Conduct of Parents

[Matt Mackenzie]

Now, now, Mick - I suspect that you've looked Martyn up and discovered that he hasn't played chess recently. Even when he did, his appearances seem to have been rare - probably for fear of that deadly standing water.

Brendan

If Martyn did play for Waterloo and hasn't had a grade since 2005, then he is in Merseyside which doesn't currently have a county team, and doesn't host any chess congresses - his nearest events probably would be Frodsham weekender and Ormskirk Rapidplay

Is the Liverpool congress no more, then?? Was big back in the 1980s........

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Fancy not being able to bring a bottle of water to drink, in a place where you are staying for the whole day! I’m not into that kind of restriction, whatever the venue

Whenever I've gone to the pub to watch the football I've never taken a bottle of water (or anything else) with me, and I've never seen anyone else do so.

I don't think going to the pub to watch football is the same as going to a chess tournament to play chess. Anyway, the venues invariably provide free water, as you said, so why would they object to people bringing bottled water? Regardless of that, I think you will find that more people than you think carry water around with them if they are travelling moderate distances on public transport, or even in the car if they are travelling by car.

[Sean Hewitt]

Fancy not being able to bring a bottle of water to drink, in a place where you are staying for the whole day! I’m not into that kind of restriction, whatever the venue

Whenever I've gone to the pub to watch the football I've never taken a bottle of water (or anything else) with me, and I've never seen anyone else do so.

I don't think going to the pub to watch football is the same as going to a chess tournament to play chess. Anyway, the venues invariably provide free water, as you said, so why would they object to people bringing bottled water? Regardless of that, I think you will find that more people than you think carry water around with them if they are travelling moderate distances on public transport, or even in the car if they are travelling by car.

Neither do I. However, Martyn said "Fancy not being able to bring a bottle of water to drink, in a place where you are staying for the whole day! I’m not into that kind of restriction, whatever the venue" so I gave an example of a venue where it would not be appropriate to drinks one's own drink - nothing to do with chess at all Although, for that matter, if chess were played in a pub it would certainly be inappropropriate to bring your own drin (he says, fearing this may be another can of worms).

[Andrew Giles]

Following on from BigMacgate yesterday, I have just had to stop two different sets of parents sitting in the hotel bar eating their own sandwiches. Is this common parental behaviour?

Perhaps we should ban children from these events if their parents are unable to conduct themselves properly.

I’ve only just seen this thread. I am one of the parents caught eating in the bar area at the Uplands tournament on Saturday morning. There is no excuse, but after an early start and a long drive I couldn’t see anywhere to sit but the bar area and there didn’t yet appear to be any staff taking orders for food. I took what I thought were a few surreptitious hurried bites of sandwich from my bag, got caught by Sean and apologised. I admit the hotel food we ate that evening was of a good standard and reasonably priced.

I guess my actions did have the potential to jeopardise the relationship with the hotel and once again I’m sorry; it was a bad misjudgement. Having said that, I’m not sure why it was necessary for the tournament organiser to write a threatening post on an internet forum with a title like ‘Conduct of Parents’. If you were thinking of banning anyone, you might better have had that conversation with me in person, rather than implicate all parents.

As an aside, Sean, I think you maybe need to do some further work on the hotel reservation side of things – I had booked a twin room for my daughter and I to stay in, and this was duly confirmed by email, but on checking-in was given instead a double room. After I raised objection a small ‘z-bed’ was found and put in the room, but it wasn’t great.

[Sean Hewitt]

Following on from BigMacgate yesterday, I have just had to stop two different sets of parents sitting in the hotel bar eating their own sandwiches. Is this common parental behaviour?

Perhaps we should ban children from these events if their parents are unable to conduct themselves properly.

I’ve only just seen this thread. I am one of the parents caught eating in the bar area at the Uplands tournament on Saturday morning. There is no excuse, but after an early start and a long drive I couldn’t see anywhere to sit but the bar area and there didn’t yet appear to be any staff taking orders for food. I took what I thought were a few surreptitious hurried bites of sandwich from my bag, got caught by Sean and apologised. I admit the hotel food we ate that evening was of a good standard and reasonably priced.

I guess my actions did have the potential to jeopardise the relationship with the hotel and once again I’m sorry; it was a bad misjudgement. Having said that, I’m not sure why it was necessary for the tournament organiser to write a threatening post on an internet forum with a title like ‘Conduct of Parents’. If you were thinking of banning anyone, you might better have had that conversation with me in person, rather than implicate all parents.

As an aside, Sean, I think you maybe need to do some further work on the hotel reservation side of things – I had booked a twin room for my daughter and I to stay in, and this was duly confirmed by email, but on checking-in was given instead a double room. After I raised objection a small ‘z-bed’ was found and put in the room, but it wasn’t great.

Andrew - thanks for your apology. My post wasn't threatening at all, and I certainly don't want to ban anyone from playing chess although I am quite prepared to do so in the interests of the event. Indeed, I have done exactly that in the past.

However, the reason I posted here at all was to see how common this problem is (I have no involvement with junior chess) and the responses have been eye opening to the point of having to give serious consideration to some aspects of the e2e4 tournament proposition.

With respect to the matter of your room booking I can confirm that a twin room was booked for you. This is of course the first that I have heard of this problem but I will contact the hotel to find out why you did not get the room that we booked.

[Mike Truran]

Jack and Carl

Time for moderator kitty I think.

[IM Jack Rudd]

I think that's it for useful content here.



Thread locked.