Chess club – the new season

Challenge for 2022/23

a) Call for parents to act as junior club volunteers

Parents are needed to help run the Junior chess club on Saturdays during the chess season if we are to be able to meet up face to face.

• To help the club meet safely on Saturday (4pm to 5.30pm) from September, we will need parents of the children to volunteer to help run the Saturday club session.
• This mainly means policing the meeting room/toilets areas and ensuring all the children are safe; and especially helping children find their seats when playing in a chess tournament.
• There is no need to know about chess in any of this!
• If you are able to help that would be important and you volunteering will allow the club to met up safely
• We will be able to create a small rota to ensure that you are only asked to help occasionally (perhaps every few weeks only) so this important task will be shared around to help everyone

b) Chess club committee & AGM

We need to have a club committee to help decide things and generally run the club well. If you can join the committee, please do. You are needed. It would not take too much of your time. We will meet over Zoom occasionally and simply make decisions needed for the club to function well. It is clearly vital that we have a child protection officer, a membership officer , secretary and so on. We do need to now renew a full committee structure as we emerge from COVID so that we can run the cub well for the members.

So, please consider putting your name forward at the Zoom AGM meeting on Tuesday (21 June 2022).

(Alternatively if you cannot make the AGM meeting but can consider helping the club in some other way, please let me know at john.delaney.irl@gmail.com at any point.)

Remember the AGM is Tuesday evening, over Zoom at 7.30pm. The link has been circculated on Whatsapp. See you then!

John Delaney

Blanchchardstown chess club

Notes about the coming year 2022/23 (prepared by John to assist the AGM)

Our club successes to date

1. Our club started in February 2010 and has had a remarkable level of success.
2. We have already had a number of Irish Junior chess champions at different age groups, as well as junior players in our club being selected and representing Ireland.
3. This success is helpful for all of us! When playing in the club, all our players tend gradually to become as good as the best opposition in the room! So having high quality opposition helps us all to improve and compete in our sport.
4. Our club philosophy has centered around bring the joy of chess as a sport to all our members. Playing in events and tournaments is a challenge but also is very social. and a happy activity
5. We want both the children and adults to enjoy access to this sport for life, and to have chess as a background activity they can turn to at various times in life – as they develop and prosper.
6. Looking ahead, we start our season at the beginning of September and it finishes at end June of the following year. Some ideas as to what you can expect in a typical chess season are below.

JUNIOR CLUB

a) September – October 2022

During this period:

– the junior club will meet on Saturdays at 4pm

– initially, we can expect 30 juniors will meet up growing to 60-100 within a month or two

– we will focus on running chess activities / events

Juniors will lightly be arranged by age and we will focus on 5 minute speed chess events

We will introduce children to how chess games are recorded and learn about chess clocks

Twice a month we will run a bigger SWISS chess tournament event

– under 12 tournament section

– aged 12 plus tournament section

Our goal in this period will be to safely meet, with full complement of parents willing to help organise the playing room, and a few parents able to run chess events. In background, those interested will continue to have access to high level chess coaching.

b) November-December 2022

As time goes by we will add two major events

• participation in the Leinster Chess Union Mick Germaine team event (held in Dublin).
• we typically organise up to 5 or 6 teams of four players
• we use that moment as a good point to arrange our club hoodies (always popular!)
• we traditionally run a Christmas chess event and party

As a club, we will also host a large scale Leinster Wide Junior competition (Sunday afternoon, 15 minute Swiss event)

c) From January 2023 onwards

Bulding forward, we hope to be in a position to run more competitive age specific events. We will have a Ladder system in place for each age cohort in the club, and be publishing their games played in events on our Club website.

The precise design and layout of these events be led by the parents alongside chess coaches.

We hope to use onilne coaching to prepare groups of our juniors who wish to play in competitions such as Irish Chess Union Weekend Chess Festivals (see www.icu.ie) and especially with the Irish Juniors Chess champeionships in mind(typically in April).

SENIORS

Initially the seniors will also meet on Saturdays (during September).

Traditionally we have met on Mondays evenings at 7.15pm . In July, the club committee will meet with other Leinster clubs in early July to decide the Leinster approach for year 2022/23 and we will adjust to what the Leinster Chess Union suggest.

During the year, our hope is to establish a few teams specifically for older players (retired members) and to provide coaching for them.

Another wish as mentioned is to prepare our stronger juniors for the Irish Junior championships.

We will need to have a small Senior Group subcommittee established at the club AGM to organise things for the adult/senior members.

a) July

Leinster chess union meeting – decisions and league approach known

Senior Club subcommittee created

b) From September

Juniors and their parents interested in playing at a high level will be assigned to a Club team.

Online coaching and dedicated tournaments will be arranged

A calendar of events will be developed.

Our club may run its own Chess congress.