Chess in the community: library chess

[John Townsend]

The issue is that the library chess club at Bracknell was doing much good and it has come to an end. As I said, it looks like a step backwards. Someone must understand the logic of this and you would have thought we might have had some kind of explanation by now.

As for the new funding, I understand a big part of the government's thinking is to spread chess in the community, in schools and at grass roots level so that many more people can benefit from chess, but it would not surprise me to learn most of it will be spent on élite chess.

[J T Melsom]

I think if you want an explanation you are probably better off asking the funding partners - Paul's post suggests more than one sponsor - or Mr Lloyd, for more detail. As above a change in CSC national policy would be of interest to a wider audience, but I've not seen that suggested. And the funding shortfall doesn't have to end chess in the library. Nobody gets paid for running chess at Beaconsfield library, indeed many, possibly the vast majority of library clubs are run by volunteers without the slightest thought of being paid.

[Mick Norris]

The issue is that the library chess club at Bracknell was doing much good and it has come to an end. As I said, it looks like a step backwards. Someone must understand the logic of this and you would have thought we might have had some kind of explanation by now.

As for the new funding, I understand a big part of the government's thinking is to spread chess in the community, in schools and at grass roots level so that many more people can benefit from chess, but it would not surprise me to learn most of it will be spent on élite chess.

I have just read again the Government announcement and it seems pretty clear

There's a link to it on the forum and a thread discussing it

I would be astonished if Bracknell was among the 85 most disadvantaged areas that will receive any help

[Roger Lancaster]

I think JTM's general point is that, if one has a sponsor, one has to realise that it is unlikely to continue for the next millennium. At some point, the funding will cease. Organisations are expected to have thought through what they will do at that point rather than blame the former sponsors. (In fact, to avoid this situation arising, some sponsors explicitly ask organisations for their exit strategy once the funding ceases).

[Richard James]

Was Jon being paid by CSC?

My understanding (I may be wrong, or the situation might have changed recently) is that CSC are able to provide equipment and training for library and other community based clubs, but they're not able to pay for a tutor.

In other library chess news, the Twickenham Library Junior Chess Club started two months ago, run by Marie Gallagher (Joe's sister) and myself. It takes place after school on Thursdays (3:30 to 5:45) and is proving very popular and successful. The club, because it's a library club, is completely free and run by volunteers: neither Marie nor I are being paid.

We're currently getting about 20 children, with the numbers going up each week. Our ages range from 7 to 16, with a healthy number of secondary school age children and, promisingly, about a third of our members are girls. Children are coming back week after week, sometimes encouraging their friends to come as well, so they must like what we're doing. It's purely a social club with only informal tuition and no competitive play. For the first term we're just seeing who turns up, but we have a lot of ideas about how we can develop the club in future.

We're attracting children who want more than is available from school clubs, but aren't necessarily attracted to professionally run and commercial junior chess clubs and aren't yet ready, either in terms of age or experience, for adult clubs.

I'm sure, with a lot more publicity, we could get a lot more children - perhaps 50 or even more, but we'd need a larger room (our current room would cater for 30 comfortably) and more volunteer helpers.

Meanwhile, I recently had a meeting with a local community centre who are interested in starting a junior chess club. One reason is that one of their committee members has a son who went along to a commercial junior chess club but found it too elitist and is looking for something more community based. They have a couple of members who don't know a lot about chess but are interested in atttending a CSC training course. They're prepared to pay one of their people to be there every week and make a membership charge to cover that plus heat/light etc.. I've offered to help and support them on a voluntary basis.

It looks like there's currently a big demand (and this is something that has changed dramatically, even over the past year) for community based children's chess clubs of this nature. I'm happy to talk to anyone from ECF, CSC or elsewhere about this.