Executive Board passed an exemption to the membership requirements for events affiliated with the National Congress of State Games.
Some years we had as many as 6 or 8 first-time adult players in the event. But not many of them came back for a second event, in part because they got beat up pretty bad even in the reserve division of the CSG. Even a pretty bad chessplayer by OUR standards is pretty good compared to the typical adult who knows how to play chess but has never studied it seriously or participated in rated play.
It’s not a solution to the rated tournament issue Alex notes, but what I hope that we, as a club, can do is grow with people interested in doing club challenge ladders and club tournaments that are club rated or rated with a service like CXR. There may then be a pool of newer/lower rated players for US Chess events.
We had a couple in their mid-50s show up tonight. Both were decent players, the woman being quite good at blitz. They expressed interest in club ladder challenges. We’ll see what we can do.
I think sometimes we focus too much on rated play (and on rated scholastics.) Yeah, I realize where the money comes from, but the focus on memberships and rated play has NEVER been part of our mission statement.
Clubs that are trying to reach an adult population base should probably have a mix of rated and non-rated play, with probably more of the latter, and some events designed to ease adults into rated play. (RBO’s are one such vehicle, but I don’t really know anybody who’s used them successfully multiple times.)
Rather than try to do things on the cheap with per-game or per-event non-member participation fees, I would prefer to see US Chess encourage rated events at clubs aimed primarily at non-members by waiving all fees and dues completely. But these should be events where the newcomers can actually win a few games, going 0-4 or worse in an event is never fun. How to do that is the unanswered question.
I know a golfer who has never broken 120 in his life, and never will. I know more than a few bowlers who think 100 is a great score. These people spend more on their sport than many ‘serious’ chessplayers do.
Chicago Chess Center is trying to run an RBO every month (more or less). They are popular enough (and the disparity in beginners’ ability is wide enough) that we are adding an U800 section.
Other Chicagoland organizers have been doing similar events (not necessarily labeled RBOs) far longer than we have. I would think that regular RBOs would work in most metropolitan areas.
To get adults, go after senior citizens with the message that learning and playing chess is a really great way to fight senility successfully.
This brought back old memories from my early days. During my high school years, some other boy in my neighborhood was looking for people to play. I did not know much about it, just some library books on basics, but I was happy to play. He seemed pleased. He beat me regularly for a bit, but I kept getting books, including spending my modest allowance on what few chess books I could find in bookstores, and I studied it. Before too long, I could hold my own and win some of the games. He did not like that at all and then refused to play me. It seems his thing was beating beginners rather than getting good at the game, but that seemed to come from his father more than him. I know that because of discussions I had with him, where he said father told him to stop playing me.
I continued to study chess though and buy books when I saw them and had the money. But I could not find people to want to play. One Christmas/New Years period, my father, who knew the moves not not a lot more, sat me down one evening, handed me a jug of wine, and he had his beer, and said he would play me. After an even game where I crushed him quickly, I started giving handicaps, gradually increasing it each game. The last game, I gave him Queen and 2 Rooks odds and still beat him readily. I thanked him for trying, telling him it had helped me understand how much I had learned. But I knew he did not have the time to actually study the game, and I did not enjoy humiliating him and I felt he was a good father (and I wish I said that part too, but I was not that eloquent then).
People need ways to learn and play with other beginners, with some friendly games with somewhat better players that is in a social context. Chess clubs could help that happen. Then they could have some local tournaments where these people could help out and a few could even be house players (if they want that) when needed. Finally, when they want tournament sections for them (they express the interest), you have people who will come back, because it has become an integrated part of their life.
Yes indeed. Chess clubs could help that happen. Now the question begs, what does US Chess actually do to help create/build more local chess clubs? Answers may vary… 
I’m going to invert the question: What is there that the national office CAN do?
It can’t find clubs an affordable (or free) location
It can’t show up early every week to set up chess sets, or stay late to put them away again.
It can’t greet newcomers to a club, make them feel wanted, find them a reasonable opponent or two.
It MAY be able to help find local players, but for the most part those will be ones the national office already knows about.
US Chess has already GOT a program for FREE online tournament announcements, most affiliates don’t use it.
A suggestion that we change our pricing structure to eliminate ratings fees, which could have helped a lot of small impromptu tournaments to be US Chess rated without the need to nickle-and-dime either the club or the players in that event, was summarily shot down by the Delegates in August, so forget that possibility.
So what are the head-slapping ‘of course!!’ ideas?
