Winter Butterfly - 9b 10/3/02

Hello Friends

Things continue to get better. Recently the WCU published the first of what it hopes will be a regular newsletter aimed at the membership as a whole. It made very interesting reading and I must congratulate them on this major step in the right direction.. Such things don't appear out of thin air, somebody has to do the work. I'm sure that the overwhelming majority of you would like to join me in thanking Kevin and the others who were involved in its production.

In edition 8h I made several suggestions regarding the use of new technology, in particular that it could be used to hold distributed AGMs. I also suggested that they may be some council members that are not entirely happy with things like internet chess. Mark Adams has sent me the following very interesting email. Many thanks, Mark.

Dai,

just a couple of points regarding use of the technology for chess.

At the last board meeting, we discussed using the internet for chess events.
Far from anyone thinking that it was silly, we unanimously agreed that this
is an area we need to get involved in. There are a few technical issues to
overcome - e.g. which software/chess site to use and also how to control it
- can we play from homes which allows cheating or can we use a club (the
latter idea would either need several phone lines, one for each PC, or it
may be possible to share one PC for playing several games. This would be
like a telephone match)?

Regarding video conferencing the AGM. A good idea, but not really possible
at the moment. Companies who use this facility usually have broadband or T1
access (basically a very fast link). VC over a 56K modem link doesn't work
that well. However, with the announcement from BT to reduce broadband costs,
the moment may not be too far away.

One other thing. Regarding a lot of your perceptions of the WCU, I'm
beginning to suspect that publishing board minutes is a good idea. At least
this will inform members as to what the WCU are really doing. There seems to
be a lot of misconceptions flying around. A number of your comments
regarding what the board thinks/is doing are quite inaccurate. It would be
nice to kill this 'us and them' attitude and all work together.

regards

Mark

I have to declare a personal interest. About thirty years ago, when I used to attend WCU Council meetings I was aware that information concerning the meetings was not getting back to the ordinary members. This worried me, but I never got around to doing anything as there were always things that appeared more important at the time. So I have to put my hand up and admit that I am one of the people responsible for this unsatisfactory state of affairs. I therefore also have to admit that I have a vested interest in trying to improve the communications between the WCU and its members.

Mark is right when he talks about the 'Perceptions of the WCU'. Some of the rumours I've heard are clearly wrong. But when members don't know whats going on this sort of thing happens. I'm in a better position than most of the members to know whats going on, but what gets back to me is at best third hand and may or may not reflect what happened at meetings. For example, when this ezine was first suggested, did somebody really argue that it should be banned. If so, what were the reasons and why was the suggestion rejected. Frankly, I've no idea, and without access to the minutes there's no way of knowing. Its time to put this right and publish the minutes.

I've received the following from Peter Bevan:

Dear David,

I have received this e-mail about internet chess. Please pass it around with the newsletter. BTW I have downloaded the BCF internet chess software and played a few games as a guest (it's free until end of March). I will bring this up at the Management Board meeting on 17/3/02 and there may even be a proposal for the AGM.

Regards

Thanks Peter. The file he sent is included as an attachment to this mailing.

Schools Chess.

Thanks to Kevin Stately for the following received earlier today. I hope you can read it ok as I've tried to convert it to a text only file.

Dai,

I've attached a report of the schools finals held yesterday. Please circulate as you see fit. However, you mentioned you were going to start a schools section of Butterfly. When you do can you ensure that the report is included. Also when its up and running please ask me for an e-copy of the entry form for next years events so that it can be forwarded to all schools on your mailing list.

Thanks Kevin.

A TREMENDOUS DAY

The Welsh Secondary schools chess championships have been held (with one exception) every year for the past 22 years. The final was first held in the Bristol and West Building Society Offices in Cardiff (the sponsors of event in the early years) then travelled around various locations in Wales.

This year the finals day (consisting of the last eight teams in the Championship and the last eight in the Plate) was held for the third year running at Bishop Hedley School in Merthyr Tydfil. For the first time the Welsh Primary Schools finals were held alongside. This resulted in over 100 youngsters taking part in the event all representing their schools.

Schools travelled from every part of Wales for the day. In the Secondary Championship the defending champions Fitzalan High School of Cardiff had qualified with two teams. They were joined by Bassaleg (Newport) 2 teams; Bro Myrddin (Carmarthen); Cantonian (Cardiff); Holyhead and Nantyglo.

Bassaleg, Cantonian, Fitzalan, Holyhead and Nantyglo (2 teams) had also qualified for the Secondary Schools Plate competition. They were joined by Richard Gwyn School (Barry) and Monmouth Comp School.

The Primary Schools Championship was a four way fight between The Grange (Monmouth) Croes Atti (Clwyd)Sketty (Swansea) and Undy (Newport) while the Primary Schools Plate was between Undy (2 teams); Rhos (Swansea); St Josephs (Swansea) Kings Monkton (Cardiff) and Ysgol y Dderwen (Carmarthen)

Needless to say it was a delight to see a full hall. The competition was intense with many matches going to the last game. Indeed the whole Secondary Schools championship rested on the final game to finish between Lowri Johnston (Bro Myrddin School, Carmarthen) and Slava Burenkov (Fitzalan School Cardiff)

Eventually the game and the Championship was won by Fitzalan High School of Cardiff. Runners-up were Bro Mydrrin or Carmarthen and third were Bassaleg A. Members of the winning team were Slava Burenkov, Richard Conway, Jamal Maxey and Soraya Maxey.

The Secondary Schools Plate Championship was won by Richard Gwyn School of Barry. They were represented by Summer Cooke, Autumn Cooke, Raymond Cooke and Rhys Dumpleton. Runners up were Fitzalan with Cantonian third/

The Primary Championship was a run away win for the Grange of Monmouth represented by Jac Thomas, Ben Clayton, Matthew Kinloch and Oliver Clayton. The other three teams in the section tied for equal seond place.

The Primary Plate competition gave us nightmares. At the end of a five round all play all there was a tie between Kings Monkton School of Cardiff and Rhos of Swansea. The two schools were equal of match points and game points. A tie break was needed. The only option available was a further extra match between the two schools with 20 minutes each on the clock. This was won by Rhos Primary School of Swansea represented by James Silk, Stuart Hill, Luke Griffiths and James Phillips.

The trophies and medallions were presented by the Mayor of Merthyr Tydfil.

The competition relies totally on the goodwill of teachers and parents who are willing to give up their time freely to organise the matches and act as “taxi drivers”. We sincerely thank them for their continued support of this event.

Entry forms for next season’s event will be available shortly. If you know of a school interested please ask them to contact me. We hope to begin the event in September and hold the finals day in early April next year.

A report on the whole event will appear in the next issues of “Pawns” and the “Newsletter”.

Kevin Staveley.

This edition is getting a bit long, so I'll stop at this point. Please accept my apologies if you've sent me something which I haven't included, but all being well, it should go out in the next couple of days.

For Windows Users Only.

I suspect most of use have had to delete emails infected with the Klez.e virus this week. Its possible I may have deleted some genuine emails, and if so, I'm sorry. Many thanks to Steve James for the following technical information.

The virus turns off your virus protection software. This leaves you open to all the other viruses that are floating around the web. Even if you don't think you're infected it might be worth checking that your anti-virus software has not been turned off. The virus uses a weakness in Outlook to travel from machine to machine. There is a patch available for this at: