This is a short notice designed to let you know what we hope will happen in the next few weeks, as the chess club restarts for season 2022/23.
In this, I stress that I describe here our hopes. Your ideas and contribution are needed so that we can continue to provide access to our sport in the Dublin 15 area, in a manner that adds value to the lives of our children and adult members. (Note that whilst we try to locate in Dublin 15 area, our actual club membership is more widely drawn which is a delight.)
Junior chess
We hope to restart meeting face to face during September 2022.
By October we will focus on running small scales junior tournaments within the junior club each week. This will allow us to create junior teams to play in the Mick Germaine cup (held in December); and then our juniors can if they wish develop to play in more long time control events (i.e. fully rated by Irish Chess Union) from early in 2023.
A notice will be put up once we have confirmation of a meeting place for our juniors. Timing is normally Saturday afternoon for juniors.
Senior chess
Leinster Chess Union is planning to restart its chess leagues shortly. The Senior club had teams in Division One and Division three, as well as Division 6. It is not clear how many teams we will have for the new season, as that depends on your interest to play and availability of team captains (to organise).
A notice will go up on website inviting our Senior club players to indicate interest in playing in the chess leagues. Teams will consist of a mix of adults and juniors so interested juniors will be welcome.
For now, we are looking to decide a suitable timing / venue for club nights for our seniors. The urgent first need is to find a suitable venue for our home matches to be played in the coming LCU leagues.
Note that the Senior side of the club is typically for adults plus those juniors (typically 12+) interested to gain Irish Chess Union ratings and to play on a team for the club. Younger juniors can also play in Leinster leagues if interested – assuming parent/guardian accompany them.
Coaching
The Club ran an extensive programme of online coaching during the last year or two. Our committee energies must now focus on restarting face to face chess for all our members. We will likely restart online chess coaching most likely in November when our players are settled back into face to face meetings and with a view to coaching them to help them play in specific Leinster and all Irish competition.
Organising ourselves
As we restart the season, you will suddenly see that we have very few volunteers to actually help restart the club. So please volunteer as you see an opportunity to do so. Ours is simply a volunterring club, building social capital in the community, and it is the case that we can do more for our children/seniors if we have people willing to take the lead and organise activities.
Next steps
Finally, the website has been quiet for some time as you may notice. You can expect to see an increase in notices as the new season now starts.
For now, if you have any queries, feel free to email me at john.delaney.irl@gmail.com .
John Delaney
Blanchardstown Chess club
Junior chess lead
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