Staunton Memorial Dinner

Debate directly related to English Chess Federation matters.
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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Sat Aug 21, 2010 3:37 pm

cjdemooi wrote:The eBay idea wasn't going to work. However, as I've been asked repeatedly to put a pair of tickets up for bidding, I'm going to offer a mini auction on this forum instead!

The lot is 2 tickets for the entire evening, at a starting price of £50. Place your bids below so everyone can see what's going on and the winning bid will be the last received by the end of Wednesday 25th August (with an 11.59pm time stamp on the posting)

5% of all proceeds go to charity and 5% go to Women's chess in the UK so 2 good causes to start with.
From what you've said, this sounds like a single lot of 2 tickets. It might be an idea to require the winner of the bid to name (in private to you) both people on the tickets to prevent secondary auctions springing up. I'm actually vaguely interested in this (though I suspect the price will go too high for me), so I'm going to post a link here to the details:

http://howardstaunton.com/staunton2010/ ... lcome.html

Wednesday 25th August gives enough time for me to try and remember what I'm doing on 8th September (it is a Wednesday). The Staunton Society website doesn't say what time the event and dinner starts (you might want to get that fixed), but the blog here does give the times:

http://chesscircuit.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... unton.html

Reception at 5pm, departure ("carriages") at some point after 11pm.

Starting at 5pm on a weekday is something people need to know when bidding for something like this. Hopefully what I've posted above will generate interest in the auction!

cjdemooi
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Re: Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by cjdemooi » Sun Aug 22, 2010 8:22 am

At the moment, people are preferring to bid by PM which is fine so the current bid (it is a single lot of 2 tickets) is £81.

cjdemooi
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Re: Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by cjdemooi » Wed Aug 25, 2010 7:38 pm

With a few hours to go, the current bid is £151...

cjdemooi
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Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by cjdemooi » Thu Sep 09, 2010 11:14 pm

A brief summary.

The event was 'a huge success' in the words of Garry Kasparov.

The morning press conference was attended by every major UK paper, as well as publications from Spain and Germany, along with AP and Reuters.

I will publish full accounts as promised when all the money has come in but a very rough breakdown (including a donation on the night) seems to indicate these amounts being received -
Karpov campaign - £15,000
ECF Women's Chess - £700
National Bullying Helpline - £700
Child Care charity (from sale of donated boards) - £900
British Championships - £7500

I am confident of attracting at least 1 major sponsor as several people spoke to me indicating willingness to provide assistance.

It was an extremely hard job and most people noticed how stressed and tired I was but hopefully the benefits to Karpov and the development and sponsorship of chess in the UK will make it all worthwhile!

I invite anyone who attended to comment below whether it be positive or otherwise. This may become a reguar event (clearly not in the same style though) so I would like to hear the thoughts of any of last night's guests please.

David Lettington
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Re: Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by David Lettington » Fri Sep 10, 2010 12:33 am

I really enjoyed the evening, it was fantastic to be able to get so close those chess legends as they played.

The event was well organised and everyone seemed really happy, if it has managed to attract sponsors to other events too then that is excellent.

Well done CJ, you clearly worked very hard and the success of the evening reflects well on the efforts that you put in.

Scott Freeman
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Re: Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by Scott Freeman » Fri Sep 10, 2010 8:39 am

I wish to add my thanks and congratulations to C-J for organising such a wonderful evening. The energy he put into it was incredible (he really could have done with a couple of assistants!) and I think everyone there had a great time meeting, networking and raising money for such good causes. I hope that, as C-J pushes on with his work to develop chess in the country, that he will continue to receive the very well deserved support that he seems to have thus far. To have a President (and such a busy one) who has been happy to put so much time and energy, as well as his public image, into the development of chess, is wonderful. It's what we have needed for so long, but we must never take it for granted. Well done C-J.

Alex Holowczak
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Re: Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by Alex Holowczak » Fri Sep 10, 2010 9:24 am

This is good news indeed. I hope the sponsorship comes to fruition!

andrew martin

Re: Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by andrew martin » Fri Sep 10, 2010 9:32 am

Congratulations to CJ on a fantastic effort!

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Paul Littlewood
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Re: Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by Paul Littlewood » Fri Sep 10, 2010 9:39 am

Bravo !

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John Saunders
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Re: Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by John Saunders » Fri Sep 10, 2010 10:29 am

Yes, bravo indeed - CJ did a tremendous job and the whole day (press conference and evening shindig) were extremely well organised and good fun.

I've written a report of the press conference which can be found here at TWIC.
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John Saunders
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Re: Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by John Saunders » Fri Sep 10, 2010 2:26 pm

In my write-up of the Karpov-Kasparov press conference, I omitted to retell Garry Kasparov's joke. He referred to the six British and Irish votes in favour of Karpov as "'Fischerising' Ilyumzhinov" - a reference to Fischer's 6-0 scores against Taimanov and Larsen in 1971. I confess I didn't get it at the time - the significance of it only occurred to me when I listened to my recording of the conference.
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cjdemooi
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Re: Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by cjdemooi » Tue Sep 14, 2010 11:43 am

I'm just writing up the final accounts now so will publish those in the next couple of days before I leave for the Olympiad. However, Steve Giddins has written a report on the evening which is linked below.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6671

cjdemooi
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Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by cjdemooi » Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:07 pm

The final totals raised (minus all deductions which will be detailed in the accounts)

Karpov 2010 - £4216.07 (although it also received a private donation of $10,000 on the night)
National Bullying Helpline - £720.42
Child Care Charity - £1200
British Chess Championship 2011 - £7000

I have a number of parties interested in sponsorship and will hopefully be making an announcement about this at the end of the year.

Sean Hewitt

Re: Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by Sean Hewitt » Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:19 pm

Excellent stuff CJ. Hearty congratulations!

Mike Truran
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Re: Staunton Memorial Dinner

Post by Mike Truran » Tue Sep 14, 2010 5:53 pm

Indeed. Great work!

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