2006/2007 Youth Co-ordinators Report

 

 

2006/7 was a busy year again for me with chess activities.

 

Much of these activities were on a local and national level.

 

At the Ontario provincial level, the Ontario Youth Chess Championships were held again in Kitchener.

 

78 kids participated in 7 sections. We had no Under 18 girls and one Under 16 girl. The only girls-only section that we ran was the Girls Under 10. We are continuing to suffer a diminishing number of Girls playing chess!

Most of the youth participating were in the Under 12 boys and Under 14 boys sections and these were Hotly contested sections. We also increased our numbers in the Under 16 and Under 18 sections this year. These also were rife with competition.

 

Many of the longest running games were in these sections and so they were the last ones going in the whole tournament.

 

U18 boys first place went to Jeff Willms

U16 boys first place went to Justin McDonald

U14 boys first place went to Roman Sapozhnikov

U14 girls first place was shared by Dalia Kagramanov and Liza Orlova

U12 boys first place went to Nikita Gusev

U12 girls first place went to Tina Fang

U10 boys first place went to Christopher Knox

U10 girls first place went to Rebecca Giblon

U8 boys first place went to Yinshi Li

U8 girls first place went to Melissa Giblon

 

All these players will have their full entry ($150) to the CYCC paid for plus receive some extra funds to help offset some of the expenses of attending the CYCC.

 

We also had 6 other youth qualify for partial to full funding to the CYCC and a further 10 book prizes were awarded.

 

Barry has had a lot of success in organizing and starting off youth events and programs in the York region with the extra funding he has been able to secure for this purpose.

 

On a local perspective for me; I have been actively working with a youth chess club in the Kitchener City Hall as a sub group of the KW Chess Club.

 

As always, I am open to any suggestions or offers of help with any youth activities in Ontario. I still have a collection of studies and papers on the Benefits of Chess in Education as a free download from my web site: www.psmcd.net. Many people have taken advantage of this to use when approaching their local schools for promoting chess.

I would welcome suggestions, calls for help or offers to help. Please feel free to email me at: patrick@psmcd.net.

 

Thank you for again allowing me to continue to work for the youth in Ontario this past year. I hope to be able to continue in the year to come.

 

Thank You,

Patrick S. McDonald

Youth Coordinator – Ontario Chess Association

patrick@psmcd.net