Clashing events, 22-23 April

[Carl Hibbard]

Local Junior organisations take an interest in the ECF's lament at the few opportunities for Junior players to develop into elite players and be able to challenge their rivals internationally. Being able to play on strong competitions within one's own country is a good start.

It seems childish to blame another organisation over a clash of tournament dates when one personally knows the rival organisers and could quite easily communicate with them, if one choose to. If, as you suggest, J4NCL have dates for 2017/18 season I would suggest that you share them rather than complain EPSCA haven't published their's.

Would you like to publish your dates here?

A bit harsh but surely the whole lot of them can coordinate?

[Nick Grey]

Also clashes with what is usually the prelim of the National Stages of the County Championship so not really helpful.
Any reason why not to put the timing to the EPSCA representative?

[Michael Flatt]

The events in which our junior county association enter teams are the EPSCA inter-association U9, U11, U11 girls; SCCU U14/U18; and ECF U13/U18. Our focus is mainly on the primary school aged events and EPSCA, which is the why the association was created. We also organise our local UKCC Megafinal and have run LJCC qualifying competitions.

The situation with Juniors seems to mirror that of the adults where the County Championships have to compete with the 4NCL itself.

AH's standpoint puzzles me since I thought that he had some influence as a Director of the 4NCL, yet his posts here would indicate he has no influence on setting of the J4NCL dates nor even on speaking terms with the EPSCA organisers.

The only competition that doesn't seem to suffer with clashes is the British Championship where all the parties seem to cooperate in organizing it.

Of course, the British Championship is being remodelled and individual Junior age groups are being combined, but I don't think that will affect the children's desire to compete.

Ironically, the British Championship 2017 does not yet appear in the calendar of events on the ECF website.

[Nick Grey]

4NCL itself & County Championships avoid clashes, having a Junior the week before will clash.
UKCC dates to be squeezed in too. Best wishes on those.

[Alex Holowczak]

AH's standpoint puzzles me since I thought that he had some influence as a Director of the 4NCL, yet his posts here would indicate he has no influence on setting of the J4NCL dates nor even on speaking terms with the EPSCA organisers.

The 4NCL and EPSCA are on perfectly good speaking terms, but there shouldn't need to be any dialogue here. The process should be Mike looking at the EPSCA website soon after their AGM, and seeing precisely which dates to avoid. No need to have bipartite communication when EPSCA can communicate with the world.

And it isn't 4NCL v EPSCA; there are lots of other events that fall foul of this. It's impractical to have to look up tournaments on all of the different websites.

I have relatively little influence on 4NCL dates for a few reasons:
(1) Hotels, by their nature, are only available on certain dates anyway.
(2) It's not my job to find hotels or dates. There aren't meetings to micro-manage where and when everything is; each Director just gets on with their job. Mike will run things past the Directors, who may occasionally try to veto an impossible date or venue, but most of the time if there's something that we think will be difficult for some reason, (a) Mike has already realised that, and (b) That's what we have to go with because it's the least-bad available solution.

Ironically, the British Championship 2017 does not yet appear in the calendar of events on the ECF website.

Mea culpa!

I shall fill in the form on the ECF website, and I'm sure Andrew will fix when he returns on Monday.

[Mike Truran]

The 4NCL and EPSCA are on perfectly good speaking terms, but there shouldn't need to be any dialogue here. The process should be Mike looking at the EPSCA website soon after their AGM, and seeing precisely which dates to avoid. No need to have bipartite communication when EPSCA can communicate with the world.

Actually, I should be able to go to the ECF calendar rather than having to go to the various junior websites. It's a point I've made to the good folk at EPSCA a number of times without success.

[Alex Holowczak]

The 4NCL and EPSCA are on perfectly good speaking terms, but there shouldn't need to be any dialogue here. The process should be Mike looking at the EPSCA website soon after their AGM, and seeing precisely which dates to avoid. No need to have bipartite communication when EPSCA can communicate with the world.

Actually, I should be able to go to the ECF calendar rather than having to go to the various junior websites. It's a point I've made to the good folk at EPSCA a number of times without success.

Well yes, of course that would be even better.

[Roger Lancaster]

The reason I noticed the clash was that both J4NCL and EPSCA had posted their events on the ECF website calendar so it's not simply a case of failing to do this. Nor, and I say this with all due regard to Mike's and Alex's very considerable experience of running tournaments, and this is not intended as a criticism, is it a case of simply looking at the ECF website. This alone does not prevent clashes.

It's slightly more complicated than that - and I speak from personal experience. One can pick a clear date by reference to the ECF calendar and negotiate with a hotel or other venue on that basis. The risk is that someone else may be doing exactly the same on that clear date. By the time one set of organisers concludes its negotiations and announces its event on the website, the second set of organisers is too far committed in its negotiations to backtrack. So both parties will have followed the book but this hasn't avoided a clash.

Obviously one cannot pre-clear dates with everyone, and a clash with a small tournament many miles away isn't significant. But there is something to be said, in my view, for having a quiet word with other major organisers likely to be running events around the same time and pitching at much the same audience. J4NCL and EPSCA might be a case in point.

[Alex Holowczak]

My understanding is that EPSCA get their dates in in September 2016 for 2017/18, so they're always 12 months ahead. Certainly this year, the 4NCL is looking at its venues and dates now - i.e. after the date. So actually, they're second in the queue, rather than doing things in parallel. That's fine, but the body at the front of the queue needs to tell people what it's doing.

[Roger Lancaster]

Can only add that, assuming Alex is right, EPSCA may have already got their dates for 2017/8 but I certainly can't find them on the ECF website. That would appear to make them "the body at the front of the queue".

[Alex Holowczak]

Can only add that, assuming Alex is right, EPSCA may have already got their dates for 2017/8 but I certainly can't find them on the ECF website. That would appear to make them "the body at the front of the queue".

Indeed, they will have set their dates at the AGM just passed.

[Roger Lancaster]

"Just passed" = five weeks ago, on 24 September. More like the corpse at the front of the queue.

[Michael Flatt]

There is actually a discepancy in the ECF Calendar.
The downloadable .pdf document fails to list the EPSCA U9 Final.

Although I prefer the downloadble .pdf because it is easier to scan through there is no point in retaining it if shows different information to the live calendar.

I do recall that not so long ago (2013) the ECF had imposed a charge to list Junior events that were not ECF graded. That had the effect of dissuading Junior organisers from listing events. Does the ECF still impose that charge?

[Alex Holowczak]

I do recall that not so long ago (2013) the ECF had imposed a charge to list Junior events that were not ECF graded. That had the effect of dissuading Junior organisers from listing events. Does the ECF still impose that charge?

It didn't, it briefly imposed a charge to list any events that were not ECF graded.

After a complaint from EPSCA, ironically, the charge was dropped.

[Michael Flatt]

I do recall that not so long ago (2013) the ECF had imposed a charge to list Junior events that were not ECF graded. That had the effect of dissuading Junior organisers from listing events. Does the ECF still impose that charge?

It didn't, it briefly imposed a charge to list any events that were not ECF graded.

After a complaint from EPSCA, ironically, the charge was dropped.

I am glad to learn that. The news hadn't filtered down to the Junior associations - I thought that the charge was still in force.

Once Junior organisers realise that they won't be charged to advertise their events on the ECF calendar more might start posting their events.

It might be worth splitting the calendar into two so that those interested exclusively in Junior events can just look at those.
Similarly, those interested in Senior events don't want to see all the Junior events.

The Sussex Junior Calendar is highly useful and provides a good model to follow: http://www.sussexjuniorchess.org/Calendar.htm