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note to Stevie Hilton
Hi Stevie
You are obviously passionate about this topic and in your FIDE position do you have numbers about how many blind kids play chess in Scotland how many other kids have other disabilities.
Similarly how many adults are blind and how many have other disabilities.
What types of disabilities should Chess Scotland take into consideration and what suggestions do you have in providing solutions to these challenges
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Hi Stevie
thanks for that The reason I asked is that for any organisation to plan to distribute funding, then some idea of numbers needs to happen hence the query, Haemophilia would come under a physical condition, I'm surprised it is listed as a disability given its nature. I'm also surprised that Chris Hampton is the disability officer. I'm also surprised he is even a Chess Scotland official, I didn't know that at all
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This is going to sound like I am opposed totally to what Steve is saying but can I state that that is not the case, but with so many things from FIDE it is impossible to put into place.
Let me start by saying that I think chess does quite a bit for disabled players. When a blind player turned up for the 4NCL (which now has increments) with an analogue clock we tried to get him a digital (we did get one but it was faulty!). Another player in a wheelchair was given a wider aisle and a heavier set to prevent him knocking pieces over.
However look at the FIDE Guidelines and tell me how you put this into practice.
"4. A circular shall be sent out when all competitors are known. This circular contains an entry form with the usual points and questions, asking whether any potential competitor has an impairment that will require special circumstances. The competitor has to inform the organisers about the special circumstances at least 20 days before the start of the event."
If this is to be enforced entries would need to close about a month before the event!!!
Issues to take into consideration
2. The corridors between rows of tables should twice as large (wheel chairs)
What does this mean? There should be a figure given. As it stands if I had 3m wide passageways I would need to make the one to the wheelchair board 6m!!
Assistants:
1. The assistants should have a minimum knowledge of chess; the language is less important since most of the handicapped players only speak their mother tongue.
2. Assistants for blind players should know the name of the pieces in their language.
1 and 2 do not seem to go together. It also seems to contradict D.2 of the Laws of Chess which the Braille players fought so hard to remain unchanged in the 2009 Laws.
By all means let CS Scotland have a set of guidelines but let them be sensible and able to be applied. Please do not enforce badly thought out instructions on us.
Perhaps you and the Disability Officer should get together and alter the FIDE Guidelines into something which could be used in Scotland. You could then try to get FIDE to adopt those.
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Alex,
I agree that not all of the Guidelines are practical.
I sent these guidelines to Ken Stewart for his thoughts and we both agreed that list of entrants was not a practical one to implement
I would be more than happy to work with the disability officer, but I would add the technical director as well.
Not all the guidelines are practical, but I think that CS should discuss this at at least council level.
I am happy to assist CS in my FIDE capacity.
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Thanks for your input guys however I think we are straying from the initial point I was trying to gauge the type of support and costs for all disabilities and as a starting point I was trying to find out how many disabled people we have in our ranks and what types of disability we have. An extreme example would be buying 10 braille sets if we only have 5 people who require them. We also need to know what resources we already have and what resources we need. Like it or not if we don't have this information then a logistics exercise in collating these facts. Perhaps our disability officer could take the lead and get this information for us.
I'm also not sure about buying chess equipment unless it could be leased out on hire. I'm not advocating making a fast buck but a measure of control could be implemented on its use and distribution.
Finally I am wondering if the possession of such equipment could be used as an inroad to established institutions such as blindcraft and local authorities in a bid to generate interest in Chess in general. If we are seen to be participating in this and other areas such as chess in schools, then maybe grants may become more readily available. Remember we are the officially FIDE- recognised chess organisation in Scotland. It would be great if we were seen to be more proactive in chess promotion in Scotland
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Quote:CS has a disability officer in Chris Hampton. I would say that his position must be strengthened but that is a matter for the council to decide
does this post exist? Is Mr Hampton the office bearer?
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yes it exists and Chris is the officer
