English Chess Forum

The SCCU U18 Jamboree will be on Sunday March 21st 2010 at Wilson’s School, Wallington, Surrey.

There will be 2 events:

(1) 8 board Under 18 open. Non-members of the SCCU can apply to me to take part in this event, though obviously they are not eligible to win the SCCU title.

(2) 6 board Under 18 Minor tournament. Again an Under 18 event, but players must be aged over 11 (i.e be of secondary school age). In the minor Section the ECF grades (or other effective ratings) of the individual players must all be under 140 and the average grade of the players in the team must be under 110 treating any grade under 70 as 70. Ungraded players should be provided with a realistic estimate, if over 70.

Entry fee for either event: £15 for SCCU members (County or Non-County), £20 for others.

All dates of birth are from 31st August 2009 (so a player in the ECF grading list as age 11 would count as being over 11).

Times:
Registration from 1pm; Round 1 1.45pm; Round 2 4pm
Prize giving as soon as the last game finishes, hopefully by 6.15pm at the latest
Rate of play: 30 moves in 45 minutes and then 20 minutes to finish. (Long play grading).

Refreshments will be for sale on the day

Enquiries should be sent direct to Neill Cooper [email protected]; email entries are acceptable, but remittances will then need to be sent to me separately.

The closing date for entries is Monday March 16th 2010

Last year 4 teams entered the Open and 6 teams the minor. See http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/0809/junjam.htm for details.

Sadly, the Berkshire Chess Association cannot enter any of its players in this competition due to its continued pig headed attitude towards SCCU membership.

More accurately, the attitude stems from two long term members of the BCA Executive whist the rest supported me.

At the most recent BCA AGM I put forward a motion that the BCA should join and had a large amount of support.

Nigel Dennis then dismissed the idea claiming that membership of SCCU was worthless and that the Chiltern League was more useful. I expect ND goes nowhere near this forum unfortunately.

A regular contributor to this forum also asserted that SCCU titles had no credence for players from Berkshire : Maybe he would like to justify his attitude to the forum?

There was then a sheep-like vote against my motion. This is the kind of attitude that has poisoned County chess.

John Upham wrote:Sadly, the Berkshire Chess Association cannot enter any of its players in this competition due to its continued pig headed attitude towards SCCU membership.

As it's an under 18 event, I believe the membership status of the adult organisation is not relevant. The junior organisation has been separately a member of the SCCU in the past.

Nigel's bottom line (which has usually been endorsed by the AGM) is that it's a membership fee of no perceived value. The Bucks AGM view is that the right for junior players to be eligible for SCCU titles is still of value. I think Oxon were contemplating leaving as well as their county team activity is focused on the 4NCL and Chiltern competitions.

If you don't play in the SCCU inter county competitions, what is the value of SCCU membership?

We run other competitions: the U14/140 juniors event, the annual jamboree which are open to "Non County members". Then there is eligibility for various titles from Southern Counties Champion to various junior ones.

Putting aside the "what is in it for me" points, the SCCU is a constituent part of the ECF with the right to put motions on the ECF agenda, to make nominations for ECF directors etc. I know that many posters are cynical about the ECF and its internal democracy but recent changes in the ECF board would have been much less likely without the direct involvement of the SCCU. If you would like to see a uniform treatment of the mobile phone issue in local leagues, adjournment and/or adjudication to be abolished or the method of grading juniors to be reconsidered then the appropriate way to do this is to get support for your view in your County meetings and then put forward a motion to the SCCU and/or ECF. I believe this forum is a great place for airing views and exchanging information but if you are serious about changing things then you need to engage directly with bodies like the SCCU!

Mike Gunn (SCCU President).

Just to make it clear, this event is open to any organisation to enter. In the past we have had schools enter teams in the minor.