2013 Notes

From Nancy Keller, Executive Director, OHSCTA

Hello everyone!
Congratulations to Crescent Valley High School for winning the Overall 2013 Varsity Chess Team Championship. It was nice to have a clear first place winner and not deal with tiebreaker issues during my newly inducted reign as executive director. Lincoln High School managed to get a draw against Crescent Valley but also took a draw against Clackamas thus ending up in second place overall. Lake Oswego took their only loss against Crescent Valley and won third place. We had 18 schools participate in the Varsity section.
Congratulations to Wilson for winning the Overall 2013 Junior Varsity Chess Team Championships. They were undefeated. Clackamas won four rounds to win second place overall, followed by Cleveland with three and half wins.
In our first ever Junior High Championships, Access Academy was undefeated in the round robin event. Congratulations on being our first Junior High Champion.
Thank you LaSalle College Prep for hosting our 2013 Championships and especially Dennis Petersen who devoted so much time preparing and somehow survived the stress of putting on such a large event.
I am excited about next years Championships and appreciate Crescent Valley and South Umpqua volunteering to host the event. By October, we should have an official site decided on.
We have expanded our awards significantly due to the wonderful foresight of Kate Taylor back in 2007. I have enjoyed that we award Class awards which allows a lot more bragging rights for schools as they return to their hometown. Hopefully coaches wrote articles to their local newspapers of their success and we continue to promote chess. It has always been my opinion that anyone who plays competitive chess is a winner in my book and I enjoy awarding so many players and teams.
I am sorry for this late “note” but this all started with one innocent question I asked during the Board meeting: “What are the duties of the executive director?” A new executive director was needed and I worried if I had enough time to devote to such a wonderful organization. Well I did not say no fast enough and suddenly I was the executive director. I knew what large shoes I had to fill after the wonderful job that Mike Wolfe and Kate Taylor put in during the last decade. All I can tell you is that I will do my best.
The next day, I was handing out awards for the awards ceremony. I recognized that we were going slowly as teams had to filter out of the bleachers. So a spur of the moment decision was to put teams in the “wings”. We did get done in an hour but do plan to get suggestions from our OHSCTA yahoo group site of how to improve for next year.
I have been backlogged and devoting a lot of time right now trying to fix trophies for the 2013 championships. There was an error made, and trophies were given to the 3 incorrect people. There were extra trophies that were needed so I had them made and but then the trophy shop shipped them to the wrong people. So I am trying to figure out who has what trophy and how to get them sent to the correct person. Oak Hills, a 1A school was neglected in the awards so those trophies also had to be added. I have trophies that need to be shipped to those who left early and I have not found time to get to the post office. Hopefully I will get everyone their correct trophies by the end of the year.
After I get the trophy situation worked out, then I would like to start working on some issues that I saw in the smattering of e-mails before and after.
1. Tiebreakers (always an issue)
2. Efficient and quick award ceremony suggestions
3. What is an Open team (does it include out of state teams?)
4. Discuss any changes in the awards
5. Meal plans at the event
6. Number of rounds
So keep an eye on your e-mail (or join the OHSCTA group site if you have not already) so we can start these discussions! We can start some official voting around October.
Also, continue your hard work at promoting chess. Keep having fun with chess leagues and badger nearby schools to develop teams. This is a great sport to promote as it does not cause lagging pains and disability from injuries when you hit 40, helps develop mental skills so kids do better in school and can be played for a lifetime!
–Nancy Keller