Miscellaneous items
SPRAGGETT ON CHESS
Mike Magnan, one of the several thousand regular visitors to my blog, sent me the following video. Mike admits it is a big cheesy, but it does remind him of the CFC. (Who am I to judge people? The CFC annoys most of its members!) Thankyou, Mike! Feel free to express yourself…anytime!
The CFC has about 1,800 members at present. For the past 15 years or so, the membership yearly turnover was averaging 50%, meaning that 50% of its members would not re-new their membership when it expired. While no one can be certain without going back and checking the official CFC records (assuming they have not been lost), I would estimate that approximately 8,000 to 10,000 individuals have been members of the CFC in the past decade and a half. We can call this the Canadian chess community.
Where are they? I am certain that many play online chess, or show up at the local clubs from time to time and are still (relatively) active in the game. The problem is that there is no real web-center for Canadian chess. The CFC website is very unattractive and not very inter-active. And offers poorly detailed and often outdated information. For example, under the heading of the 2010 Olympics is the 2008 Olympics and not one word about this year’s event.
The message boards (chess.ca and chesstalk.com) attract a single digit percentage of the above mentioned Canadian chess community. And it is always the same half-dozen people or so who post. The various provincial sites and local clubs that have a web-presence probably attract an equal number to this. Vlad Dobrich has difficulty getting more than a dozen players to show up for his weekly blitz tournament because so few know about it.
Quite simply, the development of the use of the web in Canadian chess is very backward and does not meet the needs of the community. Even Tony Ficzere’s monthly e-magazine does not go to each paying member of the CFC because the CFC does not keep records of all of the emails of those who actually pay their memberships! I think I read somewhere that only about half of the CFC membership gets the magazine.
Probably the future is in Blogs. I have been successful in attracting a fair percentage of the Canadian chess community, but I still have a ways to go before I can be satisfied. I try to provide a mixture of entertainment, information, opinion and games analysis (and problems,etc). My focus is on the average adult chess player who might or might not want to play one or two club tournaments a year.
Thankyou for your support! Your emails are appreciated.
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HERE ARE SOME CUTE CHESS-RELATED VIDEOS
(Thx, Sandra!)