Archive - Yearbooks and AGM minutes from previous seasons.
The yearbook provides a summary of the club`s activities throughout the season as well as reports from committee members. Later, minutes taken at the AGM (in bold) are added to show decisions taken.
Rui Caneira, Sónia Costa, Kieran Howley
20 attended, including 15 players (49 last year), a poor turnout, including only one captain, John.
49 attended our last AGM. Many new officers volunteered for and were elected to the committee and more were co-opted to replace those who left during the season. We secured the Bridge Club for a venue for the current season at the same cost.
At the start of the season we implemented the policy of only accepting junior members whose parents could do occasional supervision, which worked well. See details in last year's yearbook of our new admissions policy guidelines for juniors.
Parents who want their child to try out the club should ring the chairperson, sign up and complete the Join > Apply/Try form on our site before their visit, and stay with their child on their first visit, when a committee member will explain about supervision etc. Parents must join the rota or agree another role. Kids brought by other parents will not be admitted.
Any matters arising?
Any items for AOB?
None
In our 14th season, our 4th season open after Covid our membership is currently 48, excluding free members and those who played in the Fingal Open, Here is a breakdown, with last season's numbers in brackets.
All members 48 (incl. 3 women/girls) (69) + 11 Fingal Open (8)
Adult members 24 (28) incl. 1 (2) woman
Junior members 24 (41) (not incl. associate members), 2 (6) girls, 22 (35) boys + 5 Comm. Games (3).
People commented that we need to attract more members, particularly adults and females. Mark Allidine offered to promote this via Facebook.
Average attendance was lower, 23 players/night (38). This was more manageable and supervision was good. Many members participated in the leagues including juniors, and a few in external tournaments. See icu.ie for details.
See Team > League. Choose Fixtures, results link for results for each team. On that site choose League Table to see final standings for all teams. Choose Teams and Panels and Player Panels for scores by individual team members.
Our first team (Captain John Loughran) came 3rd last, avoiding relegation from Div 3, the Ennis Shield, by 5.5 points, thanks to our stronger players playing more games and some good subs. Losing some 1st team and second team players again at the start of the season had an effect, and our first team used too many subs really.
Ennis League Table.
Our second team (Captains Rajiv Gicale and David Craig) finished 3rd last, also avoiding relegation from Div 5N BEA North. Our difficulties fielding a team continued from last season when we were relegated to the BEA, especially for away games, despite the apparent availability of 3rd and 4th team players. We conceded 1 walkover which was better than 4 last season. Players need to keep their Availability up to date. The two teams below us were relegated due to defaulting too many games or entire matches.
BEA League Table.
Our third team (Captains Thiru Narsimman and Sridhar Raparthi) never really took off due to a small panel and players being unavailable. As a result we defaulted 5 boards by round 4 and so our remaining matches were considered null and void. We finished 2nd last in the Div 6N Bodley Cup. Some third team players subbed up and scored points. Hopefully some members who joined late this season will make a third team viable next season.
Bodley League Table.
Skerries entered a full team in the second Queen Maeve Cup, which ran alongside the National Club Championships in Dublin in April 2026. We finished 4th out of 18 teams, a big improvement on 7th out of 10 last year.
chess-results QMCup.
Last season we entered one team in the Killane Shield and two teams in the William Brennan Cup. Our Killane team came 3rd out of 4 teams by 1 point, and failed to qualify from the group. Our two Willie Brennan teams did not qualify from their groups either, both coming third. All results are on chessleague.net linked from the Team > Leagues page.
Killane Group Phase
Brennan Group Phase - Group D - Skerries A team
Brennan Group Phase - Group A - Skerries B team
Please fill out the Team > Survey so we know if we will have enough players for 3-4 league teams next season, and 2-3 teams in the summer cups.
It is essential that players keep their Availability up to date, for their team and higher teams who might ask them to sub. Otherwise the captain's job is very difficult and walkovers or even relegation could result.
The Mick Germaine Cup is in Artane next Sunday. See below in Notices.
We entered 1 U16s team in the Community Games Dublin finals in March 2026 in Coláiste Éanna. Unfortunately the school had not been booked and when the fixture was rearranged our team were not all available. Thanks to Frank Sullivan for his efforts this year and in past years along with Eva Andersson.
John Loughran writes: At the 2024 AGM John was elected as vetting officer. When he contacted the Garda Vetting Bureau they informed him that, as our coaching of children was incidental to our coaching of adults and other club activities, we do not qualify as a relevant organization where vetting is required. More details are on our Policies page. Since then he has updated the Child Protection Policy and Safety Statement, which are linked from that page.
John Monaghan writes: We have 24 members U18, of which 16 are U14 and 3 are U10. Our supervisors have done a fantastic job this year, promoting a safe environment where kids can learn about and progress their skills in chess. The children contribute strongly to the atmosphere of the club and are a continual reminder of the joy that can comes from competition and how mindset affects that. Several of our stronger chess players joined as children and it is exciting to see how our young players progress.
DDLETB grant application and vetting of supervisors. The committee are in the process of applying for a small grant from the Dublin and Dun Laoghaire Education and Training Board (DDLETB). The grant is for the provision of youth services. The grant amounts to 800 euro in the first year with the possibility of up to 3000 euro in subsequent years and will be used to offset costs of the club (rent, insurance etc.). In this way it will have the indirect effect of keeping membership fees low.
A requirement of the grant is for supervisors to be vetted by the Gardai. Currently the club are not required to vet supervisors per advice from the Gardai in 2024. Details of this advice, including a letter from the Gardaí, are on the club website at skerrieschess.com/members/policies. We will now reapply to the Gardaí describing the requirements of the grant and hopefully re-initiate vetting for supervisors (i.e., parents of child members) for our youth section.
Members and parents were in broad agreement with this approach.
Niamh Leonard writes: The supervision rota is done in advance by Susanne. Niamh sends reminders sent weekly in the main WhatsApp group but this always needs following up individually. It seems a lot of people are not checking the group. Each week at least one if not both people say they are not available. The same few people are stepping in regularly - myself and Susanne or another parent who is there with her son anyway.
Ideas to improve this: Could we move forward with one supervisor allocated? It would be much easier to organise. Perhaps after a person has learned the ropes once or twice they could then supervise alone. We feel this is worth discussing.
There was a lot of discussion and constructive ideas including using Announcements in the main group, which the ongoing supervision team promised to consider. We discussed compliance, meeting all parents in September to discuss supervision requirements, the possible use of a poll so that supervisors can opt in and a trial of one supervisor per club night, provided they are trained in.
Dave Jackson writes: In September 2025 we decided to order club gear, partly to bring an aura of professionalism to our teams. Patrick Furlong, a local supplier of hoodies, polo shirts, sweatshirts, T shirts, and baseball hats was sourced. A hands-on was arranged for one club evening and most attendees agreed that we should proceed with re-introducing Club Gear. A process for ordering was created. The 1st order from 7 members was placed in late October and delivered in November. A 2nd order for hats was placed in December. Since then, there was no activity. We can place more orders if there is any interest.
Quality of gear is good. We will gauge interest again in September and place another order then.
Rui Caneira was TC for part of the season until changed working hours made this impractical, when John took over full time. Our club ran successful tournaments throughout the year in both Swiss and round-robin formats. The icu.ie - FIngal Open was a great success in its third year with 11 external entries. For complete results, prizes and upcoming tournament information, see the Play > Tournament page.
Generally the online entry/availability facility is being used well by players. Early entry is free, a week before each event, and avoids a late entry fee of €10. Any player who is unavailable for a particular round, should update their Availability using this link on the Play page. Those who are 'no shows' will be removed from the tournament, and should pay a 10 euro entry fee before entering their next event. On nights where only friendlies take place there is no need to do this.
Players and parents are expected to read the weekly email newsletter which gives notice of upcoming events, and parents are required to read the main WhatsApp group (Skerries Chess Club) where important notices, reminders about supervision and requests for swaps are posted, while the Skerries Chess Chat group is optional.
This approach was approved by all present.
Our new web app is under continual development by John Loughran. Problems leading to a recent temporary loss of service and functionality have been fixed by our hosting company. Members are able to enter tournaments, view their ratings, pairings, news items and other things. Certain pages are private to members and their parents only, including contact details of other members. Parents can join and view the supervision rota. Parents can now take attendance and record results of games on the app, which has facilitated rating of games. Team players can view board order and results for each match and see links to the League website also. The magnifier allows searching for any page using keywords. Coaching is now under Learn, which includes links to the Outreach Schools Programme. As planned we now record payments made, along with other improvements.
There was interest in the search button (magnifier in the menu) to help use the web app.
This year we arranged coaching from Antonina Gora (1 session in the Autumn). Then in the Spring, in conjunction with the Fingal Open, we had two sessions from John Loughran on endings, one from Mark Allidine on Imbalances and one from Alice O'Gorman, current Irish Women's champion, on Taking Advantage of Passive Play. These were well attended. Full details are on our Learn page. Attendance was excellent thanks to free entry for members, as decided at last year's AGM or €10 for visitors. We propose not charging for the coaching lectures again this coming season.
There was less informal coaching this year by senior players on ordinary club nights than previously. A coaching officer could help here to organise stronger players to coach. We have a Coaching record on our dashboards when we log in. This can be used to award spot prizes to those coached and the coaches.
The Outreach Schools Programme, sponsored by PwC for the 4th year, thanks to input from Brian Leonard, was a success. This year Milverton NS, Realt na Mara NS, St. Patricks Senior NS and, for the first time, Educate Together NS participated. John Loughran and Paul Ryan delivered the lessons, and the programme was a great success in participating schools. Unfortunately there will be an interruption to the programme next year.
