Chess Scotland Noticeboard

sigrun · King Joined: 25 Jan 2007 Posts: 307 Location: Europa

2 years ago Germany started a competition to find the most active 3 clubs using these criteria:
Points for: every new member - female members - members taking part in weekend comps - number of teams in local league - youth teams - teams in national leagues - club website - journalism - newsletter- certificates or badges - trophies - tuition - photos -
Equivalences for smaller clubs: less than 25 members multiply by 1.5; between 25 - 40 multiply by 1.25
good idea ? Cool

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''All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.'' Voltaire

AMcHarg · Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 2:37 pm Post subject:

I think it would be a pretty major job to keep track of it. That aside, I'm not sure what it would achieve.

I don't think the lack of interest in Chess is to do with a lack of any ordinary effort on Chess Scotland's part (at any level - or at any club), but actually more to do with a lack of resources, both financially and otherwise.

The winning club would presumably get a prize (albeit a pretty modest one as the resources are not available), and such a prize is not likely to inspire most clubs to go beyond their current time-commitment to Chess, in order to get more players playing.

I'd rather see the resources made available to get Chess into every school in the country. If one competent and presentable volunteer could be found to engage with a school in their local area then that would really produce excellent results within 5-10 years. Look at what is happening in the schools where that has been done! Smile

Alex McFarlane · King Joined: 13 Mar 2007 Posts: 413

If the club deserved the title it would also gain a lot of publicity in its local area. This should bring in even more members. What is sadly lacking is anything that gains publicity for chess in the mass media. Until such times as TV and the nationals take chess seriously we need to concentrate on local papers.

A club of the year should gain such publicity. So too should players who win events get a mention in their local paper. If there was to be a club of the year the amount of local publicity a club generates should be taken into consideration.

My experience is that local papers are not interested in events unless National titles are available and even then it is difficult – but if they think that little Jimmy’s relatives will all buy a copy then it will run with the story about his victory in the Auchenpeffer Minor.

Gaining publicity is something that chess players in general are bad at. We all must accept responsibility for that. It takes little effort to tell the local paper of a club mate’s success.

Another consideration for a club of the year is not how many juniors it has but how many juniors it has progressed to adult level. We have a large number of juniors playing but, in my opinion, the numbers continuing at a reasonable level is decreasing year on year. A club of the year should not be awarded points for the number of juniors it has but for the number of juniors it has had for a period of 3 or more years. That is a much more significant way of assessing the success of a club.
I’ll go even further, a club with no juniors should be deducted points.

Ian McLachlan · Rook Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 63 Location: Lanark

In my experience, publicity in the press achieves very little. In Lanark we have a piece in our local paper after every Lanarkshire League and SNCL match, and after something significant, e.g. winning the Lanarkshire League, we have had a fairly prominent article with photographs. In our diamond jubilee year we had a lot of publicity in the chess columns in the national papers, thanks to DMB, Paul Motwani and John Glendinning, as well as locally. Over the years I doubt that all of that has produced more than a couple of new members.

We have had a reasonable number of juniors come to the club, but that is a spin-off from two of us doing some coaching in primary schools, and referrals from one school which has a chess club run by a teacher.

As Alex mentioned, converting junior members to senior members is important, and it is a big problem. Our juniors tend to leave the club (and probably stop playing chess) when they go to secondary school. As a consequence the average age of our adult members is over 60, which makes the long term future of the club somewhat questionable.

AMcHarg · Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 8:55 pm Post subject:

Alex McFarlane · King Joined: 13 Mar 2007 Posts: 413

sigrun · King Joined: 25 Jan 2007 Posts: 307 Location: Europa

I do believe that local publicity is important. When Robin Templeton published a photo of the price winners at the beginning of the season Ayr had lots of players. Then when he left, the club dwindled to just a few faithful. Last year Ayr started publishing league results again & we've had a few newcomers. The same happened when Carrick used to put in the results...
It's not a very obvious process & takes time, but it makes the difference between a club losing players & gaining them.

Stuart Blyth · King Joined: 11 Sep 2008 Posts: 209

Hi

Hmm I could write screeds on what is needed for a chess club to be successful and what makes this difficult to achieve - however, I think I'd best leave that one alone Wink

One thing I can say is that I've always felt it was really helpful to have a critical mass of adult players in the 900-1300 range. Without this, it can be very easy for new adults quickly to lose interest.

Derek Howie · Bishop Joined: 21 May 2010 Posts: 28 Location: Glasgow

As an adult who took up the game a year ago, there are a couple of suggestions that would result in me playing more:

1. Organise training for adult newbies. There have been a number of excellent training days in the West of Scotland for juniors. Is there the demand for something similar for adults. Surely I can't be the only one who would be interested in it?

2. Have a few congresses with the Minor being at a lower limit. Having Minors under 1450 or 1500 can be offputting for new players graded around 1000.

AMcHarg · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 3:50 pm Post subject:

AMcHarg · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 3:52 pm Post subject:

Stuart Blyth · King Joined: 11 Sep 2008 Posts: 209

I understand that for some newish players, the idea of adult training is a good idea. Is this notthough, really for those adults who are really keen and likely to stick at chess regardless? I might count myself in that category - when I started about ten years ago, I was really keen and kept on playing - even though I was continually thrashed week after week and was part of a club where organising things in a way to keep/attract new members was not top of the agenda.

I think though the question is how to attract and then keep hold of those adults who have an interest, but are maybe not quite so serious about their chess - for them, the most important things are welcoming atmosphere, players at their own level and, perhaps, encouragement to play in tournaments and leagues.

Andy McCulloch · King Joined: 28 Mar 2007 Posts: 280

Andrew, it would appear that Steven Taylor runs a school team, (Greenwood Academy?) that is the kind of rule that applies.

Oddly enough, I do not think that the reverse situation, a female teacher providing transport, requires that she is accompanied by a male teacher if there is a boy in the team.

Alex McFarlane · King Joined: 13 Mar 2007 Posts: 413

The reverse situation certainly was the case when I taught in Glasgow.
(Though I'm not sure about Primary schools.)

robin moore · King Joined: 03 Jul 2009 Posts: 164

This is turning out to be one of the best topics this year.

Stuart Blyth wrote