Richardson/Spens - what next?

[Ianbrownlee]

I think what has to be done is a rethink not just of our tournaments but of chess Scotland overall. I see a desire to place a team in the 4NCL which I presume the cost of this is being 100% covered by the participants I also presume the huge percentage of the cost of the Scottish team's participations are being met again by the team members themselves. The reason I mention this is that I believe that serious resources have be to allocated in restructuring the game such as making the premier tournaments attractive to play in whether it be a financial or other reward even at the expense of paying for foreign participation. I genuinely believe that chess is not deteriorating but the green shoots of development are manifesting in online chess. The numbers of Scottish players in online forums such as chess.com and others are pleasantly surprising. Chess Scotland should be looking at this slice of the pie if for no other reason than to connect to remote regions where chess clubs are more sparse. There are already several online chess clubs in Scotland with no affiliation to chess Scotland. Perhaps this is the first step for Chess Scotland to reverse this. I also like the idea of a regional chess league tournament where each regional chess league is represented as well as other organisations such as a disabled team or other representative body.
paramount to all this is for each regional chess (and each club) to actively support Chess Scotland events and to support its volunteers such as Keith Rose, which is why I am looking forward to be playing in next years Nancy Elder. We should also be relaxing the rules as to who can play in these tournaments. Anyone who knows me will know of the particular personal experiences (difficulties) I had this year