The Southend Easter Chess Congress was established in 1957 by Southend on Sea Chess Club, who ran the event for 58 years, finishing with the 2014 Congress.
When the Club withdrew from organising the 2015 Congress, Gavin Hughes stepped in to organise an independent Congress, at the same venue and with the same sponsor, calling on Adam Raoof as chief Arbiter and Norman Went as Assistant Arbiter and with the invaluable help of John Chapman, previously Congress Secretary.
The same organising team, now formed under the name Giant Chess, has run the Congress with great success since, until force majeur in the shape of Covid-19, interrupted the sequence.
We shall return.
Southend Easter Chess Festival 