Getting Your Club Started

 Most of the information contained here comes directly from the U.S. Chess Federation’s excellent A Guide to Scholastic Chess which is available free of charge from the USCF (3054 US Route 9W, New Windsor, NY 12553, 914-562-8350, www.uschess.org) .  The USCF also has a portion of their web site, at www.uschess.org/beginners, devoted to scholastic chess.  

The intent is to get your club off to a running start.  Naturally, you should follow whatever guidelines are in place at your school for forming clubs.

Rest assured that you do not have to be an expert chess player to start a club.  You don’t even have to know how the pieces move!  There will almost certainly be at least one student who knows the rules, and several others wanting to learn.  Just by setting up the meeting time and location, and providing some supervision,  you will have already gotten the club off to a good beginning.   The links at left will offer advice on the various aspects related to running a scholastic clubs.