New project for youth in Europe

[Catalin Taranu]

Dear all,

Starting from next year I plan to unleash upon Europe a series of new events dedicated to youth. This will happen in the form of a Grand Prix series for youth.
It is a pretty big and ambitious plan. Of course I cannot do it and I don't want to do it alone. Luckily there are quite a few cool people in our community who are willing to join and who find the idea constructive and useful for the future of Go in Europe. Some of them I know already, some others I hope to get to know through this communication channel. In this thread I would like to start a public debate that will last until mid November with the purpose to gather as much useful information and as much support as possible. I attach some documents and also I would like to outline some goals for this brainstorming. If you are interested to bring your contribution to the development of youth activity in Europe please join this discussion.


Goals:

Ø establish best tournament format (the proposed one is U12-16-20 plus a beginner tournament), also the playing system (expert referees’ opinion required)

Ø make a list of desired activities beside the actual tournament

o EGF Academy training camps where possible,

o simul games between advanced children and beginners,

o beginner corner etc.

Ø establish a point system

Ø establish the number of places that receive prizes (we propose 10 for each age group)

Ø work on a tournament calendar (here is where the school holiday chart comes in handy)

Ø allow new possible members to apply for joining, the deadline is still 15th November for 2019

Ø collect cool ideas for improving tournament quality

o like white and black balloons used to decorate the halls in Vatra Dornei, very cheap and nice effect,

o English system of colored badges etc.

Ø find best format for youth reports from countries (here the attachment with the report from Romania works as a starting model)

Ø discuss possibility to add a 20-25 age group to the Grand Prix

Ø find possible sponsors through this communication channel - sponsorship objectives:
Ø funds for:
o yearbook

o end of year prizes

o tournament organization

o local tournaments prizes

o travelling expenses

o teaching instructors and pros

o promotional materials

o prizes in objects (toys, gadgets, books)

o live stream and game recording

o presentation videos and pro pictures

o exclusivity for a sponsor who covers all

Ø establish local tournament minimum quality standards

Ø launch a logo idea contest, with a special prize to be handed to the winner at the grand finale

Ø discuss a title of the Grand Prix, until a name sponsor is found I would like to ask permission to call it "Saijo project", to honor my teacher who made me everything I am today. As some remember, Saijo Sensei is one of the most popular and dedicated pros to teach in Europe.

Ø establish a group of volunteers to help with organization, either at European or local level, IT, graphic design, marketing and fund raising are highly desirable skills

Ø others

[Elom]

As a noob in go events of any nature coming from the 'wants to help but is incompetent' direction, my thoughts are given with a spoonful of salt (half will most likely be gibberish and most of the rest you would know).

From my perception, the martial arts are often seen as a way to develop good life habits. Saijo project feels like it alludes to this type of thinking, and it makes me happy.

Along the lines of the martial arts, wristbands styled to coloured belts in addition to a badges option seem cool. Many ideas are here viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15804, just in case a tiny fraction of them prove useful.

Also, I've pondered on a 'remove possible negatives before introducing positives' and 'optimise to keep members before optimising to attract members'. A thoery stipulating that creating an environment most ripe for growth is just as important as growth itself, if not more so.

Based on 90% winning ratios

...another silly idea I hadn't time to write, but if 90% win ratios are used from 1 dan, one might have a few kyus—say 1 to 5
as brown band, red band, blue band, green band and yellow band with the sixth kyu being white belt (bands instead of belts, what with igo being a mindsport were one uses the head and often the hands. This is getting sillier by the sentence).

Except, six kyu would be a white band with a black stripe. My memory recalls that in some martial arts, 1 dan is represented by a black belt with a white stripe. The black belt of one set of rankings is the white belt of another*. This double sets becomes a triple set with the go bands. So a a beginner may start anywhere within the Junior kyus, from a band solid white at 12 kyu to those white with and middle striped up to six. Then the colours repeat themselves in solid mode kyu's five to one, then at 1 dan you have a black band with a white stripe, changing the colours of the stripes up 6 dan.

By the level of 7 dan with a solid black belt, it should be too much to use winning confidences of 90% as a form of demarcation if they should be used at all, so ending it here seems best. it may be worth noting that if seven dan aligned with the EGF's seven dan, one dan may be near many Japanese club's one dan.

