ColCHESSter is promoting chess in Colchester for everyone, from the chess-curious to the dedicated chess-hobbyists, on the street and in cafes, pubs and other venues.
To do this, there is plenty of talking to people and doing stuff so this website, along with social media is a way of establishing a presence, providing information and encouraging communication between those with a similar interest in chess.
When ColCHESSter started, everything accelerated because of the New Town Community Day, 17 September 2022. Two weeks before the event a stall was approved by the organisers and everything for it had to be prepared. Moreover, this website and everything else had to be researched, acquired and set up.
Because of the time constraint, the website started off as just one page of information and a contact form (to make it easy to email ColCHESSter). At the Community day, ColCHESSter helped lots of people play chess in the sunshine and displayed and talked about written material that was destined for this website.
Because there are many different aspects to promoting chess in Colchester, designing a structure for this website has required considerable thought and while much of the story telling of ColCHESSter’s journey is happening on social media, the website also has to provide information to support that.
So, rather than create a spider’s web of menus, the website now has three main sections
- Places to play chess in Colchester – which lists chess friendly venues, clubs and meetups
- Colchester chess calendar – which shows planned chess events including changes to regular club events over holiday times. If you use Google Calendar, you can add this calendar to your own
- Everything else (this section)
In ‘Everything else’, which is updated like a blog, you will find:
- ColCHESSter’s journey
- 2022 was a start
- 2023 so far (or half a year on)
- 2024 no finish line – this turned into an article written for the English Chess Federation magazine ‘Chess Moves’
- The Mayor’s Day of Chess 2026 – underpinning this report on the event were several months of organising and marketing
- ColCHESSter on social media (in addition to Facebook)
- ColCHESSter on Instagram
- ColCHESSter Twitter archive (because it changed name)
- Information for chess players:
- Jonathan Penrose Chess Park – this page mirrors (with greater functionality) one hosted by the Mercury Theatre. It provides an insight into the chess career of Jonathan Penrose and explains how the chess park was created
- Playing chess ‘over the board’ – a guide for players coming from online chess
- Chess equipment – the chess equipment used by ColCHESSter and where to find it
- London social chess – weekly calendar for places to play social chess clubs/meetups in London