Women's In-Tournament Training

[Alan Walton]

After scanning through the original posts, I have noticed a couple of things which has ended up as a tit for tat battle

1) It originally started as a reasonable discussion around Sean's decision to offer free entry for females, and the community posted their individual views whether this was a good idea

2) Suddenly if people disagreed with the general idea of free entry being a good thing, these people were targeted as being against female chess in whole

3) We then seem to arrived at a bit of name calling (e.g. the work "plank" was used once, and the old chestnut "who are you"), this instantly put everybody on the defensive and suddenly it seems to turned into a war zone

It seems that if you disagree with the status quo then you are villified and called "negative", I think it was a totally valid point that free entry for women should have been target at a specific element of the population, and not those who are classified as "active", so maybe this offer should have been made availabe in the lower sections rather than the open where these players would have entered whatever the entry fee was

Regarding the title discussion, the In-Tournament Training is a very good idea, and hopefully in future this is something that will be expanded to allcomers if they are willing to pay the price

I think it may be time to draw a line under this

[Carl Hibbard]

It's been all downhill since then and I think the best option for this thread would be for you to stop pursuing that conversation with Sabrina as it doesn't seem to be leading anywhere good.

As I have pointed out more than once both in public and private

[Jovanka Houska]

I am not interested in arguing about the existence of women's chess, I feel it is counter-productive and leads nowhere. In fact on a theoretical level I even agree with Louise!
However, there is a big problem. In reality, there is a massive under-representation of women and girls playing in chess clubs, chess tournaments and in Chess. full stop..
To me this is simply not satisfactory.
As a managers of Women's chess, all Sabrina and I are interested in is:
a) increasing the AMOUNT of women and girls playing chess and if this is done through running girls events then so be it!)
b) Increasing the opportunities for women and girls to play chess.
c) developing and raising the standard of Women's chess in England.
(In fact I would like to do this for all juniors but I am only manager of Women's Chess)
When we have achieved our goals and there are a significant amount of women and girls playing then we can talk about scrapping women's titles, women's prizes, initiatives to encourage women to play etc
Instead, I would like everyone instead to come up with constructive ideas (even if you disagree with the ideas on principle) on HOW we can achieve our goals be it through providing business contacts, venues, sponsors or simply people volunteering their time. I look forward to hearing your suggestions.

[Sabrina Chevannes]

Thanks Jovi

As you can see I have been quiet for a while. This is because as Jovanka mentions above, we have these aims in mind and this is what we hope to achieve. I set up this thread to announce this initiative and to thank Sean for offering free entry to his tournament. Since then, I have been criticised for one thing or another and in my view lately "attacked" directly, for what seems to be like a good idea.

As I said, if anyone else has any other better ideas for promoting women's chess, then please let me know. If you are against women's chess then please don't post, as this is a women's chess section and if you are not interested then you shouldn't be in this section. It is my job (unpaid too) to promote women's chess and I am just trying to do my job.

But after the last couple of months, I have come across so much **** that I can see why so many people have left posts in the ECF. When you are working your arse off trying to do the best for others (unpaid again), and all people can do is be negative. It's very demoralising. Being paid to do a job where you are berated is one thing, but to do it for free is draining.

In case people don't realise, I also have a life of my own and am not planning on wasting any more time on this thread if nothing constructive will come of it.

[Alan Burke]

In that case, I will continue to post as I am not against womens' chess - as I have said consistantly throughout this thread !

Jhouska, at least you have put your point across in a fair-minded - and polite - manner and can appreciate that others may have alternative views on the subject at hand. Yes, please continue your good work on promoting chess for women, but I can see that you are also mindful that other groups should not be too alienated in your quest.

[Gary Cook]

your league and your tournaments ... wonderful and the best things ever

Thanks for the above, maybe we could use it on the tournament advertising!!

Gary

[LozCooper]

your league and your tournaments ... wonderful and the best things ever

Thanks for the above, maybe we could use it on the tournament advertising!!

Gary

Well I did say may be.....

However having been accused of making comments to flame those who hold different points of view about positive discrimination, as well as toeing the party line and having a hidden agenda for merely defending well respected organisers who were being attacked by your esteemed organiser I would ask that my name isn't used by the tournament

[Gary Cook]

Under representation of women in chess is an age-old problem, one where I don't think anyone has identified the root cause.

Sean's idea of encouraging more women into the tournament scene, will do one of two things (or more likely bits of both) - 1. bring new women into chess; 2. bring more current players into this tournament. In the long term it will only be classed as successful if they continue to enter once they are asked to open their purses.

[Gary Cook]

As I said, if anyone else has any other better ideas for promoting women's chess, then please let me know. If you are against women's chess then please don't post, as this is a women's chess section and if you are not interested then you shouldn't be in this section.

Sabrina
Only having people who agree with women's chess posting in this section will not enable you to look at the whole picture - sometimes you need to look at it from a different angle - otherwise you will also get what you have always got - and since we are still talking about means that it hasn't been looked at correctly so far.

Gary

[LozCooper]

As I said, if anyone else has any other better ideas for promoting women's chess, then please let me know. If you are against women's chess then please don't post, as this is a women's chess section and if you are not interested then you shouldn't be in this section.

Sabrina
Only having people who agree with women's chess posting in this section will not enable you to look at the whole picture - sometimes you need to look at it from a different angle - otherwise you will also get what you have always got - and since we are still talking about means that it hasn't been looked at correctly so far.

Gary

To be fair though, this thread was only opened to provide information on the training. We've branched off into lots of other areas which could have been opened as new threads. I'm all for having debates on these matters but I would have prefered them not to clog up the training thread. I even started the thread on abolishing women's titles myself in order to encourage a mixture of views, some for and some against.

Perhaps you would have prefered to phrase her comment that if you don't have anything constructive to say then feel free to move on to other threads

[Roger de Coverly]

Oddly enough with all the fighting, no one seems to have noticed that the "free" entry is only available as a package deal from Sabrina with the coaching. The entry form is on the very first post.

The Congress detail page at http://www.e2e4.org.uk/uxbridge/Mar2011/index.htm doesn't mention free entry, not even for GMs and IMs.

(edit) one level lower, the Congress entry form in .pdf format offers free entry. So the training offer wasn't packaged with the e2e4 offer.

[Gareth Harley-Yeo]

Oddly enough with all the fighting, no one seems to have noticed that the "free" entry is only available as a package deal from Sabrina with the coaching. The entry form is on the very first post.

The Congress detail page at http://www.e2e4.org.uk/uxbridge/Mar2011/index.htm doesn't mention free entry, not even for GMs and IMs.

well blow me...

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

The PDF of the entry form mentions free entry for GMs, IMs and women:
http://www.e2e4.org.uk/uxbridge/Mar2011 ... r_2011.pdf

[LozCooper]

The PDF of the entry form mentions free entry for GMs, IMs and women:
http://www.e2e4.org.uk/uxbridge/Mar2011 ... r_2011.pdf

Yes, that's correct. The training was organised some time after Sean's offer of free entry to women in the three tournaments was announced on the forum some months ago.

[Sean Hewitt]

perhaps someone should call the fire brigade