*Life begins at 40, the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end, rebirth at—ah, the concept should be clear by now.

Thank you very much!

[John Fairbairn]

Catalin

1. You may wish to enter into talks with the London Go Centre, which in turn has already opened a channel to the T Mark Hall fund. You can't reasonably apply to the fund direct, but promoting events at the LGC could be well within the scope.

2. I can't read your attachments as I get anti-virus warnings which in this case I see no point in risking going against, so I can only go by your list of goals here, but perhaps you need to think about more explicit ways of engaging parents. They are the ones who decide how much time and money children spend on go, and if you don't get them onside by demonstrating (demonstrating, not talking about) the benefits (which include educational non-go aspects such as learning foreign languages or about other cultures), you are inadvertently putting limits on the kids' ambitions.

3. I suggest you could also usefully think about explicit goals that would make go more friendly for girls. Since you speak Japanese, how about getting in touch with Tojima Hana? Could we get her to come to Europe (e.g. the LGC)?

[Javaness2]

It's nice both to see such a serious topic discussed here, and to see the actual proposition being made.

Regarding 3. European Youth Yearbook - I suppose it depends on the size, but I would be a bit cautious about making a printed publication. Something online should be better, there are plenty of platforms to investigate there, and probably plenty of resources to tap into who would not normally get involved in Youth Go.

I suppose there can be a lot of different proposals regarding the tournament system. Is it possible to find one in which U12 can still play games with U18 players? Otherwise the strong U12 players, the best talents, might run out of suitable opponents. Another thought - ratings are very variable in youth. Can it be a good idea to make wider McMahon bands? For example
below 15kyu starts at 0 points ; 15-12kyu start at 1 point ; 11-8 kyu start at 2 points

[Javaness2]

2. I can't read your attachments as I get anti-virus warnings which in this case I see no point in risking going against,

The attachments are fairly safe to open, I only lost an arm. The word doc is below; I guess the 2 power points are less interesting to read

Plan for youth development 2019

The plan is simple and it has three aspects that are very interconnected.
1. Get a contact person from each country member of EGF that is willing to write an annual report about youth activity in his country. Preferably the person is designated by the national association.
The report should contain a list of locations where activity is held , name of instructors, average number of active children, youth tournaments held at national level , any other useful info.
Intermediary reports if there are some updates worth noticing are of course welcome.

2. Grand Prix for Youth 2019
• Tournament format : U12, U16, U20. A separate beginner tournament, 1-2 month prior to the event the local instructor can go to schools and teach new kids how to finish a game, with the clear purpose to participate in the beginner tournament. Interactive activities between advanced kids and beginners, like simul games . If funds available, teaching by European pros or European friendly pros or top ama Organizers should provide diplomas and trophies, strive to get local sponsorship for prizes . Nevertheless, the plan is to find a big sponsor for the entire Grand Prix so if local organizers cannot find sponsors then diplomas and some trophies only should suffice, as the main goal in this first year is sustainability.
• Graphic design for logo, diplomas, announcing the events and generally all activities that can be done online will be the result of an international cooperation between all the organizers involved in the event, thus inexperienced organizers or the ones with less resources will benefit from the aid of the rest of the team.
• The main motivation for participants will consist in the experience of travelling abroad, making friends, have fun and play Go. Possibility to up the rating with opponents of relatively same age. On top of that there will be the end of the year prizes.
• I propose a point system that takes into account the first 10 placed participants for each age group, as such the prize target group will be a total of 30 youth plus some possible special prizes. Until a sponsorship is found i would ask EGF to provide the backup budget, with maximum limit of 3 years.
• A public discussion will open on a EGF communication channel with the purpose of deciding on the point system , tournament rules, tournament calendar, general principles. Also participants can contribute with cool ideas , small or big things that can improve the quality of youth events. Another big aim of the discussion is to attract possible new members in the Grand Prix list of tournaments .
• So far the projected locations are : Vatra Dornei ( Romania), Croatia – sea side location during summer, EGCC in Amstelveen , Holland, Vienna ,Geneva ( Switzerland), EYGC ( held as normal, improved point reward for Grand Prix purposes) .
3. European Youth Yearbook
The idea is to use all the info gained in the reports and add info about the grand prix, commented games, pictures from the events etc.
This book should contain most of the things we want to know about Youth Go activity in Europe.

