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  PVG (Child Protection) - Service for Clubs & Congresses
Posted by: Dick Heathwood - 05-10-2011, 08:41 PM - Forum: Membership News - Replies (1)

There have been a number of changes in the area of PVG (child protection) and a new service for the benefit of clubs and congresses has now progressed beyond the pilot stage. The existing pilot scheme approach has now been formally launched on a national basis. The principles of the service are set out in the paragraph headed “Clubs & Congresses” in http://www.chessscotland.com/membership/PVGpolicy.htm. The detailed operation of the service is explained in the page http://www.chessscotland.com/membership/...resses.htm.

The Chess Scotland Lead Signatory, Steve Mannion Snr, and the Additional Signatory, Dick Heathwood, hope that clubs and congresses throughout Scotland will find this a useful service to build confidence that legal obligations are being met at local clubs and congresses.

The service is mainly addressing situations where clubs and congresses are specifically aimed at the participation of juniors but may be considered relevant in other cases, e.g. where a “normal” local club for adults operates a junior training programme or a congress is running a junior event.

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  Dundee Congress event update
Posted by: Keith Rose - 04-10-2011, 09:32 PM - Forum: Tournaments and Events - Replies (14)

• The congress will be featured on local t.v. The Dundee Channel will make a video report during the weekend that will be aired shortly after the event

• Free WiFi in the venue;

• We will broadcast live play from two boards of the Open. We will have monitors set up in the lounge to show those games for the interest of anyone whose game(s) finish earlier. You could use your own internet-enabled devices. Unfortunately the CS boards are not available to us.

• Graham Mooney (FIDE 1938, CS 1816) will conduct coaching/commentary on the live games of the first three rounds. This is aimed at juniors and interested adults and each session will start 2 hours after the start of the rounds. These sessions will open with a run through of play to that time then commentary on moves as they are played, all on an interactive question and discussion basis. Graham can’t be with us on Sunday, unfortunately.

• We will have live streaming video of boards one and two of the Open again

• The draws for the Richardson and Spens Cups will be live on video (2:15 Saturday 15th)

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  The Czech Open for older juniors
Posted by: robin moore - 04-10-2011, 06:20 PM - Forum: Junior Chess Chat - Replies (1)

I am going to run this by everyone and I would appreciate as much feedback as possible in any form. I would like to use the Czech Open event including the European Amateur Chess Championships 18th-29th July 2012 as a stepping post for our older juniors into overseas adult events. I played there this year along with ten or so others from Scotland of all levels of ability and we loved this event. Direct flights from Edinburgh-Prague, 30 minute shuttle bus transfer from the airport to the train station, 1 hour in train from Prague to Pardubice. It's a 15 minute walk from the train station to the magnificent Czech arena venue for registration, payment and collection of your accomodation voucher. From there it's a ten minute walk to the university hostel. Rooms sleep 4, with own kitchen, shower room and balcony. There is a large supermarket across the road from the uni where we stocked up on fresh groceries for breakfast and lunch. The tournament is very well organised, with evening social events including hog roasts, live bands and dancing. They have other organised trips and sports events. Pardubice itself has an old town with good restaurants that are very, very reasonably priced including the best pizza restaurant I have ever been in. These restaurants are mostly outside on a beautiful town square. The tournaments themselves are strong, sub 2000, sub 2200 etc (right up to the main event that Alan Tate gained his third IM norm in this year containing 50+ Grandmasters) and are full of enthusiastic adult amateurs and juniors from all over Europe. Pardubice is very safe and very clean with a terrific transport system, including lanes for bikes and roller bladers ! There is a bike hire place at the supermarket across from the uni. As an organisation ChessScotland would send a "head of delegation" with you to support you. Although this is an individual event he would be available for duties like arranging transport, booking accomodation, placing entries and dealing directly with the organisers on your behalf. He would be staying at the uni but in seperate accomodation from you. Other duties may include things like making sure you have a daily copy of the draw and finding out where your seat is exactly ( don't laugh at this last one, it took me 15 minutes to find mine in the 3rd round as I had been moved to a seperate room !) He would also be there for social things like checking out places to eat and linking up with social events and their times and locations. Basically he would be there at all times to support you in any way required. The type of player this may appeal to may be guys and girls like....

Ali Roy, Maryann MacDonald, Alice Lampard, Rhian Hughes, Iain MacDonald, Andrew McClement, Shivan Murdochy, Jonny Scott, Hamish Olson, Andrew Newton and David Gillespie.

This is by no means a complete list as I am sure there are many others this may interest but the players listed above are all sensible young adults, many of whom I know well who I am sure would have a wonderful time at this event during July next year when they will have no exam issues.

Robin.

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  Lothian Congress - Some great results
Posted by: Mike Scott - 04-10-2011, 09:07 AM - Forum: Junior Chess Chat - Replies (1)

Congratulations to Kai and Kiron on continuing the junior's success after Grangemouth.

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  Dundee Congress - latest hotel prices
Posted by: Keith Rose - 03-10-2011, 12:38 PM - Forum: Tournaments and Events - Replies (1)

The local Travel Inns are taking advantage and are now charging £53 - Fri, £56 - Sat (Monifieth) and £53 - Fri, £55 - Sat (Dundee East). It seems the local managers no longer have discretion re prices so what you see on the PTI website is all there is.

