End of the UK Chess Challenge?

[Andy Howie]

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/2594274

[robin moore]

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discussion on ecf forum

[Ianbrownlee]

why dont we we do our own Scottish one?

[mclarke]

Ian, to all intents and purposes the various junior bodies already run one of the critical stages of the UKCC regionally (both in Scotland and the UK). SJC run the west megafinal, LJC run the east megafinal and NEJCA run the north megafinal. If they qualify, the kids then get to go and play the Gigafinal in Manchester and opportunities to play in the Terafinal 'down south' somewhere.

The one thing thats central and I think UKCC is good at, is the Schools being able to run their own qualifier and act as a pathway for increasing participation - the prizes are a bit 'tatty' at the school qualifiers, but the kids love them.

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.

[mclarke]

This is the anouncement from the UKCC website:-

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[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.

[Andy Howie]

It won't help the UKCC as the law was in place when the offence happened. It will help chess in the future though so is worth doing!

[Andy Howie]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/...-over-300/

[AndrewGreen]

I really hope this tournament survives. As a boy, it was the first chess tournament I ever played in and I loved it. Ten years later, as a full time chess teacher, I see 350 children getting the same joy out of the competition that I did. I would urge everyone to sign the following petition:

https://www.change.org/p/uk-parliament-m...responsive

It will be a huge blow to chess if we lose this tournament.

[hamish olson]

As Andy says, I don't think even if the law changed that it would be applied retrospectively - UKCC still screwed. Hopefully someone will take over the same role as UKCC and just call it a different name but it's too late for Mr Basman I suspect.