I am a senior at a local high school and have been trying to start a chess club without much luck. My school has never had a chess club but I have asked around and people have wanted a club. I need some help trying to get one started. So if anyone has some advice on how to get one started please tell me. Thx
Now you want to be a president of a High School Chess Club. Are you willing to work for the chess club after leaving the High School? The reason is this, starting a scholastic program like a High School Chess Club are worked out during the Summer. Having a scholastic program, the dates are worked out for a state scholastic tournaments months or close to a year. Number of scholastic coaches only and only go with a team too the state scholastic tournaments. Or have a few tournaments they will go: as the school team will be going too the scholastic tournament with parents as the drivers too the site. Asking parents to dive the students around week after week to a scholastic tournament, or a tournament pop-ups within the school year nobody will be going as a full team.
You can start something out with you’re school, you would be needing a teacher. Even if you find a teacher, the only way to start at this late date is the 2005 - 2006 school year. As you are a senior, are you willing too work for the High School after you leave?
Was in that mood myself at you’re age also. The first time being a President of a chess club, was the young age of 20; the age of being a director was at the very young age of 18. There was a number of people that did not like me being the president of the Jackson Chess Club, like the former president that slashed my tires, and destroyed the club records going all the way back to 1927, and the club sets ect.
What you have too do is find a site, Little Rock is a large city that has a number of people. It would not take long to find a site that is free, finding the players is harder. Find and go to tournaments in you’re state, pass out information about the site of you’re chess club. You would also have to go too tournaments all the time, give and pass out information, make friends with the directors in you’re state.
What you can do to make it work a little better, become a ‘club tournament director’. If you are a president of a chess club, or a director – the only way they will come too your club or you’re tournament, is going too there tournament.
Feel you will have better luck with a chess club on you’re own. Why not talk or email players you been with in the scholastic programs. They will be leaving the scholastic tournaments, some will leave chess other will move into the regular tournament cycle. As you have a class C rating, know you been too regular tournaments as well.
There are a number of question you will be dealing with, just email me a president_ggrcc@yahoo.com and will help you out one on one.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Scholastic chess!
Now, ignore what Douglas said, okay? You don’t have to worry about starting too late. You can have a scholastic chess club that is fun and educational for the members, adn it can happen this year.
First, you need to secure permission from the administration to have a chess club in the first place. See if they are supportive of you, and what they require of school clubs. It’s best if you can get a teacher on your side, because that will certainly go a long way towards helping you get off the ground. A teacher that would allow you to meet in their classroom is even better! But don’t despair if you don’t get the use of a classroom, since you can always use the cafeteria or the library.
Check out the USCF web site under Brochures and Forms for information on how to run a chess club. Some good stuff there.
Your club may want to meet just to play chess, which is fine. If you want, you can run ladders or little club tournaments within the club. It’s also a good idea to call other schools and ask them if they have chess clubs and try to get some ideas from them. Or if there is a chess club in your city you can always talk to them about what you would like to do. You might even find someone willing to help you plan some activities.
You say you haven’t had much luck getting one started. What problems have you run into?
Since you are a senior, work hard at making this a good, fun club, so next year there will be others who will remember it and want to continue what you’ve started!
If you want more information on what I’ve done both recently and in the past when I was in school, leave me a private message here. Just click on the PM button in this reply.
Radishes
Not going to say it is way too late too start the program this year. Every point you told her is good. If they can find a after school classroom, they see that the student body likes it. They could as a unit go to the scholastic tournaments next year.
What I think she is looking for is two ideas, just get with her classmates and just play chess. Does not matter if they join the USCF or not. As she is a class C player for both ratings, that would place her in the top 100 women in the nation for a quick rating. She might get a little bored crushing the wood players.
If she is thinking of building a USCF group of players and going out as a team. The state scholastic tournaments like Michigan is Febuary and March. It would be close, would happen if they warp into the program.
Untill she tells us what level of club she is looking for all we are doing is talking and talking.
Thanks, Doug. It’s just that it sounded like you were telling her it was too late already and she should forget about it and go for a regular chess club instead of one at her school unless she was planning on working with the school next year, and I’m telling her she can start now with a school chess club.
And as to your last remark, why is it too late to go to scholastic tournaments this year? Do you not have them all year long like we do?
Could be that’s what she’s looking for, but it would be easier starting a club in the school than a regular one outside of school. And if she does get bored playing woodpushers, then it’s in her best interest to help in the education process by doing a little teaching and leading the group. That’s what I always did and found enjoyable. And even though my students know I can beat them, they still ask me to play them, because there’s always the chance I’ll lose and they can have bragging rights!
I have to agree with you on that! 
Radishes
Radishes:
Did talk to her on yahoo messenger. The school will let her have the chess club; she is looking to have a chess team going to the state scholastic tournament this year.
With the understanding of the Michigan Chess Association, Michigan has 12 state scholastic tournaments – that gives state titles this year. The dates are 2/5/05, 2/12/05, 2/19/05 and the major one 3/19 - 20/05. michess.org/tools/viewevent.php3?eventID=823 This is how they have the formating for the High School Team tournament. You would need to send in the information of the team and the rating of the players. There is no on site registration, so the tournament is a closed tournament.
