NORTH CAROLINA CHECKER ASSOCIATION
|
Cecil Lowe |
Jeff Webster |
JR Smith |
Bill McClintock |
August 18, 2008
Mr. Chris
Richardson
The Masonic Home for Children at Oxford
600 College Street
Oxford, NC 27565
Phone: (919) 603-3901
CRichards@mhc-oxford.org
Dear Chris:
I enjoyed talking to you, and I'm very excited about you helping organize our up coming Carolina Open in 2010. The dates will be May 14th & 15th, 2010. It is always a problem finding a playing-room facility, whether it is scheduled at a hotel, library, restaurant, community center, etc. We simply don't have the numbers.
Any conference room of 25-30 capacity is ideal. Hotels usually want to charge for their facilities, including coffee, drinks, light snacks, and or attach a number of rooms to be rented in a conference/meeting room package. Letting us use one of your conference facilities will be a great help. I have looked up hotels in the area and there are some good choices close by. I’ll be happy to talk to you about previous tournament set ups and how we can mesh this and use your expertise of the area to get the best deals.
NCCA intentionally tries to move the state tournament venue to different cities since it should attract more state wide participation and also increase public awareness about this competitive state checker event. Our last state tourney in your area was in near by Henderson in 1963, so we are overdue and excite about your Oxford venue bid and we welcome it.
The out of town players will arrive on Thursday evening, so they are rested and fresh for the Friday - Saturday tournament.
I will be glad to help in providing most of the other things required for this tournament: agenda, schedule, referee & scorekeeper, game sheets, prize fund, trophies & certificates, mailing flyers, announcing it on websites & newsletters, telephone reminders, etc. NCCA will contribute $500.00 - 1,000.00 toward the tournament prize fund.
Larry Michael, our manager and
sponsor/director of the District IV tournament, includes fellowship meals since
he holds the event at his church fellowship hall. Several of the players’ wives
help. For other tournament events we use local restaurants and eateries, which
is something we have plenty of time to discuss.
Mr. Cecil Lowe and Clint Pickard were excellent at getting local business
contributions (prize fund money), gifts, and merchandise as door prizes at their
hometown venues, but I have found this difficult in larger cities. Most of
the restaurants and merchant chains want you to contact their home office for a
discount coupon or gift certificate.
I think the idea to hold a youth tournament for the children is a wonderful idea. We may even have two or more age groups. Several of the players have children who would participate. This has been a long and troubling thing for some of us who want to see checkers rejuvenated, and promoting youth to play checkers.
We could possibly set up a youth tournament before this Carolina Open, or schedule an introduction to checkers lesson and organize a checker club, at The Masonic Home for Children if one doesn't exist.
Bob Murr and John Cardie both do a tremendous job at getting invited into elementary schools and teaching an introductory course on checkers.
By the way your website is professional; I will stay in touch by email or phone.
Sincerely,
J R Smith, Secretary of NCCA - cell 336-209-5656
cc Cecil Lowe, Billy McClintock, Larry Michael, Clint Pickard, Jeff Webster