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) were added to show decisions taken.
Brian Leonard, Aga Daly, Sridhar Raparthi and Yuri Gaspar. 20 attended, and others volunteered for offices beforehand.
27 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 coming season 2024/25 at the same cost. We gave out Skerries medals to members resident outside Skerries for the Community Games as decided at our last AGM. John Loughran applied for funding from Fingal Co. Co. Community Development Fund with the help of Cormac McDonagh. We decided to run the Fingal Open to obtain funding for it and a Chess for All Programme. This was 5 coaching sessions by Zalan Nemeth FM. We decided to pay half the cost of arbiter courses and training courses for members, provided those members attend the free coaching sessions. The grant from Fingal allowed us to purchase a data projector and screen, 20 new sets, 4 clocks, bags and to pay for the coaching and for part of the rental during the Open. The committee decided to grant free membership to certain groups within Skerries during the Open and to extend this until the end of the season. This raised our profile locally, within Fingal and in the wider Irish chess community. Any matters arising? No matters arose.
None
In our 12th season, our second season open after Covid our membership was 57, excluding free members and those who paid €40 or €50 to play in the Fingal Open, (6 and 11 respectively), including 2 joned for the Community Games and then left. Here is a breakdown, with last season's numbers in brackets.
All members 57 (59) + 7 free + 10 Fingal Open (incl. 2 women)
Adult members 20 (19)
Junior members 37 (40) (2 were associate members), 6 girls, 21 boys.
Average attendance high, about 25 members each club night with many parents present too, but sometimes close to 60. Many members participated in external tournaments and the leagues including juniors. See icu.ie for details.
See Play > Tournament for tournaments run, results and prizes.
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 fifth and were in contention for promotion until the last round in Div 3 Ennis.
Our second team (Captains Owen Johnston and Mark Allidine) were relegated from Div 4 O'Hanlon to Div 5N BEA North for next season. We had difficulties fielding a team especially for away games, despite the apparent availability of 3rd team players. John mistakenly played Rory 4 times as a sub so he had to stay on the first team after that.
Our third team (Captains Sameul Basker and Sridhar Raparthi) found it tough in Div 6N Bodley. Altogether 12 players got experience, many of them new to league chess. We fielded full teams generally.
Last season we entered two teams in the William Brennan Cup and our first team won the cup in an exciting finish in Bray/Greystones. All results on chessleague.net linked from Team page.
This season the committee decided not to ask players to contribute to fuel for drivers, but that the club would subsidise any driver who gave a lift to a player not from their own family. We estimated the total cost at around €300.
Following a survey conducted by John we have enough players for 2-3 teams next season, and 1-2 teams in the summer cups.
For the first time ever we entered three teams in the Community Games Dublin finals in March 2024 in Coláiste Éanna. All three teams, the U11s, U13s and U16s won the Dublin finals and qualifyied for the Leinster finals. In the first two rounds held in Skerries only our U11s progressed to the Leinster semi-finals in Longford where they lost. All results are on the Team > Junior page in the Players links after each event.
Five players (one team) entered the Mick Germaine Cup in Dublin in Jan 2024 and were managed by Helena Flynn. The team came 3rd, our best ever result (4th last year was great too). Well done to all.
All these results are on Player links on Team > Junior page.
Good attendance at the various club tournaments throughout the year. The new online entry/availability facility is being used well by players. Early entry is free, a week before each event, andavoids 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' risk being removed from the tournament. On nights where only friendlies take place there is no need to do this.
Our new web app is under continual development by John Loughran. Most 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 vetting status and payments made, along with other improvements.
Many adults and stronger juniors gave coaching, and many were coached, as noted on the Coaching record on your dashboard when you log in. Spot prizes were awarded to those coached and the coaches. Fingal paid for 5 coaching sessions from FM Zalan Nemeth, alongside the Fingal Open. Full details there and on icu.ie - FIngal Open. Attendance was good but sporadic.
The Outreach Schools Programme, sponsored by PwC for the second year, thanks to input from Brian Leonard, was a success. Like last year Milverton NS, Realt na Mara and St. Patrick's SNS participated. After lengthy delays Skerries Community College participated and when other schools declined we decided to allow St. Patrick's JNS to take up the unused lessons, with the help of Brian Leonard who taught there for free. John Loughran and Paul Ryan delivered most of the lessons. Extra lessons were given to those schools that did participlate to fulfil our remit.
The new web app has reduced the time needed to rate games and ratings are published weekly, usually the day after each club night, by John Loughran. See Rating for latest rating and progress. You can now see the past history of your SCC, ICU and FIDE ratings there via links. This includes the recent rating upward adjustment by the ICU and an explanation of this change.
We have already secured the Bridge Club for next season.
Handed out at the AGM, not in the web version of the yearbook.
Fees we increased for adults from €80 to €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 was to cope with increased rental costs. The committee decided to charge €30 for non members to enter the Skerries Community Games to help cover these costs during the 6 weeks that event ran. 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. Our net gain from the grant from Fingal and entry fees from the Fingal Open was €1300, though we paid out more in ICU memberships. We propose keeping the fees the same for next year. All fees are detailed in the Fees link on your dashboard.
The Team Handicap starts next week. The entry deadline before a late fee applies is just after the AGM ends.
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.
The AGM of the ICU happens in September. At the last AGM John Loughran volunteered to help Kieran Barry, the ratings officer to adjust ICU ratings. This happened on 15 May.
The Drogheda Congress runs from 1 - 3 June, FIDE and ICU rated. John, Rui and Nikolai have entered.
Any items for AOB proposed will be discussed here.
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. Newly elected/re-elected officers in bold
Prizes were already awarded for tournaments before Christmas and for the Fingal Open and Club Championships.
Mick Germaine Cup 2023 Board Prize =1st Yuri Gaspar 4/6
Mick Germaine Cup 2023 Board Prize =1st Neel Raparthi 4/6
2024 Dublin & Leinster Community Games U11 Board Prize 1st Tom Tyndall 4/5
2024 Dublin & Leinster Community Games U13 Board Prize 1st Oscar Mullins 4/4
2024 Dublin & Leinster Community Games U16 Board Prize 1st Tom Jackson 4/4
SCC Board Prize for Ennis Team 2023/24 1st John Loughran 6½/11
SCC Board Prize for O'Hanlon Team 2023/24 1st Lorcán McDonnell Ryan 5/7
SCC Board Prize for Bodley Team 2023/14 1st Chadwick Samuel 4/6
SCC Rating Prize 1st Adult John Loughran +106
SCC Rating Prize 1st Junior Áine Loughran +127
ICU Rating Prizes from SCC 1st Adult John Loughran +43
ICU Rating Prizes from SCC =1st Junior Adam Scanlon +702
ICU Rating Prizes from SCC =1st Junior Lorcán McDonnell Ryan +695
ICU Rating prizes were based on pre-adjustment ratings, on the March ICU rating list.