Junior Academy

[Roger de Coverly]

I've extracted this from Ben's meeting report as it seems a good summary of the ECF's plans.

There was also a slideshow presentation by the Junior Director regarding her plans for a junior academy. Likewise it would be very helpful if the ECF could put this slideshow online at some point.

The academy is a 10 year plan, with the aim of working towards being self- sustaining. It will be open to any junior who is an ECF Gold Member. The aim of it is to encourage juniors to play and develop, to identify talented juniors and help support them on the way to gaining FIDE titles. There was a slide with pyramid diagrams showing the 4 levels the academy is looking at. At the top was Elite “title seeking”, next row down was International “playing at major events”, below that National “playing at developmental international events”, and bottom row Local and Regional “playing at up to and including national events.”

Early on the aim is to focus on National/ International level, with the aim of identifying juniors who are of the Elite level. The ECF hopes to identify Elite players within 12 months. For the Elite the ECF aims to:

• Offer financial/ other support to help players get norms.
• Introduce a collaborative support system between players.
• Develop a collaborative support system involving the Junior Director, International Director, and Commercial Director.

Planned activities include:
• 4 training weekends per year around the country.
• Titled coaching with a 1- 10 ratio of coaches to juniors.
• A chess advisory panel.
• 5 day training tournaments.
• Learning resources.

The ECF was also in the process of gaining sponsorship so that academy trainers can become FIDE- certified trainers.

The aim is to launch the academy at the British Championships, and have the first programme in place by January.

The immediate questions that spring to mind are the extent to which this is any different to the programmes that Bob Wade and Leonard Barden had in place in the 1960s and 1970s which later became more formalised as the BCF Junior Squad. Did the methods basically fall into disrepair?

[Michael Flatt]

The immediate questions that spring to mind are the extent to which this is any different to the programmes that Bob Wade and Leonard Barden had in place in the 1960s and 1970s which later became more formalised as the BCF Junior Squad. Did the methods basically fall into disrepair?

Roger,

Remember that this is 2015. Many things have happened in the last 40 or 50 years!

The situation with regards Junior Chess has become quite complicated with the emergence of a whole host of independant junior organisations and initiatives, for instance: UK Chess Challenge, English Primary Schools Chess Association (EPSCA) and more recently the UK Chess Academy, etc, etc.

In the last year there has been something of an issue regarding the selection of Junior players to play in International events. The ECF are particularly uneasy that players nominated by organisations other than themselves are being recognised as England players.

[Alan Walton]

This proposition to me seems exactly what I used to get out of the Junior Squad back in the late 80s / early 90s (which ran in conjunction with EPSCA)

It looks like they have been caught sleeping for the last 10 years and now trying to play catch up, which personally I think is a little late

[Roger de Coverly]

It looks like they have been caught sleeping for the last 10 years and now trying to play catch up, which personally I think is a little late

One of the first times I can recall encountering a Junior squad en masse was at the weekend LARA tournament of 1975 where they were being coached or mentored by Basman and employing his .. Bc5 idea in the Sicilian to good effect. They were still featured at the Hastings ,Isle of Man and Guernsey tournaments in the early to mid 1990s.

(edit)
Did the BCF junior Squad become the "National Chess Junior Squad" whose activities are reported on here?
http://www.ncjs.co.uk/
There seems overlap between this and the ECF's proposed Academy. (/edit)

[Roger Lancaster]

I recall, during the late 1950s or early 1960s, being part of a squad of strong juniors coached by Bob Wade at John Lewis's premises in or just off Oxford Street, London, every Saturday - or perhaps it was every Sunday. One of the strengths of this was that (if my memory serves me correctly!) it was a regular weekly occurrence, meaning there was some teaching continuity, whereas one of the arguable drawbacks of a "4 training weekends a year" approach may be a lack of continuity, ie. poorer recall over what happened at the previous session some three months previous. Whilst applauding the new junior director on her initiative, I am not totally convinced (and not simply for this reason) that her proposals represent the best means of going forward.

[Michael Flatt]

Did the BCF junior Squad become the "National Chess Junior Squad" whose activities are reported on here?
http://www.ncjs.co.uk/
There seems overlap between this and the ECF's proposed Academy. (/edit)

The "National Chess Junior Squad" seems to another of those independant initiatives.

At the end of the referenced article there is some important information:

"The NCJS is a Registered Charity No 1084293. The trustees are A Webster, P Purland and G Jacobs. The squad exists to help encourage junior chess by providing trips and tournaments for promising juniors All players have a chance of qualifying"

[Roger de Coverly]

The "National Chess Junior Squad" seems to another of those independant initiatives.

I rather think it was a renaming. It can make sense for it to be a charity since the ECF cannot be.

From
http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/9899/bcf.htm
(report of meeting 19 June 1999)

The Finance Committee Chairman had provided an interim report on the Investigation into the finances surrounding the Witley Junior International Event. A response from Alec Webster, the Junior Squad Treasurer, to certain questions that had been raised with him was tabled at the meeting. Certain points need to be followed up before it will be appropriate for this to come into the public domain. The Board did, however, endorse the general principle that another organisation can only use the "BCF" name with the approval of the Board or Council.

If I recall the context, a Junior International event was organised and run nominally in the name of the BCF where the organisers thought the BCF were paying and the BCF thought the Junior Squad was independently financing it through sponsorship or otherwise.

Also
(report of meeting 24 April 1999)

Financial Control Procedures. Council requested the Management Board to investigate last year's junior overspend and come up with procedures that would prevent such a thing happening again. So how did the previous Junior Director manage to overspend to the tune of £8,000? With the Witley event, in a nutshell. It is still not entirely clear to rjh why the Director was expecting sponsorship that never materialised. The Management Board had been given to understand that Witley was being financed by the Junior Squad. The Junior Squad, apparently, had been given to understand that it was being financed by the BCF. Everyone agreed, and not for the first time, that while the Junior Squad does splendid work it's nonsensical to have them using the Federation's name without being in any way accountable to it.

[Michael Flatt]

Yes, Roger, I think that you are right.

I just discovered a link from the menu of ECF website Junior pages:
http://englishchess.org.uk/Juniors/ > Play for England > National Chess Junior Squad

No sign of ECF branding, though!

[Ian Thompson]

Did the BCF junior Squad become the "National Chess Junior Squad" whose activities are reported on here?
http://www.ncjs.co.uk/
There seems overlap between this and the ECF's proposed Academy. (/edit)

The "National Chess Junior Squad" seems to another of those independant initiatives.

At the end of the referenced article there is some important information:

"The NCJS is a Registered Charity No 1084293. The trustees are A Webster, P Purland and G Jacobs. The squad exists to help encourage junior chess by providing trips and tournaments for promising juniors All players have a chance of qualifying"

I'd expect the ECF to be telling such organisations to make it clear in their publications that they are independent of the ECF, do not select players to represent England at junior team or individual events and do not run events for official England titles. This one, for example, runs an "English Closed Championships" which would be more accurately described as the "National Chess Junior Squad Closed Championships", and refers to the teams it sends to foreign events as "England" teams when they would be more accurately described as "National Chess Junior Squad" teams or "English" teams.