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.

End of Season Round-Up

With all games and matches now complete, the 2024/2025 season summary is below with winners list.
Division 1: Oxford University 1 are champions, by way of game point difference
Division 2: Oxford City 2 are champions, with an unbeaten season
Division 3: Oxford City 3 are champions, also by way of game point difference
Frank Wood Shield: Witney Weavers are victors
Congratulations to all teams after a very close competition throughout the season. Trophies are being collected from the previous seasons winners now and will be prepared for award in September 2025 to the new holders.

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.

Would you like to run / coach 'Ojays' - Oxfordshire's Junior Squad?

Oxfordshire Junior Chess would like to invite expressions of interest to 
run and coach 'Ojays', taking over from Andrew Varney as he stands down 
after many years hard work.

Ideally, this would involve regular (weekly? fortnightly?) in-person 
group coaching sessions suitable for children who are keen at chess and 
are county-level players, including at U9 or U11 level but also older 
players. Such players regularly emerge from the Oxon Junior Championship 
/ the London Junior qualifier and school chess clubs. Parents (and 
children) are keen for there to be a place where such children can 
continue to develop their chess, at a level which is higher and more 
competitive than school chess clubs, and we (Oxon Junior Chess) would 
like there to be a county-level coaching structure to which we can point 
parents so that their children can develop their love for chess and, if 
they have the desire and ability, become national-level players.

The precise structure of the coaching, and the venue/fees charged, would 
be largely up to the coach; such group coaching may also provide a 
natural conduit into private coaching of some of these county-level 
juniors, as they further progress and seek out more bespoke coaching.

Coaches should be able to inspire young players in the love of the game, 
should be strong enough as players to be able to provide effective 
coaching to county-level U9 and U11 players (the strongest U11s are ~ 
1800 ECF), and should hold an enhanced DBS check.

Expressions of interest to [email protected] by 31st August 
2024.