English Chess Forum

There are 5 women out of 40 among the World Senior Team CC. we have 9 teams. 4 in a 50+ women's team and 1 in a 65+ team.
That is a considerable progress on previous years where we seldom had more than one female player. Last year we did, however, have 9 WAGS.
It was very hard work to get that women's team together. Today England 3 65+ beat the Mongolian women's team 2.5-1.5. Julie Denning won on board 4 for Eng 3. The Mongolian team is the only women's team in the 65+ age group.

Roger Lancaster wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 06, 2018 7:39 pm

Let's put it like this. I don't see that it's something that anyone can do unilaterally and, of course, it's way off topic. But, if managers/organisers of clubs with substantial numbers of junior members and a desire to organise more inter-club events for them care to PM me, I'll see what potential there is to do something.

In case anyone's wondering, no PMs.

Roger Lancaster wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 14, 2018 8:10 pm

Roger Lancaster wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 06, 2018 7:39 pm

Let's put it like this. I don't see that it's something that anyone can do unilaterally and, of course, it's way off topic. But, if managers/organisers of clubs with substantial numbers of junior members and a desire to organise more inter-club events for them care to PM me, I'll see what potential there is to do something.

In case anyone's wondering, no PMs.

Just to rather belatedly follow up on this reason, the reason I didn't PM was that we are in different parts of the country so it will be a while before our activities meet in the middle. I'll keep the forum updated as to how inter club chess in Yorkshire is progressing.

Separately, those of us who subscribe to Chess magazine will have seen the editorial where the appointment of Chris Fegan is discussed in some length. Apparently the new director is pushing for an increased budget and has some `excellent` policy ideas. Perhaps slightly more controversially the editorial gives more detail on why a female applicant was rejected, something the ECF itself has not made public.

Andrew Zigmond wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 25, 2018 7:29 pm

Separately, those of us who subscribe to Chess magazine will have seen the editorial where the appointment of Chris Fegan is discussed in some length. Apparently the new director is pushing for an increased budget and has some `excellent` policy ideas. Perhaps slightly more controversially the editorial gives more detail on why a female applicant was rejected, something the ECF itself has not made public.

Which was?

Carl Hibbard wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 25, 2018 8:54 pm

Which was?

Malcolm Pein Editorial wrote: The recruitment process was thorough and a female candidate was interviewed who had the right non-chess skills, but no real chess experience, including tournament organisation which is a big part of the role

I don't see Chris Fegan as a member of the arbiter and organiser cabal either. Appointing someone with no real chess experience is equivalent to adding another non-Exec, not that it would matter unduly.

Does the editorial touch on any connections the successful candidate may have had with other board members, or indeed with the magazine?

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 26, 2018 8:37 am

Does the editorial touch on any connections the successful candidate may have had with other board members, or indeed with the magazine?

It mentions his (and Malcolm's) involvement with CSC and praises CSC for promoting girl's chess.

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 26, 2018 10:41 am

ECF Manager of Female Social Media

The most surprising part of the announcement to me is this - "Most recently [Helen Frostick] was a member of the very successful medal winning women’s team at the World Senior Championships in Radebeul, Germany."

I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere else before. If the ECF wants to encourage women's chess I'd have thought it ought to be publicised just as much as the open team result was.

Ian Thompson wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 27, 2018 12:17 am

The most surprising part of the announcement to me is this - "Most recently [Helen Frostick] was a member of the very successful medal winning women’s team at the World Senior Championships in Radebeul, Germany."

I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere else before. If the ECF wants to encourage women's chess I'd have thought it ought to be publicised just as much as the open team result was.

It's not just the ECF. It's this forum and the Radebeul organisers as well!
I tried looking for the women's results, to no avail.

First the thread here. No mention.

Second the FIDE website "Tournaments for August for Germany". There the four Radebeul tournamnets are listed -
World Team Championship over 50 2018
World Team Championship over 65 2018
World Team Championship women over 50 2018
World Team Championship women over 50 2018
If you look in the received column you see that FIDE received the results for the two open competitions on the 16th of July, the day after the tournament ended but the results for the women's tournaments have not yet been received. It's the 27th today which I think means that fines will be imposed for late submission. It seems really unlikely that the organisers got the results for the two open competitions in the day after but almost two weeks later still haven't submitted the other two.

Next stop the organiser's website.
There we have the results for the 50+ competition and here the results of the 65+. But no pages for the women's results!

Then I had a closer look at the 50+ results page, looking for teams with the word "women" in the team name. Down in 17th place was "Russia Women", in 28th place "Germany Women 1", in 34th place "England Women" , in 46th place "Germany Women 3" and in 54th place "Germany Women 2".

So, that explains why there was no separate women's competition. Full marks to Germany for fielding 60% of the teams in the women's 50+ and congratulations to England Women for finishing 3rd out of 5 but clearly getting women interested in playing chess is not a uniquely English problem. In fact England and Russia seem to to be doing well in that respect and Germany exceptionally so.

And what of the Women's 65+ competition? Well, I searched the 65+ final rankings page for the word "women" but to no avail.

There were not separate competitions as such for women's teams at Radebeul. They were mixed in with the gender-open teams. However, separate prizes were awarded to women's only teams. In the 65+ competition we only had one all-women team. That was from Mongolia, and they were awarded a prize as Women's champions.

Julie Denning wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 27, 2018 11:15 am

There were not separate competitions as such for women's teams at Radebeul. They were mixed in with the gender-open teams. However, separate prizes were awarded to women's only teams. In the 65+ competition we only had one all-women team. That was from Mongolia, and they were awarded a prize as Women's champions.

According to the new ECF grading list there are 25 women in England aged 65+ with a published grade of which five are graded over 120.

Brian Towers wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 27, 2018 11:00 am

Full marks to Germany for fielding 60% of the teams in the women's 50+ and congratulations to England Women for finishing 3rd out of 5 but clearly getting women interested in playing chess is not a uniquely English problem. In fact England and Russia seem to to be doing well in that respect and Germany exceptionally so.

Indeed, the Germans are serious about women's chess Frauen-Schach-Bundesliga

Had you looked at the ECF notes on our results in Radebeul, you would have found that it mentions all the medals gained there.
Eng 50+ got silver and several individual medals.
Eng 50+ Women bronze and two individual medals.
Eng 65+ fourth place prize winners and an individual gold medal. Another half point in the last round and we would have got silver.

Re 'Appointment of ECF Manager of Female Social Media – English Chess Federation': I'm incensed at the ideas that seem to be behind this. I don't want a female speaking for me because I'm female. I don't want somebody who says ‘I am looking forward to ...being able to support and encourage females to communicate, and bring their voices, to raise the profile of female chess.' What would raise the profile of women's chess is for women to play better. Not create a segregated community with some notion of equality for inferior standard. I loathe the idea that I can't play chess as a person. I loathe the idea that somebody is going to be speaking for 'females' and by definition that's going to include me.