Plans for 2019

John McMorrow


Dear All,

As has become something of a tradition while wishing you a happy new year, I would like to provide you with some plans for the 2019. As many of you will already know, this will be my last year as Chairperson of the ICU. Although I have loved my time in the role, there comes a time when fresh ideas and impetus is needed and I think that time has come. I still plan to assist the ICU as much as I can but will be handing over the decision making and other chair duties to my successor in September. If anyone is tentatively interested in stepping into the role, I'd be more than happy to assist with any questions they may have.

For now, I want to do a few things:

• List a few ways that members can help events/the ICU without investing your own time.

• List a few ways that new organisers can expand or get started.

• List a range of roles open to members who want to help in big or small ways. I hope that anyone interested will email me with any questions about the roles or ideas for new roles.

• List some areas where I think we can make improvements.

So, first of all, what can members do to help their local events and the ICU?

• Enter early – this may seem simple but having names on the entry list early is a huge help to organisers.

• Offer assistance – email the organiser to see if there’s anything you can do to help whether that’s bringing equipment from a local club, bringing people with you to the event or perhaps your company would be willing to offer some form of sponsorship.

• Pay your ICU fee in August or September for the upcoming season.

• Approach your companies/businesses/schools etc about using their venues for ICU events, about sponsoring ICU events and/or about working together on a future event/coaching etc. We can provide you with an ICU sponsorship document if you email us.

Ideas for new organisers/organisers to expand:

• Get entries in early always encourages others who see their friends/rivals on the entry list. Start local with friends and clubmates. If players need to pay later, add their name to the entry list and just make a note of it.

• Contact clubs/schools with large numbers of chess players and send on a flyer. Club emails are all readily available on the ICU and provincial websites. Offer group rates to the larger groups and look up accommodation that would suit them.

• Want to bring in a GM? No problem! Terms are less than you might think with some happy to play provided they receive free accommodation and entry, while others may want a small fee. If you’d like to cap costs? Offer their fee against any prize money they win. So if you offer 100 euro to cover their costs and they win 500 euro, they still only win 500. If they win nothing, they take home 100 euro.

Roles currently open to members

There are many small jobs that are currently done (or not done) by a small amount of individuals but 2-5 minutes per week from many members would significantly improve the efficiency of the ICU. With that in mind, volunteers are needed for following jobs:

Social media admins

This may seem inconsequential but we have to get our message out there to as many people as possible.

• Facebook Admin - posting ICU updates (one post per day)

• Chess.com/LiChess/chess24 Admins - posting ICU updates, running events (one post per day/week)

• Twitter Admin - posting ICU updates (one post per day)

Irish Junior Newsletter Editor

Posting ICU updates (monthly/quarterly)

Recruiter for events/committees

Remind people of events & ask people to work with the ICU.

Funding Team

We receive most of our income from member subs (25-30k per year) but could comfortably spend treble that on an annual basis if we had the funds. I’ll list some of the areas we could spend this money below.

50+/65+ Officers:

We need members who can assist with promoting our 50+/65+ events and help assemble teams for those age-groups to go to World and European events.

University Officer:

We need someone who can put events together for our university students (1-3 small events per year).

Where we can make improvements:

• Coaching: As a federation, we should be offering top-end coaching for both our elite Olympiad standard players and our top juniors. We will be trying to address this in 2019.

• Arbiters: As a federation, we do not have enough FIDE accredited arbiters. We have 2 active International Arbiters (IAs) and 5 active FIDE Arbiters (FAs). However, we did do some work this year on improving our number of active National Arbiters (NAs) and now have 16 of those. We hope to increase our numbers of FAs this year and will consider hosting an FA seminar here possibly during our Easter event or the Glorney.

• Funding: this is an area where we can always improve as there is always a new event/project we can run or an existing event that we can improve. This year we will receive sponsorship from the ECU, Blackthorne International Transport and the MHL Collection so far. How can we improve in this regard? We need you to come to us with any ideas you may have whether it’s your company who may be interested or whether you know a donor who may assist or a local government agency that could support chess. It could be an ICU event/project or a local event.

• University chess: we do not do enough here to encourage juniors to keep up chess when they go into third level education and think some structure may help.

• Corporate event: this is an event I’ve suggested for a while but not had the time to run as yet as it is quite ambitious. Tapping into this market could conceivably be very useful for membership numbers and for finding new sponsors. If my time was less tied up with other duties, it is an event I would like to run but would equally be happy for someone else to run with the idea.

Please contact me at [email protected] if you can or would like to help with the above or in any way.

Upcoming Events

The Leinster Junior Championships 2019

The Irish 50+/65+ Championships 2019

The Irish New Year All-Play-Alls 2019

The Irish New Year Blitz 2019

The Mulcahy Memorial 2019

The Gonzaga Charity Classic 2019 sponsored by CPL & MHL Hotel Collection

Bunratty Chess Festival 2019

The Galway Chess Congress 2019

The Irish Junior Championships 2019

The Irish International Open 2019 sponsored by the MHL Hotel collection

The Malahide Millenium Tournament 2019

The Ennis Congress 2019

The 30th Drogheda Congress 2019

Glorney Gilbert International 2019

The Irish Championships 2019: First Weekend

The Irish Championship 2019

The Irish Weekday Open 2019

The Irish Championships 2019: Open Weekender


Created 2016-09-27 ◦ Last updated 2018-12-30 ◦ Editor JMM


New Search
© 2004-2024 Irish Chess Union ● Contact UsPrivacy Policy