Hi guys! I am wondering if there would be any interest in starting a weekly Chess Club with a class to teach members who have never learned how to play? If there is some interest I wouldn’t mind Setting this up and bringing some boards in!
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Sounds good. Im in.
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Would you welcome kids into this class as well?
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I’d say to go for it. More classes are always good, especially ones that help do community building.
As a fellow teacher I’d probably charge a small fee to cut down on no shows, which are still unfortunately a large problem. I think you’d be able to request honorarium, but I’m not the SME on that (and you can’t double dip by charging the fee, pocketing the money, and getting honorarium).
We’re also starting up board game SIG, so if you’d like your classes to be rolled into our SIG, let me or @jackietran know.
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Oh yes kids would be a lot of fun to teach! Maybe a special class for kids!
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Charging a fee may or may not reduce no shows. For classes which always fill up, a fee will serve to discourage those who do not truly want the class.
For other classes, a fee discourages potential students who may find the subject interesting but not compelling enough to make a financial commitment up front.
Your choice. If you cannot ask for honorarium, it does not matter. Make it free unless you have a cost for materials.
Another organization which you may or may not have heard of is also battling the issue of no shows.
Meetups does not rely on advertising like many web sites. Their business model is charging event organizers an annual fee (I seem to recall it is $20) and they are told they may make up the cost by charging a fee for attendees. Historically, some events require payment; most are free.
They are having a problem getting and retaining event organizers who are getting frustrated when few show up for events they spent time and money to put together.
Meetups recently tried an alternative approach of charging event attendees $2 while organizers pay less or nothing. It was a flop.
The problem is the result of having a registration mechanism and limiting the number who can register. People who are serious about attending the event but discover the it later are blocked by the limit on numbers.
I still think the best solution to the problem is not to put a limit on the number of registrants but have a clear warning that once a limit is reached, all others will be turned away. For those who really want to attend, provide an option to pay for a guaranteed seat.
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I don’t believe there should be a fee for the chess class, but it would be beneficial if we could allocate a budget for more affordable competition roll-out chess board mats and plastic pieces. These sets are easy to store in canvas sling zipper bags. Perhaps, if we can attract a large number of participants to the chess classes and club, this could be something the club considers in the future. In the meantime, I’m willing to bring a couple of chess boards from my own collection.
Although I haven’t taught chess to a group before, I have experience teaching individuals. I believe that as I spend time at the club in between classes I attend, I can contribute to the social and educational aspects of the club by sharing my knowledge.
I’m also curious about which room I would be using for these classes, as I haven’t organized such events before. Any advice or guidance on this matter would be greatly appreciated!
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In terms of rooms,
North Lobby is good if you’re going to include non-members, because it’s close to the front door.
Purple Classroom is good when starting out, because it’s small and there’s less competition for that room.
Lecture Hall and Interactive are also options, but there’s more competition for them due to the projector screen and TVs respectively. Also I think Interactive is the most popular, because it has the best atmosphere
Fair enough. I’ve taught both free and paid classes here to mixed degrees of success. As a teacher, I’d probably keep a spreadsheet of the noshows and set your class to on approval only if attendance ever becomes a problem for you. I got this idea from @jphelps
For a budget, you’d have two routes to go through:
1). Tagging on chess on to an existing committee to share some of their budget. I believe you need to have monthly meetings and attend the committee meetings, but I don’t remember all of the details. If this option is more appealing, I’d imagine VECTOR or Creative Arts would be the committee to stick onto, maybe Science? We could also roll it into a wing of board game SIG so you wouldn’t need to go through the process, if that’s what you’d be interested in, since we’re already a part of CA. @AmeliaG @mreynolds
2). You can submit expense reports and/or go through the board. I’d imagine plastic pieces and chess mats wouldn’t be too difficult to procure, so you might be able to pick them up and submit an expense report directly and get reimbursed, but I’m not sure what the cutoffs are. @jsnowfreedman might know the details. A popular woodworking project is solid wood chessboards, so that could tie into it as well if you want to expand chess out to a more broad audience. Maybe 3D print some pieces? Lots of options here.
For teaching, I’d say it depends on if you want to teach adults or children. I’ve taught both and the approach is different but in general, patience helps a lot. Once you have the details ironed out, we can talk about specific strategies. In general, most members understand that you’re a volunteer, so people will understand that it’s not a professional environment. So long as you’re passionate and engaging people, that’s what really matters.
I’d agree with Jackie on room placement, though purple can fit only about half a dozen people in there, since it is often used as a work room. I’d just check on Calendar and schedule meetups around what people have on there to avoid conflicts. Generally, Mondays are the least busy, so you should have little competition for interactive or North Lobby.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
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We can also do things like host a chess server if there is interest.
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Wow you all are so helpful! Thank you for this! So much to think about!
I was definitely wanting to try to make a chess board and also was thinking about carving chess pieces and casting them…
I think the expense report is a great option.
In the mean time I will have to check my Coupert extension and browse around for the best price boards and grow the interest then we can tie in other classes to mix - so chess enthusiasts can become woodshop enthusiasts, and so on and so on.
The only thing I think that would be fair would be if only the members had access to the class if it remains free. I am going to do some browsing at the schedule and try to put the first class in-between two popular classes that way people can see what a thrill Chess is (if they happen to walk by) lol
It might be a little later in November because I am finishing up some personal projects but then will be in the Club a lot working on lapidary (cutting dinosaur bone) and have about 40 pieces to polish and breaking away for chess is usually what I do anyway to relax lol
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Explain further CTO lol
Some of us are just silversmiths lol help us understand the new world! 
Hosting a chess server was a random thought that may be quite dated. If you need IT to help in some way though please reach out.
Lately the only app I’ve used is Learn Cheas with Dr. Wolf🙂
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Thank you J! I still not know what it means though lol
I’ll add myself as an interested member… especially after watching a few of the “open” chess games in the common room… my brain hurts.
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There was a time when Purple was our most popular classroom. Not too big, not too small and situated so that many people can easily see what is inside when walking by.
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oooolalla sounds interesting- is this hard to do?
Great! My first disciple! 