Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Debate directly related to English Chess Federation matters.
Brian Towers
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Re: Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Post by Brian Towers » Mon Oct 15, 2018 11:16 pm

Here are the percentage active female participation rates for federations with more than 1000 active players.

PercentFemaleParticipation ActivePlayerCount ActiveFemaleCount Fed
42.220969560315 1774 749 Mongolia
35.454545454545 2090 741 Unired Arab Emirates
33.816715290887 11654 3941 Sri Lanka
32.345914954610 2093 677 Vietnam
28.162522741055 8245 2322 Malaysia
27.139689578713 2255 612 China
27.081649151172 2474 670 Ecuador
25.638506876227 2036 522 Georgia
22.365765038352 2477 554 Bolivia
22.200198216055 2018 448 Costa Rica
22.107813446396 1651 365 Kenya
21.428571428571 3178 681 Azerbaijan
20.341416719846 18804 3825 Greece
19.456818508406 6959 1354 Colombia
19.447929736511 1594 310 Cuba
19.435918705931 12055 2343 Brazil
19.040365575019 1313 250 Estonia
18.902169101372 4518 854 Peru
18.800443108086 6319 1188 Romania
18.791332867358 18599 3495 Poland
18.764013936320 57978 10879 Russia
18.598559266535 1527 284 Kyrgyzstan
18.510484454085 1383 256 Uzbekistan
18.455755677368 31925 5892 Turkey
18.403970981290 2619 482 Singapore
18.328445747800 2046 375 Latvia
18.224592220828 3188 581 Lithuania
18.047493403693 5685 1026 Venezuela
17.572214580467 2908 511 South Africa
17.406460608877 4303 749 Mexico
17.391304347826 1380 240 Belarus
16.999429549343 1753 298 Indonesia
16.293774319066 4112 670 Kazakhstan
16.101189996940 62101 9999 India
15.851272015655 1022 162 Armenia
15.181518151815 3030 460 Philippines
14.527399779330 2719 395 Algeria
14.338112704234 5998 860 FIDE
13.954748679040 29524 4120 Iran
13.878364905284 5015 696 Portugal
13.840884670487 44672 6183 France
13.699027717312 6891 944 Croatia
13.540856031128 3855 522 Chile
12.698917886696 9426 1197 Ukraine
12.661257369680 17131 2169 Italy
12.181616832779 3612 440 Slovenia
12.108433734939 1660 201 Botswana
12.085696282293 7935 959 Hungary
12.066246056782 1268 153 Iraq
11.292134831460 1780 201 Tunisia
11.075697211155 1255 139 Morocco
10.479921645445 1021 107 Jordan
10.224274406332 1516 155 Zambia
9.938650306748 1630 162 Saudi Arabia
9.726887688038 6847 666 Serbia
9.718951169728 6369 619 Slovakia
9.295774647887 2130 198 Dominican Republic
9.082352941176 2125 193 Nepal
9.032258064516 23250 2100 Germany
9.028653811497 5549 501 Egypt
9.008341971469 40518 3650 Spain
8.848520363316 3413 302 Bangladesh
8.665984305697 2931 254 Australia
8.640552995391 1736 150 Iceland
7.810034711265 12676 990 United States
7.781895182636 1889 147 Bosnia Herzegovina
7.758925415341 5658 439 England
7.449078564500 10310 768 Czech Republic
7.142857142857 2674 191 Canada
7.076695072248 5398 382 Belgium
6.563421828908 5424 356 Austria
6.299006795608 3826 241 Israel
6.254996003197 5004 313 Sweden
5.686730961090 3007 171 Switzerland
5.351326198231 6447 345 Argentina
4.826823876197 5428 262 Netherlands
4.817939609236 4504 217 Norway
4.466313398940 1321 59 Finland
4.209621993127 1164 49 Ireland
2.698786451729 5521 149 Denmark
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

Brian Towers
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Re: Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Post by Brian Towers » Mon Oct 15, 2018 11:27 pm

According to these figures the claim -
There is also a far smaller proportion of women and girl players in English chess clubs, organisations and tournaments than in many countries in Europe and worldwide.
is half true and half false. Coming in at 67th out of 80 in the world, female participation rates are far worse than most countries worldwide. However in Europe, England is more mid-table and well above the Nordic countries which we are told are world leaders in women's rights, freedom and equality of opportunity. These countries, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, occupy four of the bottom eight places. With hindsight I suppose this isn't so surprising. We are told that the Nordic countries are the countries where women are most free to pursue the things that interest them most and that explains why participation rates in traditional male occupations like science and engineering are so low and why rates in traditional female occupations like the caring occupations are so high.
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

Angus French
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Re: Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Post by Angus French » Tue Oct 16, 2018 8:54 am

Those backwards, third-world, countries... maybe we can learn something from them. And look at the player counts. We're dwarfed by each of Germany, France and Spain. And Iran has five times as many active players as we do and nine times as many female players.

