The fact that the discussion drifted onto post-mortems doesn't mean that we deem that to be the most important.

For me, human interaction in general is the most important by far--as I said above. Sitting at home playing online, even with chat, is fundamentally isolating. If you're in a bad marriage or an unsatisfying job, then that isolation may seem like a wonderland by comparison to the alternative, but it's isolation nonetheless.

Some principal benefits of a club:
-Seeing the same people every week; developing real-life chess friends.
-Being around other strong and stronger players and hearing how they think.
-Laughing. I was at a club last night, and the amount of laughter among people playing, analyzing, and gossiping about chess was striking.
-When playing, using your physical presence, which has an involuntary effect on the nervous systems of both players; leaning or looming over the board, for example. Getting information from your opponent's body language. Watching others play. 
-Gathering around a game coming to an exciting finish.
-Going through chess books together. I have often seen this at my club.
-Organized study--pairing off or forming small groups and analyzing, say, endgame positions.
-Children's programs.
-Lectures by guest speakers or members of the club.
-Secondary social outings, e.g. parties, concerts, etc. 
-For those lucky enough to live in San Francisco, Athens, Moscow, New York, etc.: having a place where you can go during the day anytime to be around chess; a physical place with pictures of world champions on the wall that reminds you chess is valued. The preservation of chess culture in the modern world.

I think it's pretty obvious that what a club can offer over the internet is human interaction, so you need to maximize that.  Not just play blitz all the time, or not just have one of those clubs where everyone shows up at 7:05 to play one rated G/75 (that was supposed to start at 7:00) before your meeting place closes down at 9:30.   

Lectures, as has been mentioned previously, could probably go very far.  Again, the player giving the lecture doesn't even need to be that strong: 1800ish if they're teaching kids, or 2100-2200ish for most other players (it depends on the club, obviously; if you're in a big city you might have multiple IMs and GMs, but for many smaller American cities, the strongest players around are 2200-2300).  I like the idea of analyzing club games publicly, where a stronger player looks at some weaker players' games in a lecture/seminar format, getting suggestions from the audience, just talking about chess, etc.   

If you can't afford to pay the person giving the lecture, you could do it yourself (if you're trying to grow the club) or maybe offer other incentives, i.e. free entry into tournaments, etc.  Maybe make it a condition that the club champion MUST give a lecture on the most interesting games from the club championship as part of his "duties" as club champion.  And perhaps a night where he gives a simul to some weaker players.  Also, a player might give some free lectures in the hopes that he could pick up some students for private lessons.

I like the idea of having newly-minted Masters give a simul for some of the younger players in the club, also.  I wanted to do that when I became a Master, but the club in my small town couldn't get their act together in time and I moved away soon after.   

Then yes, post-mortems are very important.  I think it's critically important to encourage players to talk and be social, not just have one of those clubs where you play a rated game and then have to leave because there is no time left (as I think many Americans experience, at least for the clubs that meet on a week night).   

Also, while the St. Louis Chess Club clearly has some nice video equipment and stellar lecturers, all you really need to give a lecture is a laptop and a simple projector that you can often check out of or rent from a library.  It doesn't have to be that fancy if you aren't filming it for YouTube.   

Obviously it's a lot of work, and you'll need a few people to all help out.

So, judging by the discussion so far, post mortems seem to be the most important thing a club can offer?

Second most important thing may be to have club activities online?

Third comes human interaction in various forms, over the board and off board?

The post mortem is not for discovering the truth, but for learning about chess.  Unless you vastly outclass your opponent, you should listen to what his ideas were, what he saw, how he approached the game, what he was worried about, etc., especially if he's a stronger player than you.  But even if he's a little weaker you can learn a lot if he has particular strengths that you lack. 

And if you are a much stronger player than your opponent, as long as he wasn't rude you should give him 5 or 10 minutes of your time to discuss the game.  The only times when I do not are when my opponent played on 20+ moves in a clearly losing position (down a piece, etc), using all of the rest of their time.  In that situation I feel that they've taken enough of my time already, I'm sorry to say, especially because that will normally mean that I now have only forty-five minutes to get lunch and return instead of an hour and forty-five minutes, etc.    

Just my thoughts on the post-mortem. 

Girkassa wrote on 05/05/14 at 21:31:04:


It depends a lot on the players to give worth to the post mortem, some love to analyse and discuss different plans - and that interaction is hard to get from an engine. On the other hand, some just want to go thru the motions and then go home or prep for the next round... 
But on a good day the after analysis is almost part of the game, and you also get an idea how to feel about the result. Occasionally I've had games I won pretty easily and then in the aftermath my opponent turns out to have a lot of really interesting ideas that could've turned the tables...

FischerTal wrote on 05/05/14 at 20:48:32:

At broadcastings of toplevel chess there are many watchers believing that it is sufficient to know what is going on by looking at engine evaluations. I still believe that strong online commentators can bring a huge added value. I described 1 small example of my own practice in the article: http://chess-brabo.blogspot.be/2014/01/excelsior.html. of which I strongly suspect that my opponent missed the idea and which an engine will never show you.

Organizing simuls/ lectures is not cheap if done by top players. As a small club this is often not possible with the budget. Besides with engines many times stronger than the top players, simuls and lectures have lost also a lot of attraction. People were in the pre-computer era looking up to top players while today I am often astounded to how little respect people have for titled players.

TalJechin wrote on 05/05/14 at 20:02:00:

I guess you could contact Sv De Pion uit Roosendaal. They grew with 28 members in 2011 to 154 members !! In this article: http://www.schaakbond.nl/home/nieuwsarchief/2012/knsb-reikt-verenigings-en-inter...
they mention that the organizers are often invited in other clubs to explain how they work.

Some activities they do:
- organize 3x3 weekly tournaments
- online coaching for the youth
- participate to internet-interclub-competitions
- per level there is a tournament-room prepared on playchess so youth can play conform playing strength

As they have a special team of people taking care of the internetactivities, it is very likely today that there are even more developments.

On the Dutch federation site they have a complete overview of all ongoing activities on national level: http://www.schaakbond.nl/internetschaak

I would never advise anyone else to take this approach. It is simply what I prefer--even if it costs me a game or two (though I think it works well for me in most cases).