Warwick Chess Annual Report 2020-21

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Annual Report 2020 - 2021

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Year in Summary The University of Warwick Chess Society has had a challenging but successful year, weathering Covid across 2020-21.

Member engagement online proved successful, with Lichess arenas, and zoom socials featuring Among Us. We even managed to fit in a Leamington Bar crawl with many groups of six over Halloween!

Locally, we helped set up the Coventry & Leamington Online Chess League in collaboration with the two local leagues, where thirty teams competed in. Covid also meant that the University of Warwick and Coventry were declared joint CDCL Champions for the year 2020.

Internationally, we were Runners Up for the World 20/20 Chess (Rapidplay) Championships, competing against 130+ teams, and took the prize as the top European Team.

On widening participation, we moved from in-person ‘Chess in Schools’ to online-training for local chess juniors in the Warwickshire area. We were very delighted to raise money for charity - running a tournament with Warwick RAG. As ever, we would like to thank our longstanding sponsor Optiver, who has supported us since 2016, and helped us run an online Simultaneous Display with super Grandmaster Anish Giri.

A big thanks goes to every member of the current 2020-21 Executive Committee for their hard work, and best wishes to President(s) Chun Chiu, Ziad Fakhoury, and the incoming Committee 2021-22.

Benjamin Lee, and Taran Jina President(s) 2020-2021 University of Warwick Chess Society

Key Successes 2020-21 Despite Covid-19…

• 140 Members • Largest British University Chess Society • ECF Club of the Year 2019 • • • •

Local - Online League: 4 CLOCL Teams Local - OTB League: 5 CDCL Teams National – 4NCL: 2 Teams International – 2020 Chess: 1 Team

• • • •

CLOCL Division 1: 3rd Place CDCL Division 1: Champions National - 4NCL: Division One Finalists!

International - 2020 Chess: 2nd Place!

• Weekly online clubnights during lockdown • Simultaneous with GM Anish Giri, supported by our sponsor, Optiver • Warwick Chess in Schools: outreach programme for local league/clubs • Joint Charity event with Warwick RAG! • Shortlisted for “Making a Difference in the Community” Award by Warwick SU. Sponsored for 5 years by

Executive Committee 2020-21 President: Ben Lee & Taran Jina Treasurer: Daniel Muir Secretary: Daniel Koltai VP(Competitive.H1): Andy Dicu VP(Competitive.H2) Vincenz Bill VP(Internal Affairs): Simeon Bott Events & Socials: Maria Giselle, & Ravikumaran Vengadesh

Training & Development: Vikas Sajanani Outreach Officer: Callum Doherty Division 1 Captain: Jonathan Fowler Division 2 Captain: Anish Ram Division 3 Captain: Ziad Fakhoury Football Captain: Rishul Karia

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Executive Committee 2021-22 President: Chun Chiu, Ziad Fakhoury Treasurer: Maria Giselle VP (Competitive): Jonathan Fowler VP (Internal Affairs): Vikas Sajanani VP (Publicity) Callum Doherty Chairman: Taran Jina Events & Socials: Liam Rai & Elvire De Thomasson Online & Tournaments: Jack Nolan

Womens’ Chess: Vash Ravi, Meghana Mohan, Deema Khunda Outreach Officer: Ben McHugh Training & Development: Simeon Bott & Anuman Goel Division 1 Captain: Joe Varley Division 2 Captain: David Maxen Division 3 Captain: Tom Campbell Captain (Football): Andy Lin