Why should people play chess?

[Paul Buswell]

Sorry folks, being lazy. I'm looking for copy for a club flier and rather than write my own thought I'd see if I could crib, see if someone's done it better ....

I can google of course but I want to be sure I have permission to reprint and I'm in a hurry.

Rather to my surprise, nothing obvious on the ECF website.

Target audience: adult social and casual players who we want to encourage into club membership.

Thanks

PB

[David Lettington]

This is list i always use when I'm trying to persuade teachers to set up school clubs, but I'm not sure if it's suitable for your purposes:

"Chess is multi-faceted game and helps people to:
- Develop logical thinking skills
- Develop visual-spatial skills (non-verbal reasoning skills)
- Improve their memory
- Mix with other people (there are no barriers to playing chess, people of any age, gender, race, or physical ability can play)
- Develop an ability to plan a strategy
- Pay attention to detail
- Develop intuitive decision-making
- To empathise with another person’s thought processes
- To be a gracious winner, and a gracious loser
- To analyse a problem, plan its solution, and then carry out that plan is life’s most important skill."

[Joey Stewart]

I used to use this as my chess club poster at university - it drew in a good number.

Join Us

Join Us

Join Us

Join Us

Chess club - thursday nights.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Target audience: adult social and casual players who we want to encourage into club membership.

Maybe focus on what the club offers to adult players (drinking at a pub seems to be popular, but other forms of refreshment such as tea and coffee and biscuits, if made available can make a club much more welcoming), social players (meeting other chess players), and casual players (is the club open every week or just on match nights?). If the transport links are good, it is worth emphasising that. If the venue is nice, say that (if it isn't, don't). If you have lots of players already and are very active and running lots of teams, that is another selling point.

Also give examples of events on offer - do you run a club championship, blitz tournaments? Do you have strong players willing to give simultaneous displays or do coaching? I agree that the ECF should offer advice on this, and I have a feeling they have and do, but it clearly needs to be more visible. If you want to be controversial, tell people to stop playing chess online and get out and meet people over the board! I've also seen some adverts use a chess problem, or position from a famous game, to attract people's attention (giving the starting position as "White to play and win" is either hilarious or a tired old joke, YMMV).

[Gavin Strachan]

Not very good at ball games? Hate being outside? Lack social skills? Top of class at school?

Bridge is for you!

Otherwise try chess.

[matt_ward]

Yes that would be a good idea, sending fliers to schools and places like this.

Do most chess clubs have their own website, even when they do I can not imagine it attracts a wide audience.

Matt.

[Michael Jones]

Most do, yes, but like you I imagine that their audience is mostly the club's existing members, a few guys from the club up the road taking a sneaky peek at what their rivals are up to, and maybe, just maybe, the odd potential member trying to find more information about the club.

[Rob Thompson]

More useful than individual club websites is, i think, league/regional websites. For example, Chess Devon provides information about the clubs in the local area, and this is more efficient than each separate club having its own site.

[Michael Jones]

Similarly for Warwickshire - all the local leagues, which clubs play in which, where they're located and links to their own websites where applicable, all on one page: http://mjh.orpheusweb.co.uk/chingland/warks.htm

[Neill Cooper]

In my experience club websites do work. Putting "chess <town name>" into Google I often found the local chess club came top (except for Torquay!) I have enquiries every month or two from our website - though it is mainly related to Primary school children for the junior club. Other ways of getting publicity - write a news article for your local paper (and include your phone number), fliers for schools (include a very simple mate in one as the problem), a stall at the local community summer fair.

[ThomasThorpe]

Are you too lazy to run around for 90 minutes?
Can you cope without £400K a year?
Do you not want to turn out like John Terry and Peter Crouch?
Then don't join football!

Join the chess team instead, for some good mind exercise!

[matt_ward]

Why do you play chess?

" The greatest pleasure when you break his ego".

[IanDavis]

This is list i always use when I'm trying to persuade teachers to set up school clubs, but I'm not sure if it's suitable for your purposes:

"Chess is multi-faceted game and helps people to:
- To be a gracious winner, and a gracious loser

Not sure that Chess is terribly good at that old boy.
Chess is a beautiful game, people should appreciate it, if not actually play it.

[Nick Murphy]

Have a look at this article:

http://www.chessvibes.com/columns/why-we-play-chess/