USCF Affairs Across the Board: A presidential address from USCF President Ruth Haring
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It is a great honor for me to serve the USCF as president and to provide my first
board-meeting report to the membership. This report divides my comments into three sections. First, I comment on the health of the USCF; second, I discuss membership trends; and third, I summarize the events I have attended on behalf of U.S. Chess since the delegates meeting in Orlando, Florida.
State of the USCF Despite the global economic downturn, USCF is having a good
year and we are running about $60K ahead of budget. I am happy to report that we have paid down legal fees and only have a $59K balance left. This amount should be completely paid off early in the next fiscal year. Finally, we can look forward to a future of promoting chess. I urge all chess players, directors, organizers, delegates, teachers, coaches, and others involved with organized chess to work together in a harmonious way in the future so that the organization does not have to bleed pre- cious funds to lawyers. With our revenues being primarily derived from membership
dues and national tournaments, it is key to understand the trends in these numbers and to keep focusing on increasing memberships both through traditional means and through new avenues. It is important to note that approximately 50 per- cent of dues revenues come from members under the age of 21.
Membership Trends Our total membership as of October 31, 2011 was 76,508. 58.6 percent of these members are under 21. Females comprise
Chess Life — January 2012
16 percent of the under 21 population. For the adult category, females represent 31
⁄2 percent of the population. One year ago, we had 76,208 members, of which 58 percent were
under 21; and in the under 21 population, 16.2 percent were female. For the adult category, females comprised 1.44 percent of the population. To give some context, seven years ago on October 31, 2004
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we had 83,948 total members of which 57 percent were under 21, 131
⁄2 percent of the under 21 members were female, and adult
female memberships were about 2.4 percent. What does this tell us? Year after year memberships are flat
with an increase of 375 members since last October. This mod- est membership increase during times of economic challenge is to be commended, and also deserves study. Seven years ago, in 2004, we had 7,440 additional members.
If you look into the numbers you will see that this decrease in membership is in the adult category and could be due to a vari- ety of factors which we have discussed before, including the fact that the “Fischer Boomers” are reaching retirement, and some older players may no longer be active members. We obviously need to make a serious effort to boost adult mem- berships and reverse this trend.
uschess.org
PHOTO COURTESY OF RUTH HARING
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