Lothians congress/Dalguise

[David G Congalton]

By using Livestream, it is my understanding that online training could be provided at no cost to the provider or to the user. I believe that the Livestream facility can also allow the viewer to see what is on the producers screen. There is also a chat facility which allows communication between the provider and the audience.

The free version has no restriction on who can view or the number of viewers (once a channel has been verified). This may seem like a negative point but the chat facility can be disabled and there must be a way, such as Skype or the like, that the trainer can communicate with the select pupils in his class.

Some of the positives of anyone being able to view the broadcast would be

• the opportunity for the trainer to advertise their coaching skills,

• a large group of juniors and/or adults could enjoy the provision of training which may encourage further participation in chess,

• by organising the schedule and obtaining the services of the coaches Chess Scotland may encourage more players to take out membership,

• the provision of a Chess Scotland channel may spread public awareness of the game, the channel could be used for the broadcast of other events and not just restricted to chess coaching or broadcasting of the Scottish Championships. Examples might be Chess Executive news with Andy Howie, The Presidential Speech each Christmas and New Year, Last night of the Pawns for those with musical talents, Live 100 club draw. However I digress.

A Chess Scotland channel could be very quickly set up and I’m sure 12 coaches could be recruited very quickly who could provide a couple of sessions a year. I can easily name half a dozen candidates who I’m sure would be willing to do an hour or two for the benefit of our juniors and the game in general.

• Robin Moore
• Phil Thomas
• Paul MacDonald
• Iain Fraser
• Andrew Green
• Alan Tate
• Calum MacQueen

Okay so that’s seven not six. These are just the ones that I know have given their time in the recent past to coach some of our juniors. Once the channel is up and running and these gents have a monopoly on all the chess coaching in Scotland I’m sure others would become interested.

So we have the medium and with a few e-mails, texts or even phone calls (does anyone still use the phone nowadays or is it just me that gets texts from family and then spends a half hour replying to texts and having a text conversation that a five minute phone call would have sorted) a list of interested coaches could be put together and a provisional schedule arranged.

Is it best to broadcast at weekends or on a school night? I would suggest a regular time slot on a Sunday may be best for all parties but those involved in coaching juniors will have a better idea of the best day and time for such a thing. Going with the Sunday idea though, broadcasts could be scheduled to fit in with the rest of the CS calendar. No use doing a broadcast when everybody is up in Dundee playing or there is already a junior coaching day on at Hamilton.

All that’s left now is to invite the participating audience and that should be a job for the junior selectors and the coaches. Again e-mails, texts or phone calls would sort that out.

What would be the maximum number of participating juniors that a coaching session could comfortably encompass and would provide benefit to all? The first broadcast could start with four to six participants over an hour to see how it went and I would suggest that perhaps those in the more remote areas could be involved at an early stage.

Following on from the broadcast, perhaps we could look to the Chess Scotland forum to provide the opportunity for the participating juniors and those that didn’t participate to discuss the coaching session. However, I’m sure the juniors have more idea than me about networking via the internet.

It all seems straight forward to me and could be up and running, well by this weekend actually, if someone wants to go for it but to be more realistic I’d schedule the first broadcast for the first Sunday in November.

Robin, if you were happy with such an idea, you could start the ball rolling with an endgame coaching broadcast. I can provide technical assistance to get the channel up and running and download the software to your pc to enable you to broadcast. You could with the help of Paul, Phil and Donald who could be the participating juniors and then sort out how you would communicate during the broadcast and what you would be looking at.

In the meantime potential presenters could contact Robin and indicate what they may be able to offer or Robin can use his gentle persuasive powers to encourage people to come forward.