Some stats on participation (male/female and different age groups) in English chess: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9520&p=211033#p211030

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Michael Farthing
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Re: Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Post by Michael Farthing » Tue Oct 16, 2018 9:18 am

Rather interesting that the Islamic countries hold their own pretty well.

NickFaulks
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Re: Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Post by NickFaulks » Tue Oct 16, 2018 9:21 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Mon Oct 15, 2018 4:28 pm
In the USCF context, "development" means fund raising.
It was clear on Saturday that this is also true in the ECF context. although the money is to be obtained from chess players.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a QR code stamped on a human face — forever.

Brian Towers
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Re: Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Post by Brian Towers » Tue Oct 16, 2018 11:55 am

Angus French wrote:
Tue Oct 16, 2018 8:54 am
And look at the player counts. We're dwarfed by each of Germany, France and Spain. And Iran has five times as many active players as we do and nine times as many female players.
For perspective player counts really need to be adjusted for population. I entered populations into my system a couple of years ago based on values from Wikipedia (for what that's worth). Here are the percentage of active FIDE registered players per federation, again filtering out federations with fewer than 1000 active players. So, about 1 in every 200 Icelanders is an active FIDE registered chess player as opposed to 1 in 10,000 in England.

PercentParticipation ActivePlayerCount Fed
0.521712997746 1736 Iceland
0.174499834775 3612 Slovenia
0.173357024107 18804 Greece
0.163088393862 6891 Croatia
0.117421310760 6369 Slovakia
0.110365570373 3188 Lithuania
0.103789377568 2046 Latvia
0.100094605792 1313 Estonia
0.097804233301 10310 Czech Republic
0.096736589997 5521 Denmark
0.096241520534 6847 Serbia
0.087279891736 40518 Spain
0.086383064009 4504 Norway
0.080566554980 7935 Hungary
0.077526403344 1660 Botswana
0.069244698631 44672 France
0.062346762485 5424 Austria
0.057752095710 1774 Mongolia
0.055585233234 11654 Sri Lanka
0.054591768333 2036 Georgia
0.050756715273 5004 Sweden
0.049820367114 1889 Bosnia Herzegovina
0.048338178717 5015 Portugal
0.048329175761 18599 Poland
0.047744433722 5398 Belgium
0.047317073170 2619 Singapore
0.045136021518 3826 Israel
0.041761222656 2018 Costa Rica
0.040544288885 31925 Turkey
0.039570089655 57978 Russia
0.037338783315 29524 Iran
0.036201873299 3007 Switzerland
0.034082571866 1022 Armenia
0.032743982855 3178 Azerbaijan
0.031935056755 5428 Netherlands
0.031816122048 6319 Romania
0.028541965896 23250 Germany
0.028231783619 17131 Italy
0.026697708756 8245 Malaysia
0.025367555444 1527 Kyrgyzstan
0.024012715650 1321 Finland
0.023269895704 4112 Kazakhstan
0.022548809250 2477 Bolivia
0.022043708562 9426 Ukraine
0.021205357142 2090 Unired Arab Emirates
0.021190749729 3855 Chile
0.021141344778 2130 Dominican Republic
0.018321747285 5685 Venezuela
0.018250235183 1164 Ireland
0.016207228168 1780 Tunisia
0.015197639340 2474 Ecuador
0.014789953751 6447 Argentina
0.014528303873 1380 Belarus
0.014348004204 4518 Peru
0.014330282219 6959 Colombia
0.014183618419 1594 Cuba
0.012201721812 2931 Australia
0.010711611932 1021 Jordan
0.010672963350 5658 England
0.009514316127 1516 Zambia
0.007474104426 2125 Nepal
0.007430718897 2674 Canada
0.006730198019 2719 Algeria
0.006127118101 5549 Egypt
0.005859166156 12055 Brazil
0.005291419275 2908 South Africa
0.005054545680 1630 Saudi Arabia
0.004830356865 62101 India
0.004458054637 1383 Uzbekistan
0.003924336707 12676 United States
0.003764526159 1255 Morocco
0.003519159916 4303 Mexico
0.003494105944 1651 Kenya
0.003466848940 1268 Iraq
0.002943899763 3030 Philippines
0.002282442748 2093 Vietnam
0.002132898379 3413 Bangladesh
0.000677605767 1753 Indonesia
0.000163964225 2255 China
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