[Elom]

Catalin

1. You may wish to enter into talks with the London Go Centre, which in turn has already opened a channel to the T Mark Hall fund. You can't reasonably apply to the fund direct, but promoting events at the LGC could be well within the scope.

2. I can't read your attachments as I get anti-virus warnings which in this case I see no point in risking going against, so I can only go by your list of goals here, but perhaps you need to think about more explicit ways of engaging parents. They are the ones who decide how much time and money children spend on go, and if you don't get them onside by demonstrating (demonstrating, not talking about) the benefits (which include educational non-go aspects such as learning foreign languages or about other cultures), you are inadvertently putting limits on the kids' ambitions.

3. I suggest you could also usefully think about explicit goals that would make go more friendly for girls. Since you speak Japanese, how about getting in touch with Tojima Hana? Could we get her to come to Europe (e.g. the LGC)?

For point 2, I remember the story of one of the key reasons baduk became popular in Korea was because mothers thought their children could get brainier and develop good life habits. Yes, it's true that many other activities could provide this, but it would be nice if Go is at least on parents radar. I also think Go might have many advantages over those other more popular actives from the perspective of busy stressed parents. As I've stated in my rambles, I've even thought it might be most efficient to combine the goals of the U20 and 30 to 50 age brackets, as the 20 to 30 and over 50 ones.

For point 3, I'm hesitant to say that here lies an example in ripening the field for growth. Without tipping over TOS; I have absolutely no empirical evidence for this, but I feel that the number one priority for growth for most of the go community has been in increasing members. But I doubt that this is on the right track of thinking. For example, if making go more friendly for girls was a priority ten years ago, we would not be in a position were any attempts to do so may be perceived as insincere. I do not say this with any sense of competence, but rather the opposite— I myself am guilty of this, so i used it as an example 'tender then grow'. And as a reminder for civility and humility, it's much easier to be opinionated than empirical.

As said, all with a spoonful of salt.

[Elom]

Great powerpoints!

[John Fairbairn]

For point 3, I'm hesitant to say that here lies an example in ripening the field for growth.

I didn't really understand the point made in the quote from which this is extracted, but it's a salutary reminder to ask Catalin also to clarify his stance on "growth".

Broadly speaking activities to promote go fall into two categories. One is getting more people just playing. The other is making players stronger. Most people say we need both, but I have always felt we have got the balance wrong. Most of the money and the highest profiles have always been associated with rewards for strong players (prize funds, trips to the Far East, and so on). In contrast, those who try to increase membership have had to scrabble around for money to print leaflets and posters or design t-shirts, and when they do succeed they get very little reward or recognition (very, very few trips to Japan, say, whereas a strong European can reckon on a free or sponsored trip almost each year).

Presumably the thinking has been that hordes will follow a successful strong player (if so: wrong), but surely the right strategy is to increase the size of the pool and let the strong fish grow by themselves.

In that regard, since so few women currently play, they offer large opportunities to those willing to go out and try to attract them.

I have little idea how to attract female players by the way. Chess administrators have wrestled with this problem for decades, mostly unsuccessfully. I'm highly suspicious of the usual explanations: females less intelligent - arrant nonsense; females too intelligent - equal nonsense; young females don't want hobbies - not in my experience.

In fact there are hobbies where women and men mix but women are preponderant. In Scottish country dancing, for example, most of the dancers are women and so when sets are made up women take the role of men. There are hobbies where men and women seem to have a reasonable balance in numbers, such as bridge. But women may be there for quite different reasons from men. There was a story last week about India sending several 60+ women to represent them in the world championships, and, when they were interviewed, almost to a woman they said the reasons they enjoyed bridge was that it stopped them being lonely. I suspect men would give more testosterone-fuelled answers.

The one thing I've noticed that does attract women to hobbies most in general is a clean and civil atmosphere. That, apparently, has been the main explanation of Tojima Hana's Dream Salons. The typical go club of men, even in Japan, in a smoky, dingy, filthy club or pub with inadequate female loos.