The woman that wants to start this high school club, she has a great deal of expierence with over-the-board tournaments. Looking in her MSA, she has 121 events in her history; she has been a tournament director with 3 events. She did let her USCF membership expirer, but did re-joined but not let updated, and did tell her that her directorship needs to be re-certified.
Very happy that she wants to build a chess club. Just not sure what she wants too do with the chess club after she leaves this year. Only know one person that has been as active as herself and still in high school. The other person has been out of high school a number of years, but still plays chess.
Very happy the school is having a chess club. And there are 4 to 6 other people that are or were USCF members. If she starts to build the club this year, she needs to know that she needs someone in leadership to pass the club too next year. She could be the schools scholastic chess coach for the 2005 - 2006 school year. If she cannot find a leader for next year, or someone in the school to be a scholastic chess coach: then the club will die without her being there.
Go to scholastic on this site and then print the manual on A guide to sholastic chess.
Well, I wanted to start a chess club in Scottsboro about 4 months ago. First I looked high and low for a free room (and I finally got one, ableit small and dumpy-looking, it was/is free). Then I printed some posters, took them to the schools, and thought I would have 10-20 kids my first meeting. Such was not the case. I went to the meetings for about two months, and still nobody came, so finally I stopped going as well. Then, my brother, who goes to Scottsboro High school (I am homeschooled) told me he heard some kids talking about the chess club, asked them when and where it was, and they mentioned my club! So, I went to the meeting place last week, and I was thrilled that 4 kdis from Scottsboro High School showed up! Then again, Yesterday, I had 8 kids show up (seven from the high school). I haven’t talked to anyone yet about making it the official school team or meeting place or anything, but I will soon ask them for permision to let me organize a team to represent states this year (despite the chaos and terrible organizing done by the Alabama Chess Federation President). Also, they said that next week, a few more would probably come. From my experiences (albeit short ones), let me give you some tips:
- I am in high school, so don’t worry about being too young. I still have at least 3 more years in the area before I have to leave for college (I will probably go to the local community college) but it will be nice to find someone to take over in my absence (the same is true for you).
- I think the key that you need to start a chess club, is good advertising. My mom sent a fax to a local cable TV station when I started it 4 months ago, and 2 weeks ago the kids finally saw the add (they ran it for free) and then they told their friends who told their friends who… So yes, make sure you have good advertising (a local radio station, tv station, and lots of posters).
- Don’t worry about club supplies and finances. I was all ready to buy 15 sets and a demo board for these 20 people I expected, but in reality, you don’t have to buy any. I had like 6 or 7 of my own, but if they aren’t enough, I could ask everyone else to bring theirs and I’d probably have another 6 or 7 sets (although I did place an order for 10 sets and a demo board since I will be teaching a chess class for elementary kids - and they will pay a little to the Scottsboro Chess Club).
I hope that helps, but just remember, it can be done! All you need is determination!
You should check out the Arkansas Activities Association’s endorsed organization- Chess Association for Arkansas Schools. They have a web page at chess-for-arkansas-schools.org that could provide you and your school with additional information.
Organizing a club isn’t very difficult, just talk to your principal and then advertise. To play rated tournaments or even scholastic non-USCF tournaments is much more difficult.
My experience:
At the end of my sophmore year, I realized that 4 of us would regularily meet in the band room after school 3-4 days a week to play chess, so I said, lets form a club.
The next step was to talk to the administration. The principal told us that we would need a teacher/adult supervisor. We eventually tracked down one guy who showed some interest and agreed to be in his room for an hour after school 2 days a week (he usually wasn’t there, but someone accepted responsobility).
Now we were in business, and we started promoting by word of mouth. There were 1200 students at the high school, and we never exceeded 15 people in the club, but we did grow a little. We tried a few different ladders/tournaments just to keep people interested, but we were losing people anyway.
I then met a fellow at church who coached another scholastic team. He provided us with info about the SCA (scholastic chess association) and we were in business. One problem: we had only 1 chess clock between all of us. We (Dan and I had been elected co-captains) went back to our Administrators and asked them to purchase 10 boards, sets and clocks and quoted them a price. After some finnagling, they aggreed to get us 4 (our minimum since a team needed four players). We quickly ran another tournament to decide who would play each board.
We had our first match against another school shortly thereafter… and soon learned of the USCF and convinced the school to pay the entry fees into the HS state championship tournament.
Important lessons (not directly derived from the above story):
- Talk to your Principal and find out exactly what you need (supervisonrs, transportation, location etc.)
- Recruit (word of mouth works well, but if you have some form of daily/weekly announcement, advertise any recent match/tournament successes)
- Have a solid base of players who always show up (unfortunatly, you can’t really control this one).
- Have good parental support to help with logistics (eventually we had enough seniors w/ cars to do this, but it wasn’t legal).
- Take all your players who are willing to meets/matches. Even if they arn’t on an important board, it is fun to meet/play other clubs.
- Meticulous planning goes a long ways… The club wasn’t too happy when I took them to a (primarily) K-8 tournament.
- Patience, many weeks I spent more time making sure people could attend our matches or play their ladder games than I spent playing chess.
Shawn Kmetz
Co-Founder of the Cretin Derham Hall Chess Club.