organizing Chess tournaments

Good Day All,

I live in southwest Florida and I teach Chess to elementary school children. At their school we have a Chess Club that meets on Fridays. The kids are interested in competing against kids from other schools. A couple of years ago, there were a couple of local schools that had Chess Clubs, but this year, we've tried to contact them and they haven't responded. One of the parents from one of the other schools organized the tournaments that they had but her kids have moved on to middle school so she's no longer involved in setting up elementary school aged tournaments. Our Club is planning an intramural tournament that will happen in two weeks. The question that I have is: Does anyone on this site have any suggestions about how to set up a local tournament for elementary school aged kids that would be of an open format? Should we advertise and have trophies or prizes? Would it be a Good idea to involve charter schools?

Any input or replies will be Greatly appreciated!

Thank You!

user ID: socrates8_2000

i just post how to conduct a chess tournament it might answer your question

 My local club does a tournament where they invite other kids, and it gets good participation.  Definitely trophies for the kids, in my opinion.  (Or medals, especially in an olympic year.  The kids like the big trophies, but whether that is a good idea is an open question.)

Keep the games short (G15 or G20), and unrated. If your kids are like ours, they just don't stand a chance against serious competitors who have lots of "real", i.e. USCF rated, tournaments.  Those sorts of players won't show up for the unrated tournaments.

Make sure you can have food on the site, and make sure there is a place for the kids to go between rounds, or else you will end up with chaos in the tournament room.

If at all possible use WinTD or some other software to do pairings.  You want as little time gap as possible between rounds, to the kids don't get overly bored.

Beyond that...play Chess.  It pretty much runs itself.

Good Day Meadmaker and Manfrommanila!

Our Club just had its first Intra-Club Tournament today(the first club meeting of 2 that will decide awards). It went REALLY well. Better than I had expected. The students were VERY well-behaved and focused excellently on their matches. We did some of the things that You mentioned and those things worked well(separate room and snacks). We'll complete the third and fourth round matches next week and give out the awards. We'll do multiple tournaments the rest of the school year. I'd like to have them play students from other schools, but we're not getting any replies. I think that locally, none of the elementary schools have Chess Clubs.

Thank You VERY much for Your feedback!