About

Southend Easter Chess Congress

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 at short notice 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, with the invaluable help of John Chapman, previously Congress Secretary, and with Ian Hunnable as Webmaster.

The same organising team has run the Congress with great success since, despite withdrawal of the sponsor from 2016. Though Gavin is no longer involved.

In 2020, John, Norman and Ian re-formed under the name Giant Chess, appointing Adam as Chief Arbiter and were on course for a very successful 64th Congress in 2020, until force majeur in the shape of the Covid-19 pandemic, interrupted the sequence.

2022 was a very successful return with a modern record entry (i.e. since being run independently) and also the first since Southend-on-Sea was accorded City status.

From 2023, we have adopted the style “Southend Easter Chess Festival”, including as it now does the Southend FIDE Rapid on Maundy Thursday, in addition to the traditional 7-Round Congress.