Ratings fees generate some $185,000 in revenue. That is a significant number for US Chess, although it is far less than membership revenue.
We cannot print money like Congress, and we have to generate more revenue than expense to be able to make investments in multi- year assets - like purchase new computer equipment or update web sites and database structures, for example.
An ADM to remove ratings fees was indeed made by a single delegate in 2017. Absent a plan to replace that revenue, the board of delegates chose not to adopt that ADM.
Making one off changes in the revenue structure can work - but a whole series of one off changes makes for a mess. There are also various proposals to change the membership structure. All well and good, but again radical changes can lead to problems. Several years ago the EB pushed a large increase in membership fees as a way to resolve a financial problem. That failed badly. I’ve seen that in other groups as well. Radical changes are sometimes called for, but, while they may present opportunity, they can bring large risks as well. One should rarely bet the farm.
This is, alas, untrue. There was a plan to replace the revenue, but the Finance team was unwilling or unable to determine how much of the revenue the plan would replace.
Alex Relyea
+1
Ah, there are some key topics and questions in the partially quoted post and the response. Don’t expect quick fixes. Go for longer term slower development that changes things by making chess much more pervasive, and stick to it.
Topic/Question 1:
ChessSpawn said (but not quoted):“Yes indeed. Chess clubs could help that happen.”
The devil is in the details, of course, as chess clubs vary a lot in size and finances. Small local clubs in smaller locales usually have very limited finances and varying skills and availability of members to hep in other potential situations in their locale. If there are community centers that are active parts of the community and if there are local business groups that do philanthropy/community activity (though I may be leaving out some key organizations, groups affiliated international organizations such as Rotary Clubs International or Lions Clubs International come to mind) are often looking for good ideas and might provide money if you can give a good way to help, if you provide knowledge and volunteers and a place to help.
One such project would be (if a community center is interested): paying for the center to get 1 or more Millennium Karpovs and a beginning chess book or two and chess sets/boards, with the club supplying some volunteers for beginning chess teachings. The Karpov is ideal because it has a rather beatable Fun 1 setting (though slightly above beginner), a very small opening book and even supports several other games. This may even result in a good location for the chess club being offered, so that people who use the center have ready access to the club. Your attitude needs to be, and recognized to be, being helpful to the center. It may even be that the center itself has a budget for such things and is looking for good ideas and volunteers. If there are scholastic programs in the locale, you could also try to connect to them and bring them into your club and the community center, and you might even be invited into the schools as well.
When I was in high school, there was this test that I took locally in a program called (if I remember correctly) The Future Engineers Of America National Math Competition preliminary round. I qualified for the National round which was to be held in Chicago. My high school and I approached one of those local business groups to see if they would pay for the expenses of my going there. I had to go to one of their meetings to be interviewed and they agreed. So I know they do such projects from personal experience.
Topic/Question 2:
What is there that the national office CAN do? …
The first thing is to recognize what they are already doing to increase the pervasiveness of chess in the country. What really struck me when I started paying attention again and looked at the tournament (TLA) section of a Chess Life issue is the pervasiveness of scholastic tournament play these days. And then there is chess at the college level which also involves the NCAA. This is a key part of chess becoming an integral part of our cultural heritage. That is a key basis. Integrating scholastic, college and community (including retirement communities) as part of the chess cultural heritage make chess clubs and expected thing instead of an odd thing.
(more to come, of course, but I have to go do a couple of things and this post is likely big enough already.)
Richard Menninger
I think that US Chess National can help find/create location for clubs, and have advocated this for several years.
Do you mean cities, or locations within cities?
Alex Relyea
No - there was a change the membership fee structure, but there was no idea of how this would impact membership renewal revenue. So there really was not a plan that had any sort of study behind it - and figuring out what behavior would change in some sort of dynamic scoring is extremely difficult. A radical change in structure is a pretty risky approach. We’ve seen the results of that before.
Your proposal called for significant increases in membership rates for some classes of members - double digit increases.
Note that Mr. Priest is walking back his statement of “no plan” to “no plan with a study behind it”. I completely agree. At the 2016 U.S. Open it was decided that all future ADMs would be analyzed for financial impact. For some reason, as I stated above, the Finance team was unwilling or unable to analyze this proposal.
Mr. Priest is being disingenuous in his second paragraph. Yes, in some cases the proposal called for double digit percent increases. In no case was the increase more than the cost of all but the very cheapest cups of coffee at Starbucks for an annual membership.
Alex Relyea
No actually it was a very large percentage increase for our scholastic memberships.
Does this refute anything I posted above?
Alex Relyea
I posted the following here in this forum on January 9th of this year in post #313588…
[b]The core issue that I see is the cultural one that Ruth pointed to. We have not shifted to a (c)3 culture which must, as I understand our tax exempt status, provide educational programing and other related programs that are not necessarily competition (rated) based.
A few ideas that come to mind based on our VT club experience in the now frigid North:
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Helping to provide chess tables for town parks. A friend and I during the warmer months made it a point to play chess in one of our Lyndonville town parks near the town center. We had people come over frequently to inquire where they could play chess and if we had an extra table or board and set. Concrete chess tables and chairs are not inexpensive. On average around $1500. We may make a couple of concrete tables from online plans at a cost of about $100 plus our time and effort. It would be nice if we could fund raise for a project to purchase ready made tables at a subsidized price obtained through US Chess, that would be a publicity plus for US Chess and any local club working to place tables in a local park. The club might then plan chess related activities in the park for families, youth or adults.
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Promotional Materials for Local Clubs. I’ve mentioned this before, from banners to templates for fliers to teaching materials online or as hard copy.
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Outreach via local clubs to community centers, libraries and senior centers. This could involve
providing logo marked boards and sets, promotional and instructional materials to be used by local clubs in these facilities.
All of this requires some funding and the tying in of suppliers at pricing that a national organization like US Chess would be in a position to negotiate.
Once a program is outlined and proposed, fund raising could be done by a fund raising professional and volunteers, nationally, regionally or in specific states. Local clubs could provide volunteer person power for fund raising efforts. US Chess might well take the lead in looking for larger sponsorship funding than clubs working on a more local level.
The key, IMO, is that we need to take a broader approach than focusing on getting people into rated chess. If the pool of organized chess players is expanded locally throughout the nation, a percentage of those folks could well be introduced to rated tournament chess and become full US Chess members. For those not wanting to play that kind of chess, there might be a less expensive supporting membership that would formally get these people involved in growing chess and even helping to run rated tournaments and chess festivals.[/b]
And post #313549 from January 8th of this year. Graphs taken from Ruth Haring’s 2014 President’s report to the Delegates can be found in the original post.
[b]It’s facile to say that scholastic memberships continue to increase without looking at scholastic retention rates. Ruth Haring addressed this in detail in her August 2014 report to the delegates. Ruth wrote: “In looking at our membership numbers over the past year we see modest growth of 2.85%, which was concentrated in the Under 12 category. Good News, Bad News. The good news is we have growth. The bad news is that a large number of our members over 12 drop out every year.”
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The clear problem that US Chess still faces is that of member retention.
All is far from well in US Chessland in that regard as not much has changed since Ruth’s 2014 report.
Ruth also made the point that we were primarily a tournament based chess membership organization. Per Ruth, “During the last year, the IRS approved the long awaited change in the USCF tax status. The new 501(c) 3 tax status marks an important business shift to a social benefit organization with tax deductible contributions. USCF is at a new milestone and the tax status change also implies a change in the culture of the organization…We learned from the results of the survey [conducted by the ED] that almost 70% of players responding, let their membership lapse because they no longer play in USCF rated tournaments. This fits right in with the information we have about why people visit the website: To look up their rating and find a tournament to play in. It’s all about tournaments and ratings.” We are still primarily a tournament based organization.
Despite our new 501(c)3 status, US Chess culture has not significantly changed. We are now approximately three years into a new organizational life as a (c)3 corporation. Where are our new (c)3 based educational programs? What has changed? Not much in a (c)3 program sense. It’s that vision thing again. Instead of vision, we have present board members and a former board member going on and on about how the organization’s budget is now under control, that we have membership “growth” and increases in rated tournaments. People who attempt to raise legitimate issues and suggest solutions in this forum are treated with hostility driven by that old tournament mentality. When rational argument fails, the attacks based on member’s chess ratings are used as the sophistic weapon of choice along with sarcasm and personal insult. All of this is directed at paying members of the organization. That’s chess organizational culture at its worst. Past achievement, like bringing stability to the budget, is indeed laudable. However, that’s the past. This is now. Leadership vision looks to the future while appreciating the positives of the past. The present board, three years into 501 (c)3 status, has yet to provide the vision needed for the future.[/b] [Color=Emphasis Added]
Now we are approaching FOUR years since our change to 501 (c)3 status. Where is the vision; where are the goals and the proposed programs for consideration as to funding and implementation?