To not pay £6.50 for chess club?

[StuntNun]

DS2 asked me last week whether he could go to the school chess club and I said yes. However he has brought the flyer home today and it's £78 per term so £6.50 per week for 12 weeks. I think that it's far too expensive and I'll teach him to play chess at home instead. AIBU to not want to fork out £78 for chess club?

send him

its starts at chess club and it ends in Silicon Valley, geeks RULE

think of it as a pension investment

Sounds like our one, which is run by external experts and gives access to competitions etc. Proper coaching by experts is expensive.

Football (also external) is £70 a term, too.

Only things run by teachers (eg cooking) are in the £10ish range, anything external is always pricey, presumably because they can only do five after school slots a week and need to make enough money to live on.

Our clubs run by external experts are free

Babysitting for 6.50 an hour. Seems reasonable.

Except if they have ten "babies" they get £65 an hour twenty £130 an hour thirty £195 an hour ...

How many will be at this club?

Let's say 10... £65 an hour for a retired schoolteacher? Not reasonable. Even if you factor in a few quid a week to pay for electricity and the chess sets (which surely aren't bought new every term...) it's not reasonable.

It will be more than a few quid to pay for the room, insurance and equipment.

I'd pay it. Both DSs loved chess and were county players at school, it's an excellent discipline to learn.

As someone said above. Geeks rule.

Those with state schools with free clubs (Mrz, not sure if this applies to yours) - there is a charity www.chessinschools.co.uk
which provides chess lessons in schools. Possible it's organised through this scheme?

Otherwise, as we've said above, you are either looking a a chess playing parent or volunteer giving up their time for free, or a nominal charge, or a professional coach who makes a rather poor living out of chess coaching.

Chess seems to be a strange world. There is so little money, despite the amount of time and effort, and huge talent, it takes to become an international level player, that many players coach or commentate on live games to make ends meet.

Also, the world of junior chess is very competitive. I've seen parents pay for coaches to stay over night at hotels during tournaments, so that they can coach in between rounds.

So, £6.59 ph might be a complete rip off, or it might be a bargain, depending on the coach!

Don't think it's enormously expensive but it's a matter of choice not necessity to go to a chess club - how much does your DC want to go?

I had a similar thought about an after school art club which is privately run and was charging almost £7 for each 1hr after school session and of course wanted the course of 10 to be paid upfront - I just thought £7 per session was too much especially as DS only 5 so cannot see him using lots of v expensive materials and didn't think it was worth £7 an hour of value to him - as he has lots of other more sporty interests and was thinking of art as a bit of a counter balance - for other older children perhaps different but for me was not value for money as was not DS personal preference for after school just an additional option if price had been right

No it isn't sunny

What Sunnydayinmay said. I'm an International Master, and although I get free entry to most of the tournaments I play in on the strength of that, that's about it for conditions. I fund my chess tournament play mostly by doing the game-inputting for said tournaments.

Now I'm curious, Laura! How does inputting work? Assume most major tournaments are on electronic boards?

(Discovered this world fairly recently, but finding it fascinating).

Most major tournaments will have some electronic boards, yes, but not necessarily enough for everyone to be on one. (For example, the Gibraltar Masters has 20 or so electronic boards, but there are about 120 games per round.)

Game-inputting usually works using a program called ChessBase. The game-inputters are provided with a "skeleton PGN" which gives the header data for each game - players' names, round number, venue and so on - and our job is to transcribe moves from the players' scoresheets into that skeleton PGN.

The end result will look something like this:

[Event "Barnstaple Summer Championship"]
[Site "Barnstaple"]
[Round "."]
[Date "2016.09.12"]
[White "Oughton, Robert"]
[Black "Rudd, Jack"]
[Result "0-1"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.O-O Nxe4 5.Re1 Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.Nxe5 Be7 8.d4 O-O 9.b3 Nf5 10.Bb2 Bf6 11.c3 c5 12.Nf3 cxd4 13.Nxd4 Nxd4 14.cxd4 c5 15.Nd2 Bxd4 16.Bxd4 Qxd4 17.Nf3 Qxd1 18.Raxd1 Be6 19.Ng5 Rad8 20.Nxe6 fxe6 21.f3 Kf7 22.Rc1 Rc8 23.Re3 Rfd8 24.Rec3 b6 25.b4 Rd5 26.a3 Ke7 27.Kf2 Kd6 28.Ke3 b5 29.g3 c4 30.Rc2 Ra8 31.f4 a5 32.bxa5 Rxa5 33.Kf2 Kc5 34.Ke3 Rd1 35.Ke2 Ra1 36.Re3 R5xa3 37.Rxe6 Rh1 38.Re7 Rxh2+ 0-1

DS2 went to the chess club and enjoyed himself immensely. Now he wants to join the Lego club which is £10 per session!

£10 a week for Lego?

For a school club?!

Dd's school never charges for clubs - even one to one music tuition is free for her this year. The only thing we've had to pay for is swimming lessons (use of the public pool) at £2 a week.

Vino, given how stretched school budgets are, I am amazed your school can find 1-2-1 music tuition. Unless the school is choosing to use PP money for this, of course. However, I'm also amazed that you are paying for swimming. It's a requirement of the curriculum and as such cannot be charged to parents. Unless you're paying for the travel element rather than the actual swimming lesson, which is allowable.

Swimming lessons are free and 1-1 music tuition has a small fee if pupils borrow instruments

Seems fair to me.

Laura thank you, that is really interesting.
DS got to play on electronic boards in Bournemouth, but it didn't occur to me that the handwritten sheets have to be inputted too. God help anyone trying to read his, because his handwriting is appalling!

£10 for Lego is a rip off!

lauraroslin could you give a clue as to what IM you are? are you jack rudd? jack what are you doing on mumsnet???!!!

It does seem expensive to me, nit because it'd chess but because most activities here tend to be not more than £5 per session. I'd expect a decent ratio of coaches and probably a snack for this amount.

For those saying deprived children miss out in most schools those who are on fsm get priority access to afterschool clubs and don't pay. That seems right to me, but I can't see how them all being free would work. In effect yore arguing to extend the school day - who is going to pay the costs?