English Chess Forum

What if she was 10 and not 3 Gareth?

Ben

_________________
I love sleep, I need 8 hours a day and about 10 at night - Bill Hicks
I would die happy if I beat Wood Green in the Eastman Cup final - Richmond LL captain.
We must find Cigerettes, this is our mission for the rest of the night(at 5am) - Tkachiev

She's 4 shortly, but lets say 6? and not the most confident person? in a strange unfamiliar environment?

_________________
The FullPonty
Nidum Chess Club

Wow! Jovanka has done an amazing thing by giving up her time FREE OF CHARGE to help improve the quality of girls chess. I assume she has to make a living as well and giving up your free time in this economic climate is something to be applauded I would have charged I think as would most other chess coaches as I need to pay my mortgage and I have a family to support. Perhaps Jovanka doesn't have any financial commitments and nothing much to do in her spare time Still, at least she could decide who to give the FREE OF CHARGE coaching to and how to control the coaching environment to benefit the girls most. I mean if other less knowledgeable people tried to control the FREE OF CHARGE coaching to the detriment of the girls she probably wouldn't bother to do it next time Someone else would need to be found to give the FREE OF CHARGE coaching to the girls (+ boys, + parents, + unspecified others) Probably all for the best anyway as she probably hasn't got the common sense to allow a parent to stay with a 4 year old girl in the coaching room if the little girl was nervous and should probably be spending her free time coaching (FREE OF CHARGE) boys as well as girls, giving equal time to both.
Well done Sabrina and Jovanka Edit - Apologies it was Harriet doing the free coaching.

You try and post a sensible comment based on a hypothetical scenario and you get the above drivel as a reply! Nick, Loz and others who might want to jump down the throat of anything not 100% positive please remember there's such a thing as positive as well as negative criticism. It's possible to acknowledge the achievements of the event as well as suggesting improvements if they are needed. If nobody ever pointed out a flaw then nothing would ever improve.

_________________
The FullPonty
Nidum Chess Club

Gareth please use your common sense. Do you think that there is any chance whatsoever that Jovanka would not allow a parent (male or female) to remain in the coaching room with a 3 or 4 year old girl? Or 5 or 6yo. Edit - Apologies it was Harriet doing the FREE coaching.

Parents happily (well most of the time) leave their child at School for 6.5 hours per week day, so it shouldn't be so much of an issue for a parent to leave their daughter for an hour or so in a coaching room. Also, if it was advertised as a female event, there shouldn't be a problem with asking the boys to leave. I get the criticism though.
Overtime I'm sure Sabrina et al have contemplated the reality that over time they cannot shield or protect girls from playing in mainstream Chess competition where they will not only have to play with boys, but also grown men (some of whom can be intimdating even to grown adults). So perhaps once a class of girls get more confidence, they can play with the boys and maybe start playing in adult chess too.
I think what Sabrina, Jovanka and Harriet (and whoever else is involved) is doing to promote Chess for females is fantastic, I hope the ECF realise this too. I actually think it's these sort of people we need across the board for both girls and boys too. There doesn't seem to be a structure in place to promote chess amongst juniors, then a structure for teaching them to be strong players. I think there's an issue with promoting Chess in state Schools, and the making them better. It seems easier to do this in posh schools.

Few things: Nick, it was Harriet doing the coaching (and that's Harriet Hunt, WGM/IM, our top female player, in case anyone else was wondering who this Harriet is). I did actually pay her, as I do with all my coaches as they are indeed professionals and deserve to be treated properly, but it was a modest amount and she deserves more as she did give up her day to travel to London to coach and enthuse all the girls. However, finances did not permit me to do this.

Gareth, the answer is indeed: "No, don't be silly!" Has no-one looked at the photo of Harriet coaching, with a dad and sibling present? This just shows she did cater for all. She only created a friendly tournament when there were many men and boys in there overwhelming the young girls. She didn't ban them, just kept them occupied whilst the girls were in there and during the rounds she would still help everyone.

There were no complaints on the day and everyone (men included) were very pleased with it, so I don't see any discrimination.

It did state, since it was a girls event that there was free coaching for all the girls, so there shouldn't be any problems with this. Yes, I do also arrange coaching for both sexes so I don't see myself discriminating against anyone. I just ran this event to encourage more girls to play and enjoy the game and I think we have all achieved this.

