Certificate of Merit

[Matthew Turner]

Chris,
OK, I think that makes it very clear. It sounds like the distribution of sets is basically being undertaken by Holloid. Obviously it would be nice to have academies and all these other wonderful ideas, but the main priority is to get chess sets out (as promised) and your last gives me some confidence that it will happen
Did the event take place on Friday? and how many sets were distributed?

[Stewart Reuben]

>
Maybe at the next 4NCL weekend we can have a murder mystery with MT in charge of one team and CM in charge of another?< John Upham

Actually John, Kevin Staveley is seriously trying to put on a Murder Mystery at the British this year.
Would anybody be experienced in organising a Treasure Hunt? Canterbury will lend itself to one of these rather well next year.

Stewart Reuben

[John Saunders]

Chris,
OK, I think that makes it very clear. It sounds like the distribution of sets is basically being undertaken by Holloid. Obviously it would be nice to have academies and all these other wonderful ideas, but the main priority is to get chess sets out (as promised) and your last gives me some confidence that it will happen

Who says that the distribution of the sets is the main priority? Quite a number of posters here, including experienced chess coaches, have opined that the provision of people (and teaching materials) to follow up the distribution of the plastic sets is far more important. Without it, the sum achievement of the project will be for schools which already have a chess culture to have a few more chess sets which they could easily have afforded anyway. Delivering the plastic without the people adds up to little more than a publicity stunt. It seems to me that Chris and Matt are now downplaying what I and others understood to be the ultimate point of the exercise.

[John Saunders]

>
Kevin Staveley is seriously trying to put on a Murder Mystery at the British this year... Canterbury will lend itself to one of these rather well next year.

Mmm, yes indeed. A reenactment of 'Murder in the Cathedral' suggests itself. Perhaps a member of the ECF board (or an ex-member with time on his hands) might volunteer for the Thomas a Becket role.

[Stewart Reuben]

Surely we would have ther public vote on who should have the Beckett role? That is the modern way, with premium line phone-ins.
Stewart

[Richard Bates]

Surely we would have ther public vote on who should have the Beckett role? That is the modern way, with premium line phone-ins.
Stewart

I think you should demand at least £40k from the ECF for that revenue raising idea.

[Matthew Turner]

John,
I think I may have come across wrong in my previous posting. I had not meant to say that providing free chess sets was more worthy than supplying the accompanying coaching materials and expertise. I simply meant that the ECF had promised free sets and I believe that they should try to deliver on their promises as their priority.

[John Saunders]

So do I, but the ECF promised more than the physical delivery of free chess sets. The press release on the ECF website starts: "As part of a new Chess for Schools initiative...". It then goes on to define the parameters of the project: "an endeavour to put chess sets in every school in England, and then follow up with the objective of establishing new school chess clubs". It is important not to lose sight of this by describing stage one of the project as a "priority". The project does not have priorities - it has a stated objective (see above).

So far, the ECF's main efforts appear to have been to talk to Holloid, presumably to keep them on track as regards delivering what they (Holloid) originally promised (although the scope has been watered down - we are now only talking about schools that want the free sets). But, with no ECF-appointed manager yet in place to deliver the second stage of the project, the ECF's overall promise will continue to be unfulfilled and the Holloid initiative is likely to be wasted. Instead of "Chess for Schools", it is gradually morphing into "Chess Sets for Some Schools" - the two things are not the same as some people might like us to think. Recent official announcements and comments here are starting to sound rather like political spin, of the type which you tend to hear when people in power fail to deliver on a manifesto promise.

[Stewart Reuben]

It would have been utterly stupid to advertise the post of manager of the CFS project until it had been established that the Holloid project was definitely going ahead. Thus to object that, nobody has yet been appointed - virtually immediately after the announcements were made, is simply wrong.
Of course a coordinated announcement is how it should have been done in the first place.
The Holloid and ECF objectives cannot possibly be achieved before at the earliest July 2010. Hopefully the CFS initiative will never be concluded.
Stewart Reuben

[Chris Majer]

Stewart wrote

Would anybody be experienced in organising a Treasure Hunt?

How about a Treasurer (FD) hunt?

[Nick Thomas]

It would have been utterly stupid to advertise the post of manager of the CFS project until it had been established that the Holloid project was definitely going ahead.

I thought the ECF line had always been that the Holloid project was definitely going ahead.

[Chris Majer]

John wrote

So do I, but the ECF promised more than the physical delivery of free chess sets. The press release on the ECF website starts: "As part of a new Chess for Schools initiative...". It then goes on to define the parameters of the project: "an endeavour to put chess sets in every school in England, and then follow up with the objective of establishing new school chess clubs". It is important not to lose sight of this by describing stage one of the project as a "priority". The project does not have priorities - it has a stated objective (see above).

So far, the ECF's main efforts appear to have been to talk to Holloid, presumably to keep them on track as regards delivering what they (Holloid) originally promised (although the scope has been watered down - we are now only talking about schools that want the free sets). But, with no ECF-appointed manager yet in place to deliver the second stage of the project, the ECF's overall promise will continue to be unfulfilled and the Holloid initiative is likely to be wasted. Instead of "Chess for Schools", it is gradually morphing into "Chess Sets for Some Schools" - the two things are not the same as some people might like us to think. Recent official announcements and comments here are starting to sound rather like political spin, of the type which you tend to hear when people in power fail to deliver on a manifesto promise.

John previously you suggested that delivering sets to schools that don’t want them was silly. Now you’re complaining that the project is being watered down because, at present, we’re only delivering to the schools that have registered. That seems a bit inconsistent.

Be in no doubt that I see the project as having three main elements all of which need to be delivered:
First the sets.
Second the support package.
Third establishing the network of chess academies.
The support package is being worked on; elements of it are ready and will go on sale shortly. Yes we need to get an appropriate person to drive this and the third stage forward. Alas it may be that volunteers are holding back until a significant number of sets are delivered. Indeed the post was not advertised until the position with regard to the sets had clarified.

[Matthew Turner]

Chris,
Just one question, that requires a very short answer, at the first trial launch on Friday how many sets were distributed?

[Carl Hibbard]

Chris,
Just one question, that requires a very short answer, at the first trial launch on Friday how many sets were distributed?

The press release says 10 per school, so one would assume 10

[Alex Holowczak]

I like this behind-the-scenes look at the ECF!

One thing about the "chess acadamies", exactly what do they entail? Would it just mean the end of junior clubs as we know them, as all the junior club members migrate to the acadmies, or would they exist alongside the acadamies?