End of the UK Chess Challenge?

[Linda McCusker]

I'd say that as an initial doubter of the UKCC, I was completely won over this year with the experience that I saw Scottish kids (including my own) having at the Gigafinal. Lots of nice touches to make the kids feel proud, place-cards with their name, school and county logo on it - plus for our lot a bit of travel makes it seem exotic, but not too far away for Mum and Dad.

I'd go as far as calling it an outright disaster for junior chess if it can't be saved/rebooted in some form.

I completely agree with the above comments. We travelled down to Loughborough at the weekend for my son Andrew to play in the Terafinal. It was a great experience for him and he met and played against some of the top rated juniors in Britain.

I am going to sign the petition to have VAT removed from junior chess events which I hope might help the UKCC event, or a similar one, to run in the future.