English Chess Forum

I received an email at school today comprising the press release. I assume that all subscribed schools have been contacted. Lets hope the sets come out in May/June.

The May/June looks more like yet another publicity drive rather than anything of real substance

This forum has been accused of taking "the glass is half empty approach" and I appreciate the earlier fanfares and subsequent failure to produce results hasn't exactly marked this program for glory - however Holloid entered into this with a desire to see it through and only economic circumstances (the company nearly sank!?!) brought about the near termination of the project.

I confess I've never understood this project. All the ballyhoo about schools getting fifty quids' worth of plastic equipment (which they could easily have afforded to buy anyway had they wanted it). But the plastic is no use without the people. People to go into each and every school and evangelise on behalf of chess. Who is going to organise and do it? The delivery of the plastic should be the relatively simple part of the operation (though you'd never believe it with all the carry-on over the past couple of years). So far I've read nothing coherent about how the important and difficult post-plastic part of the operation is to be organised and delivered.

I'm reminded of what I read in football programmes. "The match ball has been sponsored by Joe Bloggs Ltd." Well, that's great as far as it goes - and sincere thanks to Joe Bloggs - but who is going to organise provision of match officials, etc, etc? And is anybody going to turn up to play?

The concern is that most of the plastic will go to schools which already have a chess culture - which is simply preaching to the converted. Good luck to them and I hope they all enjoy their free gift, but it doesn't deliver what's needed - more kids playing chess. Without that, it just seems like the longest and most pointless publicity stunt in chess history.

I'm suddenly beginning to hear myself sounding like Sir Alan Sugar on 'The Apprentice'... "you mean, you got a company to send all this bleedin' gear to every school in the country without bothering to find out whether they wanted to play chess in the first place?! ... 'ow many new players did it bring in? ... what, none??... right, I've 'eard enough... you're a complete shambles!... three of you are gonna come back in 'ere in a minute and one of you's gonna get fired...", etc, etc.
I confess I've never understood this project. All the ballyhoo about schools getting fifty quids' worth of plastic equipment (which they could easily have afforded to buy anyway had they wanted it). But the plastic is no use without the people. People to go into each and every school and evangelise on behalf of chess. Who is going to organise and do it? The delivery of the plastic should be the relatively simple part of the operation (though you'd never believe it with all the carry-on over the past couple of years). So far I've read nothing coherent about how the important and difficult post-plastic part of the operation is to be organised and delivered.

I'm reminded of what I read in football programmes. "The match ball has been sponsored by Joe Bloggs Ltd." Well, that's great as far as it goes - and sincere thanks to Joe Bloggs - but who is going to organise provision of match officials, etc, etc? And is anybody going to turn up to play?

The concern is that most of the plastic will go to schools which already have a chess culture - which is simply preaching to the converted. Good luck to them and I hope they all enjoy their free gift, but it doesn't deliver what's needed - more kids playing chess. Without that, it just seems like the longest and most pointless publicity stunt in chess history.

I'm suddenly beginning to hear myself sounding like Sir Alan Sugar on 'The Apprentice'... "you mean, you got a company to send all this bleedin' gear to every school in the country without bothering to find out whether they wanted to play chess in the first place?! ... 'ow many new players did it bring in? ... what, none??... right, I've 'eard enough... you're a complete shambles!... three of you are gonna come back in 'ere in a minute and one of you's gonna get fired...", etc, etc.

Sets are being delivered to schools that have registered, so yes they do want them.
When we succeed in delivering 100,000 sets in Year One that will be 40% of all schools in England.
The strategy is not merely to deliver the sets; it involves follow-up to try to make sure that they are used. There is a declared vacancy for the person that will be recruited to make this happen.

There have been some sensible posts on this topic recently.

If this is to succeed it depends on the quality of the person recruited to run it. To establish chess clubs in dozens (hundreds) of schools requires an incredible amount of time, skill and determination. I don't believe that there are untold millions of people available with these skills (especially who are willing to do it for free (freeish)). If the ECF are serious I would tentatively suggest that they consider employing (at a reasonable rate) a quality person who will need to make it work so that his/her mortgage is paid. I would be interested in Chris Majer's (who's opinion I respect) opinion on this.