If you happen to be near the Glenroyal Hotel in Maynooth on Saturday or Sunday next 22 & 23 October , please call in. The Irish Woodturners Guild is holding their national conference with about 200 Irish and international Woodturners attending. The main competition is the Chapter Challenge - the club championship where this year the challenge is to make a chess set - the brief being:

The 2016 Chapter Challenge will be a chess set. The rules for this competition are:

The chapter challenge will take place at the 2016 National Seminar and is open to all chapters of the IWG. Each chapter is entitled and encouraged to submit one entry.

The chess set should comprise at minimum a board and a full set of chess pieces consisting of 1 king, 1 queen, 2 rooks, 2 bishops, 2 knights and 8 pawn for each side. Additional items such as building the board into a table or chess clocks are encouraged and will be taken into consideration by the judges.

The board should be no larger than 60cm x 60cm.

The pieces should be predominantly turned. The creative use of woodturning techniques is encouraged within the project and will again be considered by the judges over and above other disciplines such as woodcarving. Chapters may submit a text outlining any such techniques used in order to draw the judges attention to them. (This text should not contain any information that would identify the chapter or turners involved to the judges).

There are no restrictions on the types of wood, however the entry must be made of wood except where necessitated by mechanical reasons (e.g. Clock mechanisms).

We would ask for a full list of participants and together with photos of the participants and the project during development to be submitted to the Journal Editor.

Points will be awarded as follows:

The judges' overall impression of the woodturning in the entry, 80 points.

The number of active participants, 0 points for 1-2 persons, 10 points for 3-5 persons, 20* points for 6 or more persons.

There should be some fantastic sets produced and they will be displayed for the public to view.