The K-12 Chess Association of B.C. is a non-profit society organized under the Society Act of B.C. It was granted its charter after an application made in September 1994.

Its original purpose (and still its prime role) is to prepare and run the B.C. phase of Canadian Chess Challenge. The latter is a school-grade process (as opposed to another series of junior chess competitions, which is based on age class).

K-12 had a big financial role to play for B.C.'s part in Chess Challenge. That role is to give support to B.C.'s twelve grade champions, found each year, for their transportation to the Canadian Finals, held on the Victoria Day weekend anywhere from Edmonton to St. John's.

Out of an "Airfare Assistance Fund", K-12 has annually aided each champion's family with a cheque of equal amount at the site and time of the national tournament. In recent years, the common figure has been from $200 to $300.

The main source of the fund has been a $2 per head contribution from each regional qualifier tournament for Chess Challenge -- commonly held in February or March. That contribution is based on the number of players at each such regional.

A second fund source is the big (about 250 participants recently) annual Provincial Finals for Chess Challenge.

K-12 also takes responsibility for the funding of and authorization of regional tournament organization for Chess Challenge. In B.C.'s best years, such regionals have numbered almost a dozen from such farflung areas as Cranbrook, Nelson, Kamloops, 100-Mile House, Valemount, Burns Lake, Courtenay, Nanaimo, Victoria, as well as South Fraser Valley and Vancouver District.

For that regional phase, K-12 has been in the lead in moving towards a tournament style that is good training for players as well as those running the events -- with things like the "Touch-Move" rule and Swiss Format (winners play winners, losers play losers with no knockouts). As a result we may be able to boost of being the highest or second highest, among the provinces, for young juniors playing later in mostly-adult tournaments.

Purposes of special note are: (from our constitution)

(b) "to provide scholastic chess competitons, and arrange training and resources for leaders of school chess clubs."

(c) "towards these ends to help mobilize community volunteers."

Where these efforts differ from those of B.C. Chess Federation is that we have a big focus on parents of young players, and school chess club leaders, such parents (and even many a club leader), are largely not active tournament players.

K-12 works closely with the B.C. Chess Federation. Commonly the latter elects at our annual meeting in May one or two junior co-ordinators. They, in term, work with other volunteers, in K-12, who have come up from involvement in local school chess clubs, either as parents or as leaders.

We also co-operate closely, in the national scene, with the Chess Federation of Canada, which supplies national chess rating services, and with the Chess'n Math Association of Montreal and Toronto, led by Larry Bevand (the later running the National Finals of Chess Challenge).

We have 17 Directors on our Board, with about a third drawn from outside the Lower Mainland. The Board is elected at our annual general meeting.

Our current Officers are: