We do have a place for our weekly meetings, at the mall. It isn’t suitable for a tournament, though. Our Hardee’s are kind of ghetto but I guess it’s worth checking out. For the time being, we have the union hall. Going to hold one at the end of this month there!
In the good old days (when Alexy Root was still living in Lincoln), double alternating non-consultative speed chess games were the primary variant from classic chess at the Lincoln Chess Club.
When I was club president, we used to hold speed chess tournaments during the summer and fall, (usually) no entry fee and only bragging rights to the winner, but it was a way to get people used to being in tournaments, and get them psyched for the City Championships which usually started in January.
It also kept the number of bughouse players down. (IMHO NOTHING ruins a club more than bughouse.)
BTW, I agree completely that you need two or three regulars willing to help run the club each week, if only to avoid burnout.
An update: We’ve had two organizing meetings and drawn 11 attendees, five of whom (including myself) attended both meetings. We’ve settled on a dues structure and decided to have three club officers – your basic president/secretary/treasurer trio, with the twist that the treasurer will also manage the membership list. We’re meeting at the library for the time being but struggling with the complication that we won’t be able to reserve a room the same day every week, even though we’d like to meet at least that often. We’ve decided not to pursue USCF affiliation or run tournaments until we’ve attracted 20 dues-paying members. Thus, our next goal is self-promotion.
We took an instant-runoff vote on what to call ourselves this week, but the balloting was inconclusive. A majority selected “Northwest Illinois Chess Club” as either their first or second choice, but a majority (made up of different ballots) also preferred “Route 20 Chess Club” over the former! This may turn out to be our first great crisis.
Six months later . . .
We now have a consistent, established core of five or six players meeting every week. We relocated from the library to the local community college, where we were able to get a room in the conference center to meet in for free every week. Our first tournament (unrated) is scheduled for Feb. 27, also in the conference center; we found a sponsor to cover the $90 room cost; we’re hoping it gives us a membership boost, as we seem to have reached a plateau. I wouldn’t say the club is flying entirely under its own power yet – in particular, if I were to leave, I think the website would cease to exist – but we’re a far cry from the last chess “club” in town, which pretty much disbanded every time the snowbird organizer went south for the winter.
Not sure how far you are from here, but Moline, Il has an active club with tournaments every month. We actually meet in Davenport, Ia, but that is just right across the river less then 5 minutes from Moline. There is also a fairly active club in Clinton, Ia just north of us. They do not like to play rated games though.
We’re a little far for that – more than 2 hours away.
Not sure exactly where you are - any community colleges in the area? Some of us have had success with that, and they sometimes like community members to help provide continuity especially when talking about a 2 year institution.
If you are near Wisconsin, might there be some things across the state line? (Maybe in Beloit for example. Janesville was a hotbed of chess in the early 1980’s for example.)
Hi,
I to am having the same problem getting off the ground. I live in Newport News, Virginia. I started a website Newport News Chess Club members.cox.net/nnchessclub/ . I have had the website for over a month now and still no takers.
How can I get a list of adult USCF members in Newport News, Virginia?
How can I get the word out about the club?
Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated.
Assuming your club is a USCF affiliate:
You can purchase a list of mailing addresses from the USCF office. Members who have opted out of having their name and address given out will be excluded. You can limit it by geographic area (eg states, zip codes or a range of miles from a given zip code), by age, by rating, etc.
You can also pay to have the USCF do an emailing on your behalf to members. Similar selection criteria can be used and members who have chosen to opt out of receiving email on behalf of USCF affiliates will be excluded.
Members who want to update their USCF email preferences can go to secure2.uschess.org/email/email-pref-update.php
Newport, your local newspaper may be an ally. I wrote a press release and sent it to my local paper, expecting a blurb in the calendar section. Instead, the staff decided that I was front-page news! The reporter who interviewed me even came to our meetings for a while, though I think she eventually got discouraged.
Our initial public meeting drew eight interested individuals, which is approximately the number I expected. Early meetings were more procedural than recreational, as I thought it was important to establish a structure that could keep the club going in the event that I left. About two months after that first meeting, we approved our bylaws, elected officers and made ourselves official. Today, we number 14 official members, plus a few others who drop in to play.
BTW, dinodr, one of your members distinguished himself in our February tournament. Maybe two hours isn’t too far after all!
I’ve found that many restaurant/fast-food stores are more than willing to let you set up a tournament or meet there certain days of the week. It nets them money by having hungry chess players consistently stopping by at their store, it can help draw in customers who see you playing chess and think it’s interesting, and you have a nice location to play and eat right afterwards. I just played a tournament in a Round Table pizza restaurant and it was pretty nice. There was a lot of space and I’m sure we helped them because most of us got something to eat.
My local chess club meets regularly at the mall near the food court, and my local blitz club meets at a starbucks.
Yes, our club as well has had great luck at fast food restaraunts for chess in general and
for chess tournaments. Usually during the day there are too many customers to have a
club meeting or a tournament. However, in the evenings, we’ve noticed that most of the
business is through the drive-through window and the indoor eating area is virtually empty
after 6:30 pm (almost every night of the week, even Friday night which is the best night
of the week to have a regular chess club meeting). Our club grew very quickly at a Carl’s
Junior fast food restaraunt meeting on Friday evenings from 6:00pm to 11:00 pm. This
evening/fast-food approach led us to be named “Chess Club of the Year in 2009” because
of the fast growth of these Friday night meetings.
Aaron Hise
Fresno Chess Club