There will be an ECF Arbiter course held via Zoom on five consecutive Monday evenings between 7-9pm, starting on the 7th June.
With Telford having at least one national event each year, FIDE international arbiter and ECF Director of Junior Chess and Education Alex Holowczak is encouraging Shropshire players who may be interested to join the course.
More on the context for Shropshire participation from Alex:
We are hoping for a significant turnout from the wider West Midlands area, given the portfolio of events in our neighbourhood when OTB chess resumes in 2021-22:
- – Two Birmingham Rapidplays per year
- – A brand new 4NCL Division 3 Central, with most weekends played in Warwickshire
- – Junior 4NCL, which normally has at least one weekend per year in the area
- – Other congresses and rapidplays (e.g. Warwickshire Championships)
- – Junior tournaments, including three UK Chess Challenge Megafinals, one UK Chess Challenge Gigafinal, and a significant porfolio of other junior tournaments
- – Other national events (e.g. British Universities’ Championship has been in Birmingham twice recently)
With longstanding local arbiter David Thomas keen to move into a mentoring role rather than an active role in tournaments, and Matthew Carr and I having increasing national and international commitments, there will be a void to fill in staffing these local events. To fill this void, it is essential that we have as big a pool of local arbiters as possible to make sure that these events can be organised in future.
Successful candidates will not be thrown in at the deep end; David, Matthew and I will be available to provide training, mentoring and support, to ensure that these tournaments continue to run as smoothly as they have in the past.
These tournaments normally come with reasonable expenses and daily fees, and there is no expectation that someone who passes the course will need to give up every single weekend of the year to help to run tournaments!
We hope to see you there!
The link to the course details and registration form is here: https://www.englishchess.org.uk/arbiter-course-in-june/