Ratings are published weekly, usually the day after each club night, by John Loughran. See Rating for latest ratings and progress. You can now see the past history of your SCC, ICU and FIDE ratings there via links. SCC ratings were adjusted upwards at the start of the 2024/25 season in an attempt to broadly match the upgraded ICU and FIDE ratings.
We have already secured the Bridge Club for next season, and paid a deposit.
Handed out at the AGM, not in the web version of the yearbook.
We propose maintaining fees at €130 with the usual €10 off for juniors and €10 off for second family members, and an extra €10 off for joining by the second Tuesday in September. This is to cope with rental costs. We will charge a €5 fee to non-members for the Skerries Community Games and again for the Dublin Finals and subsequent stages. For this fee we are essentially subsidising the cost of these events. As usual €10 extra is paid by those playing in the Leagues, towards their ICU membership fees which the club pays. We propose keeping the late entry fee at €10, to encourage timely entry which greatly lessens the workload of the tournament controllers. Players who are 'no shows' for a round of a tournament will have to pay a €10 fee before they enter their next event, again to encourage consideration for others. We propose keeping the fees the same for next year. All fees are detailed in the Fees link on your dashboard.
This approach was approved, no plan currently to increase fees, depending on the grant, or to charge members for coaching lectures.
The Summer tournaments run from next Tuesday 26 May to the end of June when we close. The entry deadline before a late fee applies is tonight.
Otter Space is a new games room opened this year over C & T's in Shenick by our member Lorenzo Pedrone.
Please answer the two questions on the Team > Survey, now, if you or your child has not done so yet.
The AGM of the LCU usually takes place in July. We may have motions to propose. We are allowed two delegates who can vote. In recent years we have had great success in the motions we proposed being passed.
The AGM of the ICU happens in September and all ICU members are welcome to attend.
The Mick Germaine Cup is a junior team event open to teams of 4 from clubs and schools. It runs from 10:30 until 4 on Sun 24 May with short games (15 mins each) ideal for juniors and it is great fun. We can send as many players as are interested though parents will need to arrange lifts between themselves. To enter Availability go to the Team > Junior page. One of our teams came 3rd/4th last year out of 20 teams and two extra players played on another team and enjoyed it. Players must be under 16 and unrated or U1550. See https://www.icu.ie/events/2135for more details. Please enter availability soon on our Team > Junior page.
Praveen is happy to organise this team.
The Drogheda Congress runs from 30 May – 1 June, FIDE and ICU rated. In recent years up to six club members played.
All are welcome to put themselves forward for posts. The outgoing committee are shown here. Thanks to all on the committee and to parent supervisors. Please volunteer for any post you think you could help with, as many posts could do with help.
Prizes were already awarded for tournaments before Christmas and for the Fingal Open and Club Championships. See under each event on the Play > Tournament page.
The U18 Girls Cup was awarded to Aarathya Muthu Thirupathi. A new U18 Boys Cup was won by Adam Gicale.
Two sections: Open, U1400
Skerries Rapid Club Ch 2026 1st John Loughran 6
Skerries Rapid Club Ch 2026 2nd Adam Scanlon 4
Skerries Rapid Club Ch 2026 3rd Paul Ryan 2½
Skerries Rapid Club Ch 2026 U1550 1st Kieran Howley 1½
Skerries Rapid Club Ch 2026 U1400 1st Peadar Sherlock 5
Skerries Rapid Club Ch 2026 U1400 2nd Finn Delaney 4½
Skerries Rapid Club Ch 2026 U1400 3rd Hariharan Praveen 4
Skerries Rapid Club Ch 2026 U1200 1st Paddy Urbanski 3
Skerries Rapid Club Ch 2026 U1200 2nd Willow Monaghan 2
One section: Open
Skerries Blitz Club Ch 2026 1st Grzegorz Pawlowski 5½/6
Skerries Blitz Club Ch 2026 2nd Mark Allidine 5/6
Skerries Blitz Club Ch 2026 3rd Owen Johnston 4/6
Skerries Blitz Club Ch 2026 U1600 1st Adam Scanlon 4/6
Skerries Blitz Club Ch 2026 U1500 1st Kieran Howley 4/6
Skerries Blitz Club Ch 2026 U1400 1st Hariharan Praveen 4/6
Skerries Blitz Club Ch 2026 U1200 1st Joshua Monaghan 2½
Skerries Blitz Club Ch 2026 U1000 1st Alan Florczak 3
SCC Board Prize for 1st Team in Ennis 2025/26 1st John Loughran 5½/11
SCC Board Prize for 2nd Team in BEA 2025/26 1st Adam Gicale 4/8
SCC Board Prize for 3A Team in Bodley 2025/26 1st Aarathya Muthu Thirupathi 3½/5
SCC Rating Prize 2025/26 1st Adult Rajiv Gicale +59
SCC Rating Prize 2025/26 1st Junior Kyle Aoki +125
ICU Rating Prize from SCC 2025/26 1st Adult Mark Allidine +76
ICU Rating Prize from SCC 2025/26 1st Junior Adam Gicale +82