Welcome
Club Information:
CHESS Minister!:
CCCC Championship:
The Club publishes a magazine entitled ‘CHESS minister!’ 3 times a year to keep members in touch.
If you are interested in joining us, please contact the Secretary:
The Club publishes a magazine entitled ‘CHESS minister!’ 3 times a year to keep members in touch.
If you are interested in joining us, please contact the Secretary:
The origins of the Clergy Correspondence Chess Club are lost in the mists of antiquity. I recall that the idea of a clerical club, to match the chess societies of other professions, occurred to me in my study at the Rectory of Talybont-on-Usk. Talybont was the parish of Henry Vaughan, the metaphysical poet, and his brother Thomas was the incumbent and a practising alchemist, but I do not suppose these connections are strictly relevant. Nor, for that matter, is the fact that I had recently painted the walls of my study purple. Anyway, having thought up the notion, I inserted an advertisement in the ‘Church Times’ and sat back to await replies.
The first competition attracted some six entries and play began in the autumn of 1967. It was won by Kenneth Procter, our first President and, until recently, our senior member. The prize in the early days was often a book purchased by the winner himself and suitably inscribed by the President. Among my treasured possessions is an early edition of Howard Staunton’s ‘Chess Player’s Handbook’ bearing Kenneth’s autograph and commemorating the only time I won, or am ever likely to win, our premier award. The advent of Eric Bailey brought with it a more glittering prize in the shape of the Bailey Shield which now, I hope, graces Ruggles Fisher’s mantelpiece at Oakham.
It would be invidious to single out names among those distinguished clerics of several denominations who have won the trophy. But the snowballing growth of our club over the past twenty years has depended as much on the administrators as on the players. Tim Partridge was the enthusiastic Secretary who built up the organisation in the middle years, aided always by Gordon Geddes who is still our Treasurer. Under Bruce Carlin’s energetic regime the Club has really begun to fulfil the muddled aspirations of its founder. Nor should we forget Leslie Clifton Joy, who, as President, lent an air of canonical authority to our fellowship in the days that badly needed it.
Our twentieth birthday will be celebrated by our first Congress. I look forward to the time, not far off now, when the C.C.C.C. is accepted among those mildly eccentric but greatly loved Church societies whose names are listed in the back pages of clerical diaries and ecclesiastical yearbooks.