Organisers of the recently held Northland secondary school teams chess championships are planning to capitalise on the success of that event to strengthen the profile of the age-old strategic board game.
A strong resurgence of interest in competition chess at local secondary school has been led by Northland College principal Jim Luders and colleague Harko Brown. The latter, perhaps more well known for his kaupapa in promoting traditional Maori sports games, said chess had become really popular with students at the Kaikohe institution.
"Forty to 50 fight it out for a board every lunchtime. If they can't get a board, they play 3v3." Brown went on to complement his principal for his support before and during the aforementioned championships which were hosted at Northland College.
"It is unusual, but gratifying, to have a principal of a school attend a chess tourney as well as lead the hosts' mihi whakatau for their visitors," said Brown.
Challenges remain, however, in getting other schools on the bandwagon with interest yet to become widespread, Brown noted, adding there was a rather poor turnout for the aforementioned championships. Very disappointing in fact considering the lengths he and others had gone to to promote the tournament to every eligible school in the district by sending email notification and promoting the event through the Education Gazette. Eventually only five schools entered, while several others who had registered withdrew at the last minute. Brown was determined to keep up the good fight by noting solid strategies have been put in place to combat the lack of response.
