The lack of volunteers at the time of the Association’s AGM in June threatened, in the emotive words of ECA Secretary John Chapman, to turn Essex into a “chess desert”. The brutal logic being: no organisers, no competitions.
That unthinkable scenario, with the Association so recently having celebrated its 125th Anniversary, has thankfully been avoided. The Association now has a Tournament Secretary and the remaining three team captaincies – in addition to Michael Spurr U2050 team captain who is continuing – have been filled. We are most grateful to the members who have stepped in to fill the breach; all are worthy of your support. Full lineup (including Michael):
Function | Official | |
---|---|---|
Tournament Secretary | Mark Murrell | tournaments@essexchess.org.uk |
U2050 Captain | Michael Spurr | u2050@@essexchess.org.uk |
U1850 Captain | Alan Riddoch | u1850@essexchess.org.uk |
U1650 Captain | Puzant Merdinian | u1650@essexchess.org.uk |
U1450 Captain | Ben Harte | u1450@essexchess.org.uk |
And so to business.
Tournaments
Mark has published details of a day of speed chess to finish off the 2023-24 speed events, the ECA Blitz Championship and the ECA Rapid Championship, which both take place on Saturday 2 November , at Wanstead House. You can find full details of these events via the link below. Let your entries flow!
Match Fixtures
Now that we have a set of captains, the team entries have been made and the fixtures are in place. Next step for your webmaster is to clear an item from his ToDo list by creating the 2024-25 pages for the County Match Programme. So look back here soon to find the website updates (this promt date/time 19 Oct, 14:44). Any members who would like to play chess for Essex, but are not yet involved, or think you are not known to the County captains, is invited to contact the Team Captains via the group mailing list captains@essexchess.org.uk.
Links: 2023-24 Speed events