Sheffield & District Chess Association

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16/01/2022

Looking to Restarting Over-the-Board Chess

 

There is to be an Executive Meeting on 27th January, as per earlier-announced rough plans, to look at the possibility of a resumption of over-the-board play, following on from the current on-line competitions which end around mid-February.  In connection with this, Geoff Brown has sent out the following to various club officials.

 

Hi everyone, and Happy New Year to you all.  Let's hope it's a better one than the last two.

 

First of all, I apologise if you've received this email and you're no longer involved with the organisation of your chess club.  The lists I have are somewhat out of date, for obvious reasons.  If you're no longer involved then can I ask that you forward this email to the new person in charge?  (And let me know if you need to be deleted from my contact lists).  Also, I apologise if you've received the mailing more than once.  Some people appear on several of my lists.  I've tried to weed out the multiple entries but I might have missed some

 

Is it time to get back to over-the-board league chess in Sheffield & District?  A good number of people believe so.  Other leagues and tournaments have started back up and, whilst Omicron looked for a while as though it might put a dampener on things, there is a faint light at the end of the tunnel.  The Executive are meeting online on Thursday next week, i.e. 27th January, and would like to rubber stamp our otb re-start.

 

Sometime between now and the Executive meeting, I would appreciate it if you could let me know the situation at your own club.  Are you ready to play league chess again?  Also, are there any COVID rules at your playing venue?

 

We're already aware of some clubs that are still struggling, for various reasons, and therefore the plan is not to restart our main winter league.  The sensible time for that would be October.  Instead, we're looking at something more akin to our Summer League, probably running from around 1st March to end of June.  As per our existing Summer League rules, matches would be over 4 boards but with an option to increase to 6.  Games should be graded (so ECF membership would be encouraged).  Players wouldn't have to play for their 'main' clubs, e.g. if a club chose not to enter a team in this restart, then their players would be allowed to 'guest' for another club until we restart the winter league.

 

There may be some points that I've missed off but have a look at the current Summer League rules (mannchess.org.uk/SRules/Rules.htm#summer) and let me know if you have any queries about them.  I'm not asking for definite team entries at this stage but, rather, feedback from clubs to be presented to the Exec next week.

 

Best wishes

 

Geoff Brown

General Secretary, S&DCA