Chess Scotland
Juniors
designed by kids,
for kids!
Holyrood Match
Pictures
On Tuesday 21st
February, Lynsey Shovlin, Rhian Hughes, Ali Roy and I were invited to the
Scottish Parliament. Lynsey received
her award for becoming Scottish Girl Player of the Year 2005 (see more)
and we got a chance to play some MSPs at
chess. We managed to win all the
games! We went to a buffet, played
chess, and got a guided tour around the parliament building by MSP Robin
Harper. It was a very interesting and
enjoyable day! Thanks to everyone
involved and congratulations to Lynsey on winning her award! To see a more detailed report click here.
Girls vs
MSPs
By Amy Officer
On
Tuesday 21st February four girls made the journey to Edinburgh to the
Scottish Parliament. The reason was that
the girls were going to be playing chess against some Scottish Members of
Parliament on their home ground at Holyrood. The girls were Rhian Hughes, Lynsey
Shovlin, Ali Roy and myself. Another reason we were going was so that
Lynsey could be presented with the Cherie Booth QC Award which is given
annually to the girl who has made the biggest contribution to chess over the
year.
Both
my parents took the day off work in order to accompany me to Edinburgh.
We had been told before hand that we were going to be getting a guided
tour of the buildings and we were all very keen to see the place that was the
subject of a great deal of controversy while it was being built. The main entrance was very low-key, I
thought. We weren’t even sure if we
were going through the front door!
However, the security in the entrance hall soon convinced us we were
in the right place! The foyer was a
bit dark and gloomy a bit like a crypt.
This was where the chess matches were to be held and the lighting
wasn’t quite ideal even although a spotlight had been erected. There were interesting displays explaining
all aspects of the Scottish political scene, all very informative.
Once
everyone had arrived our party went through to a committee room where a buffet
had been set up for us. This gave us
all the chance to mingle and we met some very friendly people including MSP
Robin Harper. Also present were Chess
Scotland President John Glendinning, Donald Wilson, Craig Pritchett, George
Clarke, Keti Arakhemia-Grant,
Anne and Charlie Roy, John Shovlin, Brenda and Jeremy Hughes amongst others.
Lunch
over; we went back to the foyer for the photo call where we were all
inundated with photographers clicking away.
It was all very exciting! The
presentation and speeches were made for the award and we drew our opponents’
names out of a hat. I drew MSP Tommy
Sheridan, Lynsey drew MSP Chris Balance, Ali drew MSP Robin Harper and Rhian
drew political researcher Michael Collie.
The matches commenced and promptly finished – for me anyway! I think Tommy was a little bit rusty but he
put in a good effort! It is probably
fair to point out that most of our opponents last played chess when they were
in high school! Ali finished not long
after I did, but Chris and Michael definitely put up the most
resistance! Rhian was never really in
any danger and produced a nice win.
Lynsey emerged victorious out of a tricky rook-and-pawn endgame. While we were waiting for everyone to
finish I managed to grab a friendly blitz win against Robin! A pretty
decisive result for the girls!
The
day was not over however, as Robin took the party for the promised guided
tour and very interesting it was too!
He took us through the different rooms and explained to us architect Enric Mirelles vision and
inspiration for the ideas he came up with.
The Chambers are very impressive!
They are very modern and finished with oak, sycamore and glass. Robin explained the parliamentary voting
procedure and described a typical parliament session. It was interesting to hear that MSPs who run over time in their speeches can actually be
told to conclude and, if they still take too long, their microphone can be
turned off! We saw the famous roof
beams and Robin proudly explained the architecture of them. Of course, that was before they slipped out
of place!
All
too soon the day was over and we had to go home. Listening to Radio Scotland on
the journey home we heard Ali, Craig and Lynsey over the air waves talking on
the drive time show.
The event received a great
deal of publicity for chess and in particular, girls’ chess. Thanks must go to MSP Robin Harper for
providing the venue and the MSP team, to Craig Pritchett for organising the
day in general and Donald Wilson for providing his very able arbiter skills.
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