It would therefore be nice if Catalin's go events bore all that in mind. Whatever is done has to be sustained. What I have seen in numerous go tournaments all over Europe is that the event may start in a clean, warn school, say, but there is no supervision and so the men leave the tables dirty and untidy, disappear off to the pub as soon as possible, and leave the few women to wash up the coffee cups and/or look after the kids. To give a specific example of something extra that could be done (may have been tried already - if so, I'd like to hear about the results), since kids have to be brought to a tournament often by parents, who may have younger kids in tow, make sure there is a supervised creche. A hotel I was at in Finland last year provided this (nothing to do with go) and it was very popular, with one parent looking after multiple kids while others enjoyed breakfast.

Whatever the specifics, I believe the most fruitful way forward is what Catalin calls "tournament quality," but it has to be seen as mainstream and needs to be much more positive than a bunch of balloons. If quality needs money, downgrade prizes.

[Elom]

Maybe a shape recognition game would work. Give kids a shape they must look for (say, a bamboo joint) and present the middle game of a number of professional records . Whoever finds more of that shape wins. It could assimilate shape into kids brains in the way reviewing professional games do.

Also, how about using playful badges for up to twenty kyu (the British system), and then martial-art themed wrist bands up to 1 Dan?

Aspects that seem insignificant to an adult, such as balloons, may make a big difference as to whether a child perceives an environment as serious or friendly. In fact, let's ask the kids— we have blindspots! (Even older children may have different needs to younget children).

On that note, painting and go stone designing may help more children feel at home. A go themed colouring book also seems like a nice prize.

For point 3, I'm hesitant to say that here lies an example in ripening the field for growth.

I didn't really understand the point made in the quote from which this is extracted, but it's a salutary reminder to ask Catalin also to clarify his stance on "growth"...

Thank you for bringing the lack of clarity to my attention (I'm not now so acute to read and write with precision or speed)— I didn't want to stray too far from the subject (so does this call for a new topic?).

My point was that we should pay at least as much attention to creating the right environment before attracting new players, to surpasses their expectations when they join.

Criteria for good conditions might be based on the area one is trying to promote go— is it popular to do darts, tennis, kung-fu or competitive cucumber gardening? Maybe it is wise to bear in mind the Korean concept of go being communication over the board.

It seems despondent to hope for a physicist to appear before believing one can sell go. The hard but most powerful thing to do may be adjusting to the surroundings while maintaining one's essence. Use tennis metaphors when teaching tennis players. A sparse and small go population might call for some sabaki. A lot of it is efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. And attaching to strong things to become strong yourself; studying and partnering with industries that have achieved something we want to achieve seems sensible. Take what you like and leave what you don't like. Everyone wants something. Whatever demographic one is targeting, find something they need that go can provide.

Growing in numbers (size) and increasing in skill (maturity) alludes to a child growing both in physical size, and mental maturity (in the scientific sense). But both of these need nourishment. You cannot only exercise and expect to grow in size— without protein, you'll actually lose muscle. The same may be true in promoting go (losing resources).

I think top players are important. But maybe at this stage of growth in size, go tournaments should be designed with attracting new players in mind? I might ramble on this in more detail in the future, but I perceive competitive sporting events as serving two main purposes: attracting new players and creating quality matches. I call this 'popular' and 'elite' sport respectively, to make it easy to think about. In the case of go, each tournament should have a priority. An 100% 'elite' oriented tournament is played with long time settings and the best possible players. Aspiring professionals can study the high-quality game records of the tournament. But where do aspiring pros come from? Do some come from seeing a 'popular' event? One could round up a bunch of celebrities and make them play together in a go tournament to satisfy the criteria for popular. But what I'm referring to by this are mainly speed tournaments, female, senior and youth tournaments, inviting western professionals into the main rounds of pro tournaments and similar gestures. I don't think sponsors do this to get the highest quality game record. I think they do this for the story. We're interested in the styles, the statistics (as you've mentioned), the growth of players and the nostalgia from top players of the past. In fact, I don't know why the Samsung cup doesn't combine the sections for senior players, female players and western go professionals (I think it should include those certified in Asia). In my post on professional grades, I mentioned two different scales. Maybe the EGF should operate on the 1p to 5p scale, capping pro dans at five and focusing on tournaments that can attract non-go players. Trips to Asia might be best in helping top players, as well as the European Open, but only the top players can say for sure.

