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On the face of it, this new Barclaycard + Playchess sponsored open EU schools competition, is something that schools ought to jump at.

ChessBase (who run Playchess) have always offered schools in Scotland (free) access to play chess on the internet going back even as far as the late 1990s ... Douglas Bryson probably knows most about this). But the stumbling block has always been lack of permission by schools to use these facilities by the Educational IT bodies on (important!) child protection grounds.

The new yes2chess initiative would appear to have solved this problem. At any rate, it maintains that free access to schools will be private to properly monitored schools entrants only.

Assuming that to be the case, I would have thought that many schools all over Scotland would be interested in entering this event. It perhaps has particular attraction for the many schools who set up clubs in the Highlands and Islands and other remote areas of Scotland, who are currently severely handicapped in playing against other schools.

Might the facilities eventually permit EU national competitions to be established (subject to appropriate privacy and monitoring), such as a Highlands and Islands team and/or individual championships?

I would urge anyone with any questions about this to contact Malcolm Pein, who has been central to setting the agreement up (details at the yes2chess website).

SJC started running events in 2004 & they included the SJC Primary Team. Yes CS were also running their own event but the two organisations ran it with slightly different formats.

CS held heats in schools during the school day. The organisers travelled to the various areas to make this possible & the schools accommodated by one being the host in each area ie: Lothians, East Renfrewshire. The qualifiers from the heats then went onto play in the finals which were held in Paisley on a weekend.

SJC also initially ran heats in different areas but at a neutral venue & on a weekend. The finals were also held on a weekend & initially in Dunkeld.

In 2009 when SJC/CS combined to run the event as the SJC personel were also junior directors of Chess Scotland, just one finals day was held to enable all to enter. This was partly because some really good teams were getting knocked out at heat level as some areas like Lothians had numerous strong teams but based on ratios they were not all qualifying & yet in other areas all teams were relatively weaker & getting qualification. This seemed a much fairer way to run things.

This year will be SJC's 10th anniversary of running the event & intend to continue to run the one day event as they do not feel there is enough space on the calendar to revert back to regional heats, held at weekends. Obviously if CS decide to hold their own event again & revert back to holding heats in schools during the week it wouldn't impact the calendar.

I think the main point for all parents & children to note on any junior events is the branding & SJC clearly mark their events as SJC where as when we have combined events in the past they have been double branded to show that it is also Chess Scotland.

There are two sets of Primary Team & P5 & under shields. One set is marked Chess Scotland & the other SJC.

I've been having a look down the grading results from the Lothians Allegro, and it appears that the average grade calculations are incorrect in occassions where the 400up/down rule is applied, with respect to then calculating TPR (I think).

For example, James Hartham in the Minor played 5 opponents all rated over 1000, and yet his Avg Opp Calc is 906 (his rating of 506 + 400). While for the main rating calculations the 400 rule makes sense, does it make sense for TPR calculations, which is what it's also being used for? =) A mathematical flaw perhaps, or can someone with more experience than I shed some light on why it's done this way?

Why has the thread I set up about the continuation of the AGM being blocked? Has the board decided to stop legitimate concerns about the AGM being discussed? Who ordered the Blocking of the thread? Do they have the power to do this? and under whose authority?
In the need for transparency, answers are required.

As "discussed" in council yesterday, In the next week the noticeboard will be moving to a new server. This will mean the board will go offline for up to 24 hours while the change is taking place.

Please bear with me as I want to make sure i get it right first time and not totally balls everything up

http://news.sky.com/story/1194062/dublin...d-to-death

Finally the AGM has been concluded

However, There are still unanswered questions.

1/ Accounts: The accounts were not ratified at the first part of the AGM because they were not audited. Were they accepted at the continuation of the AGM? If they were not, then that is unacceptable because it is only the AGM that can accept the accounts. Anything else would be a breach of the constitution of CS.

Why are CS refusing to name those who are to serve on the working party for the reformation of the constitution. I know that a meeting of this working party has taken place, yet there is no information on who is serving on the committee. That is simply not good enough. Was the committee selected by the council or by the AGM? If the President has made the invitations then I would seriously question this as a potential breach of the constitution. Is this committee representative of CS membership I very much doubt it.

I ask you Mr President to name the committee and answer my concerns about the ratification of the accounts

The Nancy Elder and MacIsaac trophies seem to be missing. Can anyone help shed light on where they might be?

Thanks

Two of our fellow Scots - Andrew Burnett and Mikey Groves - are playing in this, starting today.
Games, results, etc. at http://www.czechtour.net/prague-open/results-and-games/

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Interesting article on the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25631272