About the squad

The Oxfordshire Junior Squad Chess Club ("Ojays") is a non-profit-making organisation that holds weekly meetings, alternating between Thursday, at Cumnor Primary School and Tuesday at William Fletcher School, Yarnton.

These are by invitation only but do get in touch via the contact page if you would like to know more.

All times 6.15pm-8pm

Ojays also holds special events from time-to-time such as internal tournaments and simultaneous exhibitions.

The key objectives of the squad are as follows:

• To give county standard players a regular chance to play weekly chess at a suitable level and learn from coaching sessions. In particular we feel there is a need to provide this for players who cannot get this at their school or an adult club.
• To encourage junior chess in Oxfordshire to develop beyond the age of 11 and parents could view the squad as a stepping stone for their child to develop further before joining an established local chess club. We will also actively encourage and support interest to start new school clubs in primary and secondary schools.

The following players have been invited to join the weekly squad meetings:
- All players under the age of 11 who have represented Oxfordshire at U11 and U9 level between 2013 and 2015.
- Older junior players who play or have played for one of the Oxfordshire county chess teams and we believe will have a positive influence on the younger players.
- Other players who have shown potential to play at county level, especially if they are not able to get suitable regular chess or coaching elsewhere.
Please note we will have a limit of 50 players for weekly attendance and if this is being exceeded we may need to consider measures to control this.

Management and Supervision

It is required that all attending children will have a parent or authorised adult present throughout the evening. We are not expecting to deal with any disciplinary issues and if we believe any child or parent is being disruptive to the club, we reserve the right to withdraw the invitation at any stage. However, we do not expect every parent to be present and we presume that car sharing will mean we will have approximately 1 parent present for every 3 or 4 children. Conversely, this may be a good opportunity for parents to get advice and ideas for their children’s chess development.

Subscription

There are two types of annual subscription fee, £60 to attend only Tuesdays or only Thursdays, or £90 to attend every week. In both cases it should be paid at the start of the school year. The fees are used to pay for professional coaching, to provide equipment and resources and to reimburse the schools for some of their costs involved in hosting the club. Apart from much of the coaching and occasional special guests, the meetings will be run without payment by volunteers (the organisers) who all have children in the squad.

Where a temporary membership fee for one-off special events (such as tournaments and guest appearances) is offered for those not signed up for the year, the membership criteria for invitation still apply.

Contact

You can contact the squad leaders from our contact page.