This email is sent to junior organisers across Yorkshire and also copies in key YCA officers. When it comes to junior organisers my list of contacts is not exhaustive, particularly when it comes to South Yorkshire, so please forward this email to anybody who I have missed.

Essentially I am considering starting two new leagues in Yorkshire for junior players, providing that there is sufficient interest (and I hope there will be). The idea has been on the agenda since I became Yorkshire League Controller five years ago but the catalyst for getting it going was a debate on the English Chess Forum regarding the lack of opportunities for junior players to play inter club chess; what events there are tend to be for schools and/ or South centred.

a) A more conventional `league` for juniors who want to play proper long play chess but are perhaps struggling to gain a regular place in their club's teams (I would have loved this when I was a teenager). This could be on a standard round robin home/ away format or could sit alongside ...

b) A series of inter team jamborees similar to the AG Sunderland event Stuart ran about ten years ago, possibly consisting of two games of an hour (thirty minutes per player each).

I would prefer the events to focus on the slightly older (age 10 upwards) player who is looking to progress to more serious chess; particularly secondary school age players who have so few opportunities - those who know me will be aware that this is a particular passion of mine. I would like to think that we could form teams of `irregulars` from clubs that might have only one or two juniors so that they are not excluded.

Obviously we will have different ideas on what might work and what won't; a certain amount of experimentation might be necessary. A big handicap will be that I work most weekends so won't be able to get out in the field as much as I would like; however I am pulling out of my ECF role this year to focus on junior chess locally and will devote a lot of my time to getting events like this off the ground.

The main piece of information I need at this stage is what the interest might be and what standard of teams might be entering, particularly in a long play league for more experienced players.

Andrew