The event wouldn't have been so successful without the presence of great female role models such as Jovanka and Harriet so I thank them both for coming. So Gareth, feel free to bring Izzie along and I promise you won't get "kicked out"

Chris J Greatorix ... I think you are missing the point of the discussion. The fact that parents (note the plural word - ie both father and mother) leave a child in a school for several hours is not an issue, nor would it be if both had been asked to leave the coaching room; the fact is that only the males were seemingly not allowed (as stated in the report of the event in the original post in this thread).

I agree with Gareth that some people seem to think that any comments that don't praise an initiative are just being negative for the sake of it - the fact is that although somebody may well be doing a good job or be talented in a certain area doesn't mean thay are infalable.

Sabrina ... your comment of " in case anyone else was wondering who this Harriet is" was obviously aimed at me, but why continue to 'have a go' when I have already made an apology for making the haeneous crime of not seeing her name in your report and you had already explained who she was in an earlier post ? Also, if Harriet did allow a father to sit with his daughter in the coaching session, why does YOUR report state that all boys and men were dismissed from the room ? It is that comment by you that has caused all this discussion. - so which way was it; were males allowed to stay and your report is misleading or were they told to leave ?

I am not having a go, I am taking the advice that I haven't made things clear, so I am clarifying things so that there is no ambiguity.

Yes, my report is the problem. It is my fault that everyone in here is having a go at Harriet etc, I apologise and take all the blame.

Sorry for organising a sexist event and writing a terrible, misleading report. I hope this doesn't put people off other well-run events.

*sigh*

Is this still going on? Maybe if the original quote from the report is analysed, this can be put to bed?

From here: http://chevanneschessacademy.com/WC_news.html



From the above, we can clearly see that Sabrina said who Harriet was, and that the aim of the coaching was to coach those participating in the event (the National Girls' Chess Finals), so it is not unreasonable to try and make sure that doesn't get overwhelmed by others (i.e. when coaching, you want to try and obtain an environment suitable for learning, which obviously depends on the exact circumstances and the ages and the numbers and so on). Running a "mini tournament for the spectators for the event" sounds like a great solution (note that the phrasings of 'booted out' and 'dismissed' were used by posters to this forum, and appear to be misrepresenting what actually happened).

One point that might be worth making relates to the final sentence. If the report had left it at 'spectators' and not gone into details, there probably wouldn't have been all the 'debate' in this thread. The final sentence was "It seemed that her coaching room was being invaded by men and boys and we couldn’t be having that at the National Girls’ Chess Finals!" - when I read that, I chuckled to myself (seeing it only as a humourous style of writing) and thought, "hmm, some people will react to that the wrong way". Seems I was right, but really, why do people jump on offhand comments like that, take them too seriously, and blow them up into issues?

Sabrina, you organised a great event, and wrote a nice report. Please don't listen to those being overly critical.

well said Christopher....well said....

Christopher, I hadn't even looked back at what I wrote! Thanks for directing my attention to the paragraph that has caused all this. Now I am just confused as to where all this nonsense of sexism and kicking out has come from as I didn't even say that, and yes, the last line was meant light-heartedly. Must remember....don't make jokes.

I don't think the critics were being overly critical, again it seems Chess people are overly pedantic and therefore even slight misinterpretations of language can lead to people being unfairly rebuked.

I think *some* people were making valid points and others were being overly critical. Pendantry may also play a part, as you said, though I would hope people could recognise when they are being overly pedantic. Anyway, is this the point where we all hold hands and sing Kumbaya? Or does that risk a debate on the political correctness of that term? Actually, it would be much more pleasant to talk about the chess (as Geoff tried to do). I liked the combination shown on the report.

Suggesting improvements if they are needed is one thing and I believe the people involved are happy to look at constructive criticism from people who have attended the events and so have some idea of what they are talking about but some of the comments are ridiculous and to me seem designed to do nothing more than try and undermine the event and the organisers. It's not the first time Sabrina's threads have been polluted in this way and we have too few proactive organisers that I want to risk losing them from chess because they tire of the constant negative comments aimed in their direction.

As you mention jumping down the throat of anything not 100% positive, dismissing a post as drivel does seem somewhat hypocritical