To the organisers of the U16 County Event today

[Andrew Camp]

May I remind you that Cheshire and North Wales are called Cheshire and North Wales and not just Cheshire. Cheshire AND NORTH WALES did really well to get third today with six North Wales players making up the team so it's galling to hear that the team was constantly referred to as Cheshire. Even more so when the vast majority of CNW's points were scored by the North Wales players.

Thank you.

*This post was fueled by alcohol and is full of unnecessary comments and as such should be ignored. I will not delete it as I believe one should face up to one's mistakes.

[Sean Hewitt]

May I remind you that Cheshire and North Wales are called Cheshire and North Wales and not just Cheshire. Cheshire AND NORTH WALES did really well to get third today with six North Wales players making up the team so it's galling to hear that the team was constantly referred to as Cheshire. Even more so when the vast majority of CNW's points were scored by the North Wales players.

Given that ECF Council was told yesterday that players in North Wales did not want to be part of the ECF, this is quite ironic!

The ECF will shortly be discussing with WCU what happens to the counties of North Wales going forward.

[Andrew Wainwright]

Hi Andrew,

As Competition Controller of the Pennine Cup today I was very happy with how the event went overall and hope that you would agree that it was a great success to have 9 team (of 12 players) taking part in the event. I hope that Cheshire and North Wales were proud of their bronze medal placing, a great come back to pip Manchester A at the post and get in amongst the prizes.

I apologise for referring to Cheshire and North Wales as "Cheshire" a few times. It was a long day, with an early start for me to set up the playing hall and as it was my first time running the event it was also quite stressful at times. I hope that you noticed that I did correct myself during the prize giving and stressed that it was Cheshire AND North Wales.

I hope that what you took away from today was not just that I made a couple of naming errors, though it is a little disappointing that you didn't also feel it was worth mentioning any of the positives of the day such as how well the children were behaved, how competitive the tournament was and how great it was to see 100+ u16 chess players from the North taking part in one of the best Pennine Cup competitions in a number of years. I promise to try harder next time if I run the event again.

For those interested I can confirm that teams from Yorkshire (3), Manchester (2), Lancashire, Merseyside, Northumbria and Cheshire & North Wales took part. The top three places went to:

1. Yorkshire A
2. Lancashire
3. Cheshire & North Wales

Time for me to now relax with a cold beer after a productive day of chess organising

[Paul Bielby]

Congratulations to Andrew on an excellently organised event! Bradford proved to be a good centre for the Pennine Cup and it was pleasing to see so many children taking part. (Last year when I organised the event in Newcastle we only had three counties enter). On the coach going back to the North-East our children were already planning on how to improve on the Northumbria performance next year.

More significantly it was good to see Manchester teams taking part in an NCCU event with Lancashire - perhaps the juniors here are showing the adults the way to solve their long standing problem!

[Judy Brown]

Many thanks to Andrew Wainwright for organising yesterday’s competition.
There must have been more teams attending than at any time in recent memory – if ever ! Not only this, but he encouraged teams to bring reserves so that they could play in a reserve competition.
Thanks also to the NCCU for supporting the event.
Congratulations to all the players and organisers taking part, and in particular to Yorkshire and Lancashire for finishing first and second respectively.

As organiser of the Cheshire and North Wales Pennine Cup team I find it somewhat disappointing that the issue of our name has been raised on a public forum rather than simply being addressed at the time.
I would also distance our organisation from the comments made with respect to one group of players within our team scoring more points than the other. The Cheshire and North Wales County Chess teams are teams where each member is treated equally and represents the team – they do not belong to any ‘sub-team’ whatsoever at the event. Besides which, as most people are aware, board number and level of teams opposed are all factors in how many points an individual actually scores.
Hence I would like to congratulate all our players on a great team performance.

Thanks again Andrew for all your efforts – they are very much appreciated.

Best wishes

Judy Brown (Assistant Junior Organiser, Cheshire and North Wales CA)

[Peter D Williams]

As organiser of the Cheshire and North Wales Pennine Cup team I find it somewhat disappointing that the issue of our name has been raised on a public forum rather than simply being addressed at the time

Afternoon All

An individual has every right to bring up a team name or any other matter on here to do with chess.Its irrelevant if you find it disappointing.

Well at least the weather is better and one can get out to tend the plants.

[PeterFarr]

Why is somebody finding those remarks 'disappointing' an irrelevance?

Surely there is a right to disagree with someone's post just as much as there is a right to post in the first place.

Also, saying that a complaint would better be made be made directly to an individual on the day, rather than posted later on a forum, is not really to do with "rights" or even free speech, its to do with suggesting the best channel of communication in a particular case isn't it?

Yes a good day for the garden and mowing the lawn. Spring at last!

[William Metcalfe]

Thank you Andrew for organising such a wonderfull event i will have to try and get a Durham team in next year at the moment the Darlington juniors were a bit to young for a under 16 comp as most of them are 9 year old and younger lol.
On behalf of the NCCU i would like to thank all the countys that sent teams and making this years pennine cup a huge sucess and i hope we can build on this next year

[Andrew Camp]

I should point out that I have enormous respect for anyone who organises any event and it was remiss of me to not say so in the original post. Thank you to one and all who give up so much of their own time to do so much for all chess-playing juniors.

As for Mr Hewitt's post, I am intrigued to say the least...

[Andrew Camp]

Why is somebody finding those remarks 'disappointing' an irrelevance?

Surely there is a right to disagree with someone's post just as much as there is a right to post in the first place.

Also, saying that a complaint would better be made be made directly to an individual on the day, rather than posted later on a forum, is not really to do with "rights" or even free speech, its to do with suggesting the best channel of communication in a particular case isn't it?

Yes a good day for the garden and mowing the lawn. Spring at last!

Completely agreed. It's not the first time I've come to the realisation that alcohol and internet forums do not mix.

[Andrew Camp]

I would also distance our organisation from the comments made with respect to one group of players within our team scoring more points than the other.

Agreed. While the point was made to address a perceived irony, it was in fact not necessary and I retract it and apologise.

[Andrew Camp]

Given that ECF Council was told yesterday that players in North Wales did not want to be part of the ECF, this is quite ironic!

This is a new one on me. By whom? As the Chairman of the North Wales Junior Chess Association, I can confirm that our players support both ECF and WCU events and long may that remain so. I personally am members of both and enjoy playing on both sides of the border.

[Roger de Coverly]

This is a new one on me. By whom?

At a guess by the Cheshire part of the combined name.

This paper refers

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... -Wales.pdf

[Andrew Wainwright]

May I remind you that Cheshire and North Wales are called Cheshire and North Wales and not just Cheshire. Cheshire AND NORTH WALES did really well to get third today with six North Wales players making up the team so it's galling to hear that the team was constantly referred to as Cheshire. Even more so when the vast majority of CNW's points were scored by the North Wales players.

Thank you.

*This post was fueled by alcohol and is full of unnecessary comments and as such should be ignored. I will not delete it as I believe one should face up to one's mistakes.

No harm done. I haven't run many tournaments of this size before and learned a lot on the day which will hopefully make next years event even better (if the NCCU and the team organisers are happy to run the event in Bradford again).

[Andrew Camp]

This is a new one on me. By whom?

At a guess by the Cheshire part of the combined name.

This paper refers

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... -Wales.pdf

Quite astonishing.