Our new chess season – details

Dear Members

Welcome back! This is a short notice to set out our club plans for the new chess season and to invite members (new or re-joining for the season) to complete the membership form

Online chess activity

For juniors

Junior chess activities (coaching by Zoom, chess tournaments using Lichess) will restart from Saturday September 25th

For seniors

Our senior club chess activities (club meeting / coaching by Zoom, chess tournaments using Lichess) will restart from Monday September 27th

Further details will be posted in the weeks ahead. Specific details are normally circulated via the club whatsapp groups (juniors, seniors) near the time we meet. It is therefore important to actually rejoin the club to ensure we can add you to these whatsapp groups!

Face to face Chess club meetings

As with all clubs who physically meet indoors, we are affected by the current restrictions which continue to affect when and how we can meet together.

For Juniors and Seniors members, we all wish to safely return to face to face chess club meetings.

Typically, during the chess season, we have met on Saturdays at 4pm for juniors, with our seniors meeting at 7.15pm on Mondays. We do not meet as a club on Bank holiday weekends.

To update you:

– at present we have no venue as our previous school meeting venue (Coolmine Secondary school) is not available.

• the chess club committee is currently seeking to locate a new meeting venue in the Dublin 15 area.
• This is of course very challenging but we are hopeful of finding a suitable venue in the next few weeks.

Taking account of the venue problem and the current government rules, our hope is to cautiously restart face to face chess towards the end of October.

Further details will be provided as and when we find a venue.

Finally, when meeting face to face we will expect to follow a “Framework for Physical Club meetings”, which will provide guidance to members / parents / juniors / visitors on protocols around how we should meet and interact. This will be posted on the website as a separate notice.

Finally, we would ask that as many of you who wish should now join the club for the new season.

How to join the club for 2021/22 season

The chess season goes from September through to June, with a summer break in July and August.

All continuing members and new members are asked to complete the membership form for season 2021/22 – see tab on Home page of website.

Costs – annual club fees are as follows for the 2021/22 season:

Junior member (under 18) €45

Family (€70 – two or more children)

Family including adult (€90 – parents and children)

Adult member (€90)

(If you encounter any difficulties as you register, please feel free to email John.delaney.irl@gmail.com (John Delaney) and I can try to help as best I can.)

Glad to be back!

Blanchardstown chess club committee