Should You Start a Scholastic Chess Club?
The benefits of chess are evident and have led to an increasing amount of interest in scholastic chess across the country. Are you wondering if you should start a Scholastic Chess Club in your school? We can help you establish or continue your chess program.
The U.S. Chess Trust provides free U.S. Chess Federation memberships and chess playing equipment to support chess education programs across the nation. Restrictions apply.
There are two components to the Chess-For-Youth program:
- Provision of free chess equipment (limit of up to five free boards and sets) to help start your chess program.
- Provisions of free USCF memberships (limit of ten memberships per school) for needy students who are attending a Title I school and have never been a USCF member before (see definition of Title I under Free Membership Program Criteria).
Members receive a catalog filled with hundreds of the most up-to-date products, access to tournament information in print and on the website, as well as the right to play in rated OTB (over-the-board) and correspondence chess tournaments.
For more info about our program:
If you have questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to contact us atinfo@uschesstrust.org.
Reading Material: A Guide To Scholastic Chess (2009 10th Edition) PDF
Chess Press
says:A club can start with two players (enough to play a game of chess). However, a successful club should have enough members to organize a tournament or a casual competition. The most basic is a quad, which requires four players, they can all play in a round robin tournament (everyone plays everyone).
All the best,
WIM Beatriz Marinello
Astrid Flores
says:Hi: We have a Chess Club at our elementary school supervised by parents volunteers. We have 45 interested students and I would like to improve the environment to help students play in a better and more efficient way. What do you consider is a good number of members to have in an elementary school chess club?