Mochy writes:
We have held three tournaments inviting full-time students under the age of 26 and had about 16 entrants each time, mostly from Japan and Iran. We are sure there are hundreds of eligible players around the world, possiblythousands that we are not reaching. We need your help.We believe that one way to get more children involved in the game and the competition is to make it a “team” sport, with each country being represented by 3-player teams. And of course, countries like Japan and Iran can have more than one team.So we ask your help … to find and enlist students to represent your country and create teams. Then we will set up on-line competitions and award wonderful prizes to the students. We will also provide free lessons, videos, and learning materials to all children around the world. And we will give students a chance to play practice games with pros like Mochy, Phil and others, and get advice.
We ask you to develop a list of students … and we will sign them up, give them official nicknames to use in events (including a challenge ladder room they can play in any time), and as soon as we have enough teams, we will set up competitions between teams and countries.
We can hardly turn down this challenge – so we will be trying to coordinate at least one UK team and preferably more! If you’re interested, or you know anyone who is, put them in touch with us at contact@ukbgf.com and we’ll assemble teams. Even better, if there are three of you who would like to represent your local club as well, we can put you forward as a team! It would be great to be reporting on yet more international success in future…
How many schools, colleges and Universities have UKBGF approached so far with a view to starting up BG clubs? I noticed at the UK Open that the Masters was rather “top heavy” in comparison to the intermediate/Beginners which is a clear indication that we are not introducing enough new players to the game. It is great to see Mochy encouraging younger players to get involved and perhaps UKBGF should have a small dedicated team within the committee pushing these type of ideas forward, and physically visiting these institutions to spread the BG word!?
We have approached a number in the past but it’s a big job that needs feet on the ground. Cambridge has a successful club but tracking others down has been hard – I’ve certainly found students’ unions often take no interest when approached, or have no idea who to pass you on to, and clubs can die when the most enthusiastic finally graduate. With a new academic year approaching we’re hoping to push harder. We’re also looking at the idea of supporting existing junior players who are about to go away to uni, as people who can take the game with them.