Sheffield & District Chess Association

Established 1883

 

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06/09/2022

General Secretary’s Report 2022

 

The following is Geoff Brown’s report circulated prior to the AGM.

 

Well, it’s been a strange three years since our last Annual General Meeting.

 

On Friday, 13th March 2020, we took the decision to put the league ‘on hold’, and within a few days the rest of the country followed suit and the first lockdown started.  It quickly became apparent that we wouldn’t be getting back to normal for quite some time.  Eventually, following consultation with clubs, the Executive decided to terminate the 2019/20 season and award league trophies, and any promotion or relegation issues, based on the average number of points scored by teams in the matches that had been played before lockdown.  Those trophies will be awarded at the Fixture Meeting on 20th September.

 

Lockdown created a chess void that was then filled by a splurge of online activities.  Oli Brennan set up Rotherham Chess Club’s series of individual online tournaments.  They continue to this day, and it is no longer just local players that enter.  He gets entries from throughout Yorkshire, other parts of the UK, and, also from India!!  Oli’s efforts earned him the ECF’s Award for Online Contribution to Chess.

 

Although online chess is not everyone’s cup of tea, the Association has successfully run three online team league seasons in the last couple of years.  Thanks should go to Phill Beckett for overseeing the running of these leagues.  The facility to link a player’s Lichess profile to the ECF LMS pages meant that games could be viewed online in real time, almost like being in the match room itself.  Online League Season 1 was won by Hillsborough.  For Season 2, we had three divisions which were won by Nomads A, SASCA A and Nomads C.  In Season 3, Nomads again won the first division, with the other two divisions going to Nomads B and Clay Cross.

 

Inevitably, over the last three years, we have lost a few local players.  I’m aware that Pete Ballard and Andy Baxter, both of Rotherham CC, have passed away, as has Mike Johnson of Chesterfield.  There may well be others that I’m not aware of.  Sadly, Aughton Chess Club has closed down as well.

 

Slowly though, we’ve seen some green shoots of recovery.  Clubs started to open their doors again last year, although I’m aware that some individual members are still uncomfortable about returning. In the summer of 2021, when we were allowed to meet in small groups out of doors, there was a series of over-the-board events in pub gardens in and around Kelham Island.  Jon Arnott organised the Hope Valley tournament outdoors in 2021, along with a few SASCA club nights.  Jon has also run a series of one day events, both open and junior-only ones.  The YCA managed to run an otb 2021/22 season in which, sadly, Sheffield could only muster one team. I believe we’ll have two teams in the 22/23 YCA league.  Our own Association ran an ‘interim summer league’ of four divisions this spring, in which eighteen teams competed (see Alan McIntosh’s separate report).

 

One positive spin off from the pandemic is the extra time that people have found for hobbies.  It seems that the ‘working from home’ generation has taken to chess, propelled perhaps by Netflix’s Queen’s Gambit series, and many clubs are reporting a healthy increase in new members, albeit at the weaker end.  But clubs need to embrace these new people and make sure they stay with us.

 

So, Covid may still be lingering, but the time has come to look at restarting our main league and cup competitions again.  At the time of writing this, it looks like we’ll have thirty teams spread over four divisions for the coming season.  Let’s hope it’s a success.

 

Geoff Brown, 5th September 2022