Establishing an online chess club

[J T Melsom]

Its been good to see that a number of clubs have provided some sort of activity for members in lieu of OTB chess. As we are still some way from a return I'm looking at ways to move my own club online to maintain chess competition and also the sense of community which is important to members.
I'd be grateful for guidance from those who have already taken steps in this direction. Obviously some players are already on the various platforms, but I want to try and draw in those who might not normally play online as well.

[Mike Gunn]

We (Guildford) have run an online club championship lasting 8 weeks with very similar arrangements to our normal OTB championship. We have a rule which allows players to take up to 3 half point byes (for holidays etc) but (perhaps for obvious reasons) every player has played in every round this time. This has taken place on the usual club night. After this we will be running a rapidplay and then a blitz tournament. Before this we played some informal 10 minute games (all games played on Lichess).

In parallel (on another night of the week) we have we have been running zoom sessions where a member plays through (usually several) of his games and other particpants suggest alternative lines/ analyse etc. Locally this was started by Camberley chess club but we have taken up the baton and run these sessions for about 12 weeks now.

The junior chess club has continued online with 20 minutes of instruction/ discussion (via zoom) followed vy a 45 minute tournament on Lichess.

[J T Melsom]

Mike

Thank you. I have also received some helpful pointers via private message.