“Good morning and Happy New Year to all!” Good morning to the Guyana Chess Federation and friends of chess. The year 2016 has arrived and with it we wish to thwart the barricade of obstacles which surrounded the game and hindered its coherent acceleration during the past year. To the sprinkling of chess players with whom I chatted, who argued for the rooting out of inertia of all sorts and an end to fecklessness, who criticized a failure of imagination and a failure of good planning, I was impelled to empathize, partly with selected chess officials.
As far as I am aware, there are little or no financial perks in managing chess. The job is not a paying one. Officials do not receive cash from ‘gates.’ The job is purely symbolic, sentimental I would say, and stimulates a natural instinct to attract new followers, especially when one learns of the intellectual benefits chess offers. The job establishes a desire to promote the game; to better the lives of people, especially the young and eager of the world. Attracting new followers to the game of chess remains a highly noble tradition. Those who stand at the helm of chess have their other jobs from which they obtain their sustenance. We have a situation therefore, where chess officials work for free on a part-time basis.
Lack of money is a stubborn obstacle to the promotion of chess countrywide. But before we get to that aspect of perennial hindrance, recognition of the game is vital. We cannot promote chess if we fail to recognize its challenges, its attractiveness and its potential. And one of the ways of