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Michael Farthing
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Re: Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Post by Michael Farthing » Tue Oct 16, 2018 12:05 pm

Ah! Of course there is a flaw from the England viewpoint (and I suppose others too - the US?). Don't some (maybe most?) countries do all their grading through FIDE while in England most grading is done through the national system. Likely to introduce a bias? (Don't know which way though!) [I'm talking about the women ratio here - the bias is obvious for the most recent table]

Brian Towers
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Re: Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Post by Brian Towers » Tue Oct 16, 2018 12:46 pm

Michael Farthing wrote:
Tue Oct 16, 2018 12:05 pm
Ah! Of course there is a flaw from the England viewpoint (and I suppose others too - the US?). Don't some (maybe most?) countries do all their grading through FIDE while in England most grading is done through the national system. Likely to introduce a bias? (Don't know which way though!) [I'm talking about the women ratio here - the bias is obvious for the most recent table]
I think you are clutching at straws there. Israel certainly has its own grading system - elo based but with different k factors and obviously grading more Israeli chess than FIDE. For those of us with both, ICF tends to be about FIDE + 90. The ICF automatically picks up FIDE rated games played outside the country, unlike the ECF. I think most of the difference is probably related to the attitude different federations have to FIDE.

The link that Angus gave earlier - viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9520&p=211033#p211030 - gives useful perspective. There the comparable figure for active chess players in England (includes quite a lot of players who's federation is not ENG, I suspect) is 18,808 or just over 3 times the FIDE figure.
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

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IM Jack Rudd
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Re: Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Tue Oct 16, 2018 1:36 pm

The only thing I know about the numbers of various federations on the ECF grading list is that by far the most represented federation is {undefined}, followed by ENG.

Brian Valentine
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Re: Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Post by Brian Valentine » Tue Oct 16, 2018 1:44 pm

IM Jack Rudd wrote:
Tue Oct 16, 2018 1:36 pm
The only thing I know about the numbers of various federations on the ECF grading list is that by far the most represented federation is {undefined}, followed by ENG.
The grading list accepts people of all nationalities. The Nation code is only added for those with a FIDE reference.

Andrew Zigmond
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Re: Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Thu Oct 18, 2018 12:28 am

This thread appears to have lost its way already. Statistics are interesting but this discussion needs to be about strategy and ideas for chess development and how the ECF can provide some muscle to get behind it.
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Angus French
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Re: Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Post by Angus French » Thu Oct 18, 2018 12:46 am

Andrew Zigmond wrote:
Thu Oct 18, 2018 12:28 am
This thread appears to have lost its way already. Statistics are interesting but this discussion needs to be about strategy and ideas for chess development and how the ECF can provide some muscle to get behind it.
Doesn't strategy start with assessing where you are, including in relation to your peers?

Andrew Zigmond
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Re: Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Thu Oct 18, 2018 1:11 am

Angus French wrote:
Thu Oct 18, 2018 12:46 am
Andrew Zigmond wrote:
Thu Oct 18, 2018 12:28 am
This thread appears to have lost its way already. Statistics are interesting but this discussion needs to be about strategy and ideas for chess development and how the ECF can provide some muscle to get behind it.
Doesn't strategy start with assessing where you are, including in relation to your peers?
Well it does and certainly we have to look at what other countries might be doing differently (a better public image for chess is the likely start). It might be because (for all that I enjoy a strategy game) I'm an activist who actually wants to get out there and start doing something.
Controller - Yorkshire League
Chairman - Harrogate Chess Club
All views expressed entirely my own

Stewart Reuben
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Re: Development Officer Proposal Paper - Discuss

Post by Stewart Reuben » Sat Oct 20, 2018 12:17 pm

Hok Yin StephenChiu > think funding should available to organisers running new Congresses/Rapidplays as a priority,<

When BCF Director of Congress Chess. many years ago, there was such a fund available under my directorship. Money became short and, after a few years, I proposed it be discontinued, because all the new ideas were being gnerated by me. Thus the initiative was not fulfilling the objectives.