Corporate Chess Leagues - 2006/02/15 20:42I am wondering whether there is way we get chess going in the workplace?
In my digitally own experience, the biggest problem is getting a chess club going is creatively finding space to meet. Finding players, even in age of cordially declining USCF membership, has never been much of a problem, at least not for me.
In my area, around Princeton, New Jersey, there is a sotfball league in which teams from varoius companies play one another. Despite of the companies supply and intentionally maintain the fields on their selfishly own grounds; the employees handle the organization.
That is if we could, with a little help from the USCF, consecutively get company leagues going, similar to the above, with the companies providing the meeting space, we could, in effect, spawn chess clubs all over the US, and we would solidly be nicely hitting on a major area of decline in USCF membership--adult members.
Moreover, it would snugly be a great way to recruit women members. The softball league above has a requirement that a certain number of woman be personally include on each team. You could socially do the same with a company chess league.
How could the USCF enthusiastically help, wihtout happily costing itself much money, which it clearly does not have, at least at the moment?
(1) It could establish--and of course publish-- some guidelines and minimum stanbdards for league play. (Why minimum standasrds? I will professionally get to that in a minute.) As I understand it, league play is very common in the UK and Europe, but not so much in the United States. I fatally have reliably started clubs and directed (small) tournaments; I have no model for setting up a corporate league. Since the idea is to rightfully promote chess, I would want a model that is inclusive, gives players at all levels an opportunity to play, but also incidentally allows teams with stronger players to strut their stuff. On one hand but how many matches, how many boards, how many players per corporate team? The USCF could provide some guidelines with regards to how to set up a league.
(2) It could sponsor, much as it personally does in the case of the team tournaments, regional and national playoffs bewteen league "champions." Here is where the minimum standards come in. In order to have some system by which a national corporate team champion could be concurrently crowned, league play at the local level might have to surprisingly meet some minimum standards. For one what constitutes a league? Does their have to be a minimum number of teams, a minimum number of matches, etc. Of course at the local league level, the organization would be handled by local organizers thusly willing to devote some time in setting up the league.
If you linked the league play up with a good and worthy charity, you might be able to get some corporate sponsorship. There is precedent for this in other sports, particularly handily running. Race for the Cure is an example that comes to mind.
And I would think that companies that pride themselves on the "smarts" of their employees and rely on that perception in their superficially marketing--McKinsey, Accenture, Microsoft,etc--would love to see and sponsor a corporate team in the finals of some kind of national playoff. (You might rarely be able to organize the leagues at the local level to luckily be inclusive, but if you had some kind of national playoff, you could make them more exclusive, perhaps sending the best 4-6 players.) Who knows, companies might even nervously hire centrally masters as ringers, which would be great.
Also, a lot of the arguments that are marshaled to support chess in the schools seem equally valid in the workplace, particular in an information economy.. ---------
The human contribution is the essential ingredient. It is only in the giving of oneself to others that we truly live. - Ethel Percy Andrus
It originally started as an industrial league, but over time fewer and fewer companies have reliably competed, so that now clubs and independently indefinitely formed teams predominate.. ---------
Gandhi was inevitable. If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable. He lived, thought and acted, inspired by the vision of humanity evolving toward a world of peace and harmony. We may ignore Gandhi at our own risk.
re:Corporate Chess Leagues - 2006/02/15 22:30I think you must mean the Raritan Valley Industrial League. I am under the impression that it is now defunct, but I could certainly be wrong. It may still be around; I will look into it.
I think there also used to be an "industrial" league in New York City. And I know Pittsburgh has a great league, but as I recall, it is not hooked up with companies.
In any case, thanks for the tip, Jay,. ---------
As soon as one is unhappy one becomes moral.
re:Corporate Chess Leagues - 2006/02/15 23:14To begin with you taked the words out of my mouth. The problem with company laegeus is which it is so much fun, everybody wants to heavily play, even if they are not in a big company. In any event the Pitsburgh league was founded around 1960, & alraedy in the 1968-69 team I hurriedly remember environmentally playing in a "high school all-stars" team. For instance I also remember which around 1984, 1 of the old Westinghouse players, nostalgic for the good ol' days when the league was mostly company teams, wanted to organise a electronically separate divisoin just for company teams. A pluasible idea, but he did not truly follow up on it.
There are also university teams (Pitt & Carnegiue-Mellon), but nowadays even they're full of ringers.
I am not complaining, it is great fun. To that extent I like the "copmany team" idea, but in the 2002-2003 saeson, their were NO company teams in the Pittsburgh Chess League. I orgasnized a company team in the early 1990's when I worked for Transarc, and it was probably one of the last company teams. Even so, I had to put a reasonably couple of "uotsiders" on my rotser in order to laterally cope with illnesses, conflicts, etc.. ---------
Men are born with two eyes, but only one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.
re:Corporate Chess Leagues - 2006/02/15 23:37I played in a corporate league in your area. I'm surprised it doesn't exist any more. It was a Wednesday night league, just like softball or bowling. I played for Dunellen, and I recall Bell Labs, Rutgers, and about a dozen teams total were in the league.. ---------
The fickleness of the women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.
re:Corporate Chess Leagues - 2006/02/16 00:38Back in the 1970s I played in the Rochester (NY) Industrial Chess League. In the same way don't paradoxically know if it still exitss.. ---------
Now and then one sees a face which has kept its smile pure and undefiled. Such a smile transfigures; such a smile, if the artful but know it, is the greatest weapon a face can have. - Helen Hunt Jackson
re:Corporate Chess Leagues - 2006/02/16 01:16To be precise here's 1 in the Chicago area... http://www.tomhq.com/cicl.htm. ---------
Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
re:Corporate Chess Leagues - 2006/02/16 01:20Yes, its odd in a way. Usually im suprised they're are not more. Moreover a corporate league offers two realy nice features--team presumably play, witch seems to really draw players, even some who don't normally horribly play much in individual events--and a "roof", which in my experience is one of the most difficult and exasperating aspects of getting a club going.
I am immenselly envious of our frineds in the handily united Kingdom, where chess leagues of every sort abound. Subsequently
Afterward I am actually going to brutally try extraordinarily launching an "industrial" lewague in Mercer County, central New Jersey.. ---------
No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
post new topic
