News from 2024-25 for Oxfordshire Chess

Summary of Committee Meeting May 2025

Minutes are available via the link below. Additionally, a short summary can be read online at the OCA discussion boards website.

Tim Dickinson

Adam Dickinson wishes to let the Oxfordshire chess community know that Tim Dickinson died a couple of weeks ago.

As well as organising the Oxford teams in the 4NCL, Tim was the esteemed controller of many local tournaments, blending excellent knowledge and leadership with unfailing good humour.

Tim's funeral will be held at 15:00 on Thursday 19 June at the West Lancashire Cemetery and Crematorium, Burscough. The website has directions. Anyone is welcome to attend.

OCA Proposals/Discussion Forum

Dear All,

An email will have been sent to club secretaries to distribute information about the new forum for discussions which has been set up for the OCA. This will be useful for engagement with players and getting a wide set of opinions for future discussions that the committee will consider and assist the committee in forming their recommendations for the full OCA at AGM time.

You will need to sign up to make comments on the message boards/forum and I hope that is relatively easy to navigate. Any questions can be sent to me via email. I look forward to engagement over the coming months.

Additionally, if you wish to send in proposals, they can be done to me or via the new forum for overall discussion. If you prefer to send to me and I will then upload them, that is fine too e.g. specific rule changes or refinements.

Oxfordshire Junior Chess Tournament Results 4th / 5th Jan 2025

The Oxon Junior Chess Trials and Championships were held at Cumnor Primary School on the weekend of 4th /5th Jan 2025. There were approximately 100 entries across the four sections: U9, U11, U13, U15/18. This is one of the highlights of the Oxon County Chess calendar, welcoming over 30 newcomers to over-the-board chess as well as hosting the county's strongest junior talent.

Congratulations to our 2024-25 Oxfordshire junior champions:

U9: 1st Emmanuelle Li, 2nd Nicholas Tanuwidjaja, 3rd Oliver Schmidt

U11: 1st Aden Kennedy, 2nd Kadhir Cholan, 3rd Aashi Aggarwal

U13: 1st Artem Miller, 2nd Joshua Flugge, 3rd Harry Greaves

U15 champion: Jan Murawski

U18 champion: Kenneth Hobson

U18G: Shambavi Hariharan

Best performing primary school: Europa School UK*

Best performing secondary school: MCS*

*based on top four scores of players, no single school can win the prize twice in consecutive years.

Full cross-tables for the U9 and U11 sections can be found on UTU Swiss Results. Cross-tables for the U13 and U15/18 sections can be found on chess-results via the link below.

Special thanks to Cumnor Primary School for hosting and to:

- arbiters: Alex Conlon, Joe Conlon, Keith Freshwater

- assistant controllers: David Zakarian, John Place

- U9, U11, U11G captains: Dan Schmidt Valle, Julian Kennedy, Julie Gray

- front desk: Ola Murawska, Marianna Asatryan

- bookstall: Andrew Varney

- general help: Jeff Bryant, Craig Miller, Juliette Sherwood, family Tanuwidjaja

- game analysis and coaching: Yichen Han

- new Ojays coach: Joe Cossins-Smith.