Other options:

Dundee centre (lifts available):
Travelodge (Central, Dundee) - Fri - £42.80, Sat £49.90
Dundee Backpackers Hostel (http://tinyurl.com/3l4ktus - various prices

Other Dundee:
Travelodge (Strathmore Ave, Dundee) - Fri - £39.50, Sat £39.50 (15 minutes drive to venue)
Travel Inn Kingsway West - Fri - £51, Sat £54 (20 mins drive from venue)
Travelodge (Dundee, Kingsway West) - Fri - £42.95, Sat £45.95 (20 minutes drive to venue)

As at this morning, 3rd Oct, Booking.com (<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://tinyurl.com/68zmz6p">http://tinyurl.com/68zmz6p</a><!-- m -->) are showing the following availabilities in Broughty Ferry (5 minutes drive away - lifts available):

Jollys Hotel, Gray Street, Broughty Ferry, DD5 2BJ
3 single rooms @ £39
3 double/twin @ £55
Prices include breakfast.

Marlee Guest House, 3 Norrie Street, Broughty Ferry, DD5 2SD
3 double/twin @ £44 pp or £30 single occ.
Breakfast is £6.00 pp extra

Other hotels and B&Bs are available but at higher prices.

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  Glasgow Rapidplay League
Posted by: Jim Johnston - 02-10-2011, 10:32 PM - Forum: Tournaments and Events - Replies (1)

The draw can be downloaded from this page: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.sncl.org.uk/sites/GCL/GCL_Divs/Rapidplay.html">http://www.sncl.org.uk/sites/GCL/GCL_Di ... dplay.html</a><!-- m --> and is also now the back page of the Contacts & Fixtures Handbook.

Held at a central venue this season (East Kilbride CC) at 7.30 on Thursday 13/10/11 and Thursday 22/03/12.

Each team should bring along 2 boards, 2 sets and 2 clocks.

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  Lothians congress/Dalguise
Posted by: robin moore - 30-09-2011, 05:44 PM - Forum: Junior Chess Chat - Replies (35)

Just to let everyone know that Paul MacDonald, Phil Thomas and I will be doing a bit of a tour tomorrow starting off with the Lothians congress till after lunch, then heading up to Perthshire to Dalguise. We obviously want to speak to as many juniors and parents as possible so please feel free to approach us on any junior chess matter. Please come along also, even if your child is not playing if you have any questions. Paul has inherited a wonderful opportunity thanks to some quite exceptional unselfish work by Phil, Jacqui, Andy and many others and we are incredibly excited of the potential of our Scotland squad, particularly in the younger age brackets. Our aim is to build as big a squad as possible at younger ages then move them though the years supporting them in every way we can. Alan and I were delighted with the progress we felt our whole squad made in Bulgaria at the Euroyouths. Please be assured that all of us are totally committed to continue this progress in every way we can.

Robin.

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  Lothians Congress
Posted by: Andy Howie - 30-09-2011, 02:42 PM - Forum: Live Games - Replies (20)

We will be broadcasting 8 games from the Lothians Congress this weekend.

I'll put links up when available

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  Lothians Congress Minor
Posted by: David G Congalton - 29-09-2011, 08:50 PM - Forum: General Chess Chat - Replies (10)

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you fair warning. If you are playing in the Minor section of the Lothians congress this weekend please bring your A game. I have made a solemn promise to myself to purchase an aquarium and some tropical fish should I score 5 out of 5 and I really, really want a 60l aquarium complete with cabinet. Obviously, I also want a small bridge to put in the said aquarium for the fish to meander over and back again.

For those who may be unfortunate enough to face me, you have one more day and two more nights to brush up your skills and work on your game. I will be showing no mercy to adults or juniors, men or women and fully intend to sweep all before me in pursuit of this goal. Take my recent results at face value at your peril.

I do not expect any easy games, in fact I demand you play to the best of your capabilities. That way, when I am sitting admiring my new underwater extravaganza it will be that much more satisfying. Once you have been beaten do not be disheartened, I shall be buying 5 fish for my new aquarium and will name them after my 5 vanquished opponents. From the entrants list, so far, the fish may be called Mark, Camas, David Mc, Mike and Mahir. I reckon I'll need to invest in at least one mini-shark if that's how it turns out.

For those who would like a fish named after them, play well and play to win. Should you do well you may get to face me in a last round showdown, if you are lucky and before the last round if you're not.

Ha ha ha ha ha (please read the last in a manic, deranged kind of way, for full effect).

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  Swiss Manager Program
Posted by: David G Congalton - 29-09-2011, 08:17 PM - Forum: General Chess Chat - Replies (7)

The swiss manager program and chess results.com website/server seem to be much utilised resources by tournaments abroad.

At first glance the arbiters seem to benefit by having a computer program generate the draw, which apart from anything else removes the possibility of accusations of favouritism or whatever the opposite of favouritism is. Gotitinformeism?

Tournaments also appear to benefit by having results available online extremely quickly which may generate interest during the event.

Would the 199 Euros a full version costs be money well spent if the resource was available to every suitable event?

There may be other programs/facilities out there that do a similar job and it may be that this sort of application has major drawbacks or hidden costs but I’m not aware of them.

Were it suitable and of benefit to arbiters and organisers alike, I would suggest that Chess Scotland could make the purchase and make it widely available to Scottish tournaments.

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