Some Good News!

[Alan Kennedy]

As an infrequent visitor to the forum, I have read with interest many of the postings on the ECF forum and am surprised sometimes by the amount of vitriol that gets published. I am reminded sometimes of the words of Bill Shankley 'Some people believe football [or chess!] is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.'

Well, I would like to redress the balance slightly and bring to the notice of the chess playing public some good news. If you want to use this thread to add some even more good news as well – feel free. As a chess playing parent I put the organisers of tournaments through a difficult time – my entries were always late, I would peer through the playing area to see how the children were doing (contrary to rules and to their annoyance) and although I did not question their decisions I would have done if I felt they had interests of my child was threatened!

With this in mind I would like to express my appreciation of the recent Junior 4NCL tournament. The previous event had been (so I had heard) a bit rough round the edges to say the least of it, so I went to Hinckley Island not knowing what to expect. What I found was a well run tournament with children incredibly keen to learn and play chess. The venue was excellent – a nice weekend away for everyone. The children were extremely well behaved and the coaching superb. Watching Andrew Martin keep the attention of forty under nines was fascinating and his teaching of the Grob opening was a joy to behold! The organisation of the week end ran very smoothly in almost every respect.

Twenty years of attending junior chess tournaments have given me a lot of experience of this sort of event. So thanks are due to Claire Summerscale, Dave Welch and their team for making this an event well worth doing – I hope you will be encouraged by some praise to carry on organising events where juniors of wide abilities are stretched and challenged for a whole week end. I won’t say it was best ever, but it was certainly up there amongst them!

Alan Kennedy

[Mike Truran]

Claire Summerscale's report on the recent J4NCL weekend can be found here:
http://www.4ncl.co.uk/jn_report_1011_wknd2.htm

[Adam Raoof]

Out of interest, how many children took part in this event?

Does the J4NCL have its own website?

How does one enter a team?

[Mike Truran]

1. About 80 (we lost a lot from the first weekend, but it was much more manageable as a result).
2. No. It has its own section on the main 4NCL website.
3. Contact Claire on her usual email address.

[Adam Raoof]

1. About 80 (we lost a lot from the first weekend, but it was much more manageable as a result).
2. No. It has its own section on the main 4NCL website.
3. Contact Claire on her usual email address.

Thanks Mike! Bung that number right at the top of the report, it's worth mentioning.