The Youth Co-ordinator may post their report here.
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The Youth Co-ordinator may post their report here.
OCA Youth Coordinators report
2013/2014 has been another successful year for the Youth of Ontario.
Ontario youth continue to do very well in chess. We had very strong showings at the CYCC 2013 and the WYCC 2013 too.
The Ontario Youth Chess Championships (OYCC) – the official Youth championship of the Ontario Chess Association was once again a great success.
I had many comments again this year that the OYCC is the highlight of the chess year for many of the Ontario youth that attend year after year.
Our numbers were down a bit from the last two years, but this was most likely attributed to the change in schedule and running the OYCC over the Easter weekend.
As this is a youth event, it is more family oriented and for every one player there is often two parents and in many cases a sibling or two that accompany the player. This makes it a much more family oriented event and so a family oriented weekend like Easter is probably not the ideal time to hold this event.
However, there was also a change in format from a two day event to a three day event. This change was very well received!
This means that we will be looking for another long weekend to hold this event.
I would be interested in people’s response to holding the OYCC over the February “Family day” long weekend.
In any case, the OYCC was successful and will be sending many of Ontario’s youth chess players on to the CYCC in Montreal.
11 youth are receiving the full entry to the CYCC as a bursary (and in some cases more beyond that) and 26 more are receiving bursaries that are not quite the full $225 entry to the CYCC.
In all more than 85 players qualified to the CYCC through the OYCC.
I have also been continuing to be very active with youth chess, running the local KW Youth Chess Club and a large (388 players) regional chess tournament each year.
Of note also: at this year’s Kitchener Chess Festival, we are running the first ever North American Junior (U20) Chess Championship. A clear winner of the Open section will win a GM title, a clear winner of the Girls section will win a WGM title and runners up (2nd and 3rd) in each section will receive either a WIM or an IM norm.
I would like to stand again for re-election to the position of OCA Youth Coordinator for the coming year.
Thank you,
Patrick McDonald