What I do doubt is the apparent pessimism in statements such as 'video games are more interesting for kids'. Why? Perhaps someone who knew why could do the same with go. Even if 90% of our pessimistic assumptions are true, the 10% left that aren't is worth us staying on the safe side by throwing all of them into the bin (this sounds like a cheesy 'you achieve what you believe' statement. It might be true). I smiled at the optimism in 'unleash'. We may have only scratched the surface of go's growing potential. I never thought I'd say this, but perhaps it is time to start rummaging through left-of-field thinking in the hope of finding iron ore, and combine it with the expertise of seniors and top European players.

Sorry for the long post...

[jlt]

The project looks interesting, but what worries me is that young players may not be able to travel so many times. Young players can already travel each year for the following youth events:

• a national go congress
• a national go championship
• EYGC
• sometimes to Asia.

In addition, some of them participate in several adult events such as: national go congress, national go championship, EGC...

So I expect that there will be a large attendance of players from the organizing country, but most other players won't be able to travel abroad more than once (outside already existing events like EYGC).

Even increasing attendance at EYGC would be an improvement. Most countries sent less than 10 representatives at EYGC 2018, and some countries only had 1 representative. A possible reason is that EYGC doesn't necessarily take place during vacation. Another possible reasons is travel cost.

[John Fairbairn]

The project looks interesting, but what worries me is that young players may not be able to travel so many times.

Good point. It also reminds that not too long ago there was a sudden and major problem in the UK with insurance for kids attending go tournaments. It led to a big drop-off. I don't know the details, but with so many things aligned in the EU, there might be similar problems elsewhere in Europe. (I think the main scenario was where a single adult took a party of schoolchildren in a minibus. I can imagine accommodation could also be an issue.)

[Catalin Taranu]

Regarding 3. European Youth Yearbook - I suppose it depends on the size, but I would be a bit cautious about making a printed publication. Something online should be better, there are plenty of platforms to investigate there, and probably plenty of resources to tap into who would not normally get involved in Youth Go.

My personal vision of the yearbook. It is important to have it in printed form because you want to gift this to sponsors and partners and attach it to any presentation map you make in the future. It is also important for promotional purposes, for the kids it will be a big thing to see their activity highlighted in the book and it will become a big motivation along with other things. The yearbook has two parts : production and printing. Even in the online form you need to cover the production costs, i guess it's possible to try volunteers but in my experience such projects always fail long term. My idea is to look for a sponsor who is willing to cover both production costs and the printing of at least 1000 copies. I am already asking for printing houses offers in Romania. I will get three type of offers, with best quality, medium and low. What i think is very important is to produce a book of best quality worth , say 50 euro, and sell it with about 5 euro. I am sure the sponsor will understand. With this i expect easy sells among children and parents and because of the large number of books sold you get a budget to print your future yearbooks. Basically the sponsor is required to kick start this little project and then you try to create a "perpetuum mobile". A last remark, the price of printing drops a lot if you order many copies. If you print 100 copies and try to sell them with 50 euro, which will be difficult, the price might not vary too much if you print 1-2000 copies that are sure to sell at the price of 5 euro a piece. Also there is no comparison between the promotional value of selling 100 books or 1-2000...

The project looks interesting, but what worries me is that young players may not be able to travel so many times. Young players can already travel each year for the following youth events:

• a national go congress
• a national go championship
• EYGC
• sometimes to Asia.

In addition, some of them participate in several adult events such as: national go congress, national go championship, EGC...

So I expect that there will be a large attendance of players from the organizing country, but most other players won't be able to travel abroad more than once (outside already existing events like EYGC).

Even increasing attendance at EYGC would be an improvement. Most countries sent less than 10 representatives at EYGC 2018, and some countries only had 1 representative. A possible reason is that EYGC doesn't necessarily take place during vacation. Another possible reasons is travel cost.

Yes, this is a very good observation. It is the biggest aji of the project and it's the reason why i am proposing it now and not 10 years ago. Let me explain...

