I will point out, however, where he is materially incorrect, particularly where his errors have already been pointed out, but he chunters on regardless.
I will start out by quoting him directly:
AH says that RJCC only takes part in primary level competition. It is entirely incorrect to say that an institution like RJCC only caters for primary school aged chess.Richmond shouldn't exist as an EPSCA Association
- Our attendance last Saturday was 69 young people, of those, 17 were post primary.
- We enter U14 teams in the Southern Counties Chess Union Championships as a "Non County Member"; indeed, as Essex U14 will happily attest on our behalf, we even happily engage in friendly fixtures at short notice when other "real" counties fail to raise teams.
- We enter teams in the Southern Counties Jamboree at U14 and U18.
- Indeed we are hosting the SCCU Jamboree later this month, on the Sunday following the EPSCA Girls U11 Final, which we are also hosting.
- We entered the NYCA last year, but not this year. Our playing strength is not quite yet at the standard where it makes sense to travel 200km on a Sunday morning and 200km back in the evening (or even further on a Saturday); however, our strength in depth at post primary level is growing quite rapidly and we will certainly give some thought again next year to taking part, perhaps at U12 or U14 only. We have given some thought to this, and are prepared to propose to the NYCA that we could stage the competition, like the EPSCA competitions in two stages, with a zonal stage and a final stage. Richmond would be very happy to host a southern zone. You can be certainly be sure that the number of teams participating would increase.
- We also hold ad hoc friendly matches against other teams, whether counties, clubs or other types of institution.
- We will be hosting the Southern Gigafinal this year, over two days in July, with hundreds of children participating today aged from U7 to U18.
Pretending that Richmond is sui generis is foolish; there are various other non-county entrants in the EPSCA Inter-Association Championship. Without looking up the exact details, I suspect that if non-county entrants were banned, you would remove teams that have provided perhaps half of the winners and runners up over the 51 years of EPSCA's existence, including Barnet who are currently regular winners.
Returning to Alex's statement:
I can only say that for a board member of EPSCA he is remarkably ignorant of EPSCA's constitution, which I recommend he reads before spewing forth any further nonsense. It is formed of "Associations", not counties.Richmond shouldn't exist as an EPSCA Association
Is AH really saying that Barnet, Birmingham, Gloucestershire South, North Wales, Oldham, Tameside, Wey Valley and Wirral should be removed from the competition, alongside Richmond?
And where is this "Middlesex" team, that he writes of? If he insisted on carrying through such a "counties" only reform, then any newly formed Middlesex team formed from Barnet and Richmond would be a total blockbuster which would entirely dominate the competition for the forseeable future, to the detriment of the competitive nature of the events, and would see lots of children lost from the events, too, as the number of places for them would be halved. That is assuming that the organisers of the existing teams would be happy to work for a different organisation foisted on them per administrative ukase.
One further point, I should make. AH seems to have worked himself into a ferocious lather about EPSCA simply because the venue for the U11 Final, originally intended to be held in the Midlands fell through. Richmond volunteered to host the final at fairly short notice, which caused AH to whine about the event being hijacked by southerners, and how the travel might well prevent him from raising a Warwickshire team. Then when Oldham's bid to host the final was ultimately accepted, the whining changed into how this was even worse and how difficult it was going to be for Warwickshire. Strangely, I haven't heard any such moaning from any of the teams from the South of England, all of whom, including Richmond are undoubtedly happy to congratulate Oldham on rescuing the event at fairly short notice, and all of whom will be happy to travel to the north to take part, should their teams qualify from their zonal stages. The final of a prestigious national event involves travelling. Who knew?
I cannot understand the motivation of an ECF director, when his words and indicated agenda seems determined to undermine the efforts of hard-working and successful junior organisers. I would suggest that a period of reflection and consultation with those actively involved in organising junior chess in a collegiate manner would bear more fruit.
