English Chess Forum

Anyone got any further news on what is happening with this one as the new term approaches?

Carl Hibbard wrote:Anyone got any further news on what is happening with this one as the new term approaches?

Here's a snippet in the comments from
http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/engla ... -memorial/

Sorry about the CAPS

The Times Chess Correspondent wrote:MEANWHILE IT SHD ALSO BE POINTED OUT THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE LIVE FEES ARE GOING TO COVER THE DELIVERY COSTS OF THE HOLLOID PLASTIC CHESS SETS FOR UK SCHOOLS ( WHICH ARE BEING GIVEN FREE BY HOLLOID APART FROM THE DELIVERY COSTS) -SO ANYONE WHO PAYS CAN BE SURE THEIR MONEY IS GOING TO A VERY GOOD CAUSE.

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Carl Hibbard wrote:Anyone got any further news on what is happening with this one as the new term approaches?

Here's a snippet in the comments from
http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/engla ... -memorial/

Sorry about the CAPS

The Times Chess Correspondent wrote:MEANWHILE IT SHOULD ALSO BE POINTED OUT THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE LIVE FEES ARE GOING TO COVER THE DELIVERY COSTS OF THE HOLLOID PLASTIC CHESS SETS FOR UK SCHOOLS (WHICH ARE BEING GIVEN FREE BY HOLLOID APART FROM THE DELIVERY COSTS) - SO ANYONE WHO PAYS CAN BE SURE THEIR MONEY IS GOING TO A VERY GOOD CAUSE.

Good news indeed, however in my opinion it doesn't justify the fiver - add some GM commentary, perhaps a webcam etc. and then a charge can possibly be justified

This sounds a little like 'Keene-speak'. What does proceeds mean? Is it revenue or profit? I wouldn't hold out my hopes of a huge amount of money coming to the ECF.

Maybe this is his attempt at a compromise? If the idea behind it was to help fund Chess for Schools, then given his experience, he would have made it crystal clear that this was the case right from the start of the event. He'd get far more subscribers if potential customers thought it was going to a good cause, rather than into his bank account.

If they wanted to do this they could /should have given exclusive rights to chess.fm and then had a donation thing through it, people will chuck few £2 through paypal via chess.fm easy.

This way they could have had GM commentry and donations 110% to ECF.

Kind regards

Ben

Alex Holowczak wrote:If the idea behind it was to help fund Chess for Schools, then given his experience, he would have made it crystal clear that this was the case right from the start of the event.

Indeed. From the daily reports (round 1)
http://www.howardstaunton.com/hsmt2009/ ... _Rd_1.html

Staunton Round 1 report wrote: Predictably enough, there have been a few termitic tantrums about the derisory £5 charge being made to view the games, but given that the provision of live game relays is costing the tournament several thousands of pounds, it seems only reasonable that those who use this service should make some contribution to its cost.

I read that to mean that the fivers were going into the tournaments "income pot" and staying there.

Just in case any one was interested in the answer to the original post from Carl here is my understanding :

So far, a total of 35 schools have collected or received their allocation of ten free sets = 350 sets

No more schools are scheduled to receive sets by the end of September 2009

They are planning on having a ‘BIG’ launch in London in October, where they will be inviting all the London Map’s, London schools, major news networks and radio coverage, but will not be giving out any actual chess sets! They will then be planning to start the roll out to all schools, at 1 LEA per week, taking about 48 weeks to complete! This is still to be confirmed by Holloid’s that this is definitely the way they intend to go.

The last information we had was that Holloid’s would be looking to send all the sets for each LEA to a central location, such as a storage unit / yard, and then invite the schools to collect their sets in their own time within a given time scale, for example, of 2 weeks.

We are looking into a better form of distribution from the storage yards, and an example of something we are considering would be to then arrange for the sets once in each LEA to be distributed and sent to local chess clubs, we can then invite the schools to attend the chess club nearest them, on the same day and time , to collect their sets. This will help build foundations between the schools and the clubs, and it is hoped that new members of the chess club from the school clubs will be gained and a support network established.

This is all I have been able to glean so far.

As far as I know, no new sets have been made since the initial tranche of 500 a number of months ago. My guess is that there are no more sets to give out since most of the 500 have been given away.

Read into that what you will....

John Upham wrote:As far as I know, no new sets have been made since the initial tranche of 500 a number of months ago. My guess is that there are no more sets to give out since most of the 500 have been given away.

Have to wait and see then, those 500 sets were in existence back in Fergus days

John Upham wrote
"They are planning on having a ‘BIG’ launch in London in October, where they will be inviting all the London Map’s, London schools, major news networks and radio coverage, but will not be giving out any actual chess sets!"

I find that quite remarkable, surely nobody could think that would lead to good publicity? Any journalist doing a simple google search would make the whole thing look ridiculous?

Hopefully Chris Majer will have some more news, as (yet again...) this differs from the last press release?

Or did I miss something?

It does seem that since Holloid took the project management in house, the ECF are not clear as it to what is happening?

As long as it gets off the ground then we all of course wish the project well, but some sort of definite dates would be most welcome

A friend of mine made the amusing observation that the new grading list might have been designed to distract people from this project! Obviously that couldn't happen.

"It does seem that since Holloid took the project management in house, the ECF are not clear as it to what is happening?"

Yes - Holloid are handling all publicity etc., ECF are not involved.

Kevin Thurlow wrote:Yes - Holloid are handling all publicity etc., ECF are not involved.

I think the ECF are not even being kept in the picture let alone anything else

15 sets will cost me £130 as a teacher, when I buy demo board and print off materials for first term, I won't have change from £250.

I wish there was a scheme where we could get sets for pure costs , not even free sets.

Kind regards

Ben

Ben Purton wrote:15 sets will cost me £130 as a teacher, when I buy demo board and print off materials for first term, I won't have change from £250.

Have a look at the adverts section which was plugging this:-

http://www.chesssupplies.co.uk/3.html