First a preparatory discussion. Promotion for youth is done at 4 levels : local, regional, national and international. The local instructor may put a lot of effort into his work, but without events it's difficult to keep the children interested. Some great teachers who invest much of their time, like Kalli, manage to keep the children interested with only local, regional and national events. Maybe in his case kids don't even attend national championships. But this is rare, for the average instructor the rate of losing interest of kids is 95 percent. In my opinion the reason here is the failure of keeping kids motivation. You may be surprised, but this doesn't have much to do with Go. Stuff like fun environment, travelling, making friends outside their natural borders, this is what keeps children in the community. In time some of them really stay for the sake of the game, of course, but this is a minority. If we fail to understand this we cannot promote efficiently. The obvious observation here is that at European level we have only one event dedicated to children, this is really not enough.

Well, it's time that people learn that in Europe we have the EGF Academy . This is an online training program similar to insei system that really made a difference in Europe and trained a great generation of new youngsters, some of them are kicking ass already, some will soon. I know this because i am a teacher there since the project started, more than 3 years ago. This year i took the initiative to organize the first EGF Academy training for our Go festival in Vatra Dornei. The impact and success of this was incredible. The kids were so enthusiastic that they organized by themselves a second training camp, in Zagreb ( middle of May) . A pretty large group of kids from various countries in Europe traveled thousands of km to be there. Some of them by bus, taking days to arrive. This actually made the Croatian Open this year a truly international event. Following this there was yet another camp organized in Vienna.
This is what convinced me that we are ready to go at international level. I am in touch with the kids, i am asking their opinion regularly and i will push them to join this discussion as well. This group of kids ( i guess there are over 60 already who joined the Academy) will insure our international participation. They are the most motivated and some of the best in Europe, so they will be the models for the other kids. With regular beginner tournaments held at the same time, i expect the snowball to start rolling.
Lastly, don't underestimate the desire of kids to travel abroad. Not all parents can support that but there are plenty who can. I know many parents who already schedule their vacations based on the Go schedule of the kids. And finally, it is our job to find resources to make it possible to travel also for the children with less financial resources. For the Vatra Dornei camp EGF invested some support money and i am sure they will not regret this, this small investment started something that may completely change the scenery of Go in Europe.

[jlt]

The EGF academy is limited to 3 players per country, and some of them are not "kids" anymore but close to or over 18 years old. The events in Vatra Dornei, Zagreb and Vienna were not much advertized outside students of the EGF academy, and two of these events took place outside school vacation of some countries. Some strong young players who might have been interested already travel several times during the year, and their school or their parents do not necessarily allow them to skip school. The youngest players cannot travel by themselves and need an accompanying adult.

So I think that a summer go camp might attract a large and diverse population of young go players if it is properly advertized. Probably other events during the year will attract the same small circle of players from a limited number of countries.

That said, I don't want to sound negative. I really hope the project will be successful. For the future of Go in Europe, young (under 18) players have to be motivated, and if the project helps to develop go in a least several countries, that would be a good start.

[Javaness2]

My personal vision of the yearbook. It is important to have it in printed form because you want to gift this to sponsors and partners and attach it to any presentation map you make in the future. It is also important for promotional purposes, for the kids it will be a big thing to see their activity highlighted in the book and it will become a big motivation along with other things. The yearbook has two parts : production and printing.<snip>

That seems reasonable enough, I guess you will make something a bit like the EGF 2016 Yearbook. Culture, Games, Reports, Interviews...
If you want to go the Latex route, you might be interested to talk to somebody like Remi http://forum.jeudego.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=11511
Else, you need somebody with Publisher skills. I don't have either, but like plenty of other people, I know how to use GoWrite to make diagrams. I guess you have enough people to help there.

[Catalin Taranu]

That seems reasonable enough, I guess you will make something a bit like the EGF 2016 Yearbook. Culture, Games, Reports, Interviews...
If you want to go the Latex route, you might be interested to talk to somebody like Remi http://forum.jeudego.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=11511
Else, you need somebody with Publisher skills. I don't have either, but like plenty of other people, I know how to use GoWrite to make diagrams. I guess you have enough people to help there.

No, there are never enough people for this:) I am trying to get offers from everyone with the skill to do it. Give me an offer and while i don't promise anything i will try to find the money to make it happen. The contents will be mainly reports from countries plus coverage of the GP. Any other special news are of course welcome.
Btw, what is the Latex route?

Catalin