Season's Greetings

John McMorrow


Season's Greetings from the ICU

We'd like to wish all of our members and their families and friends a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It was a pleasure working with and for you this year and we're very grateful for all the support we've received, including words of encouragement, ideas for future projects and of course the crucial work done by volunteers in Irish chess. We're delighted with the progress we've seen over the past year and credit must go to the work done by those at all levels including those working at the grassroots level in primary and secondary schools, coaches, parents, tournament directors, provincial committees, and our sponsors. It really is no wonder that membership has been on a distinct upward curve with the support system in place for the ICU - at the date of writing, membership (731) is up 15% year on year on this time in 2015 (634), and 30% year on year on this time in 2014 (564).

Upcoming Events:

2017 hits the ground running with 2 events in the first week of the year. Online entry is open for The Leinster Junior Championships 2017 which runs from January 1-4 in the Esplanade Hotel. You can enter as many events as you wish for €20 but entry closes on December 28 so if you wish to enter online, you are running out of time! Next is The Mulcahy Memorial 2017 which runs from 6-8 January in the Metropole Hotel. There are currently 5 2000+ entrants with 2 weeks to go.

Women's Night Launch Photo

The next event in January is a special project announced last week, the Launch Event for Women's Chess Meetings. The new home for Irish Women's Chess is to be the Stephen's Green Hibernian Club and we are very grateful to them for welcoming us in to their prestigious establishment. We hope this will attract new players to the board and new members to the ICU by offering a home in a central and convenient location in very pleasant surroundings. The club has previously hosted several junior coaching sessions and we are delighted that they've agreed to expand our relationship. Read more here.

The final event of January is The 15th Annual Gonzaga Charity Classic 2017 which will be held in Gonzaga College SJ, Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin 6. The (first-time) organisers have done an outstanding job at recruitment this year with 11 titled players including 5 GMs and 28 entrants to the masters in all. They have also secured the sponsorship of CPL who have certainly helped in their endeavours. Proceeds as always will go to a very worthy cause.

2017 Gonzaga Classic

February is headlined by the The Bunratty Chess Festival 2017 which needs little introduction. This year sees the return of defending champion, GM Nigel Short, and 12 other titled players and we're sure that the organisers will once again expect to breach the 300 entrant mark. Enter here.

The National Club Championship 2017 sponsored by AwardsAndGifts has been a year in the making and we must thank our friends in the Chinese Chess and GO worlds who have really embraced us and brought us into their terrific festival. Not only have they brought us in but they have offered us a ballroom in the Gresham Hotel to run our event(s) and covered some of our other costs - for which we are very grateful. Expect updates on this event in the coming month as we finalise all of the details with our partners but we hope to run several events during the NCC weekend. For now, details of the NCC are finalised and published here.

I would not be forgiven if I did not mention our development officer's upcoming ICU Norm Tournaments & Supporting Events in mid April. We have wanted to run these events for some time but wanted to ensure sponsorship so as not to significantly risk ICU funds while also finding a date which checked two boxes: 1. Suited our top players 2. Doesn't clash with domestic and foreign leagues/events. We feel if we want our players to consistently reach the next level then we need to provide them with those opportunities via norm events - we do this not just with current top players in mind but also the huge crop of strong juniors coming through who will soon need these events (if they don't already).

Speaking of our top juniors, the norm events will be preceded by The CPL Irish Junior Championships 2017 which this year takes place in the Clayton Hotel, Sligo. Online entry will be available on the ICU site in the new year and we are excited to bring an ICU event to an area that hasn't been a traditional stronghold for chess in the past.

Finally, as promised, details for the 2017 Irish Championships will soon be announced. We hope that the additional time from the announcement to the event itself will give our top players enough time to slot it into their busy schedules but we have also worked to improve other aspects of the event which were raised as concerns when we contacted those players.

We wish all of you the very best of luck for 2017 and look forward to seeing you at many of the aforementioned events throughout the year!

John


Created 2016-12-23 ◦ Last updated 2016-12-25 ◦ Editor JMM


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