Please find below the President’s Report from the Shropshire Chess AGM, held on 16 July. Minutes to follow.
President’s Report 2024
Many thanks to everyone here for such an enjoyable season. All three divisions of the Classical League and both Rapid Play divisions were as competitive as ever. I want to thank all trustees and officials of the Shropshire Chess Association for their hard work this year. We have been a charity for more than a year now and we have continued to pursue our aims and objectives energetically. I want to thank particularly Jonathan Smith, Richard Thompson and Peter Kitchen for joining the board of trustees and we will be looking to broaden the committee of trustees soon with the aim of having each Shropshire club represented at our trustee meetings. The trustees develop and scrutinise association policies. We make sure that the association’s finances are secure. We also aim to make sure that the association promotes the study and practice of Chess for the benefit of residents of Shropshire.
A real highlight this year has been the continued growth of Junior Chess in Shropshire and I want to pay particular tribute to our own Chris Lewis this evening. Last September Chris was announced as the winner of the English Chess Federation’s contribution to junior Chess award. He has continued to organise Junior Clubs, Schools Championships and Megafinals. We have seen many positive consequences from this. There is a clear pathway for juniors to join our clubs and to play for our teams. Shropshire Juniors are making an impact at the regional and national levels. We are particularly proud that Rudi Bedford is ranked in the top 10 in the UK for his age group. Chris has also re-engraved the Unity Cup as the Alan Shaw trophy and I am delighted that we can honour Alan who was one of my first friends in Shropshire Chess when I started playing here more than 30 years ago.
We had another successful Shropshire Chess Congress at the Wrekin Housing Trust. Many thanks to Chris and Phil for their superb organisation of this event. Another hero of the Shropshire Chess Association is Dan Hilditch-Love. Dan has taken over as League Controller this year and he has carried out his duties efficiently and meticulously. As well as being a very strong player, Dan is a wonderful organiser and I have been very grateful for his calm and wise decisions this year.
You may remember that we voted to create a number of new posts last year and I am delighted that a number of these posts have been filled. I want to congratulate Kate Walker and Paula Sharp for taking on the positions as joint Heads of Women’s Chess. I want to thank Steve Szwajkun for taking up the position as Safeguarding officer and for writing our new safeguarding policy, which is now available on our website. I also congratulate Paul Billington for all his work introducing new players to Shropshire Chess and for taking on the role of Inclusion Officer. Paul has completed a qualification in understanding autism and he has started a quiet chess club here at Unison. We wish Paul all the best for his projects next season.
Moving on to individual tournaments, the County Individual was another exciting competition this year and I want to congratulate Nat for retaining the title and Chris for coming 2nd. I particularly enjoyed my games against them, even though I lost both of them.
We do still have a number of vacant roles. I am particularly keen to fill the role of Head of Amateur Chess, so please do let me know if you would like to take on this role or if you know someone else who might be interested in taking on the position.
Once again, I congratulate all players and officials and we look forward to further success and expansion in 2024/25.
Matthew Clark, SCA President