The Kenyan-based Westlands Chess Club (WeCC) has just redesigned its website, adding more features, backed with the mission to turn Kenya into a “mad-chess country”, drawing more players.
Months after the WeCC came to existence, its old website with the same URL has been quietly up for two and a half years. However, the new site opened on Friday is expected to attract at least 600 followers from its Facebook page, set to fuel more chess-loving fans.
Marking this year’s latest development, in the drive to ease navigation of which would to cater for the growing number of chess players in and out of the country, WeCC is not just launching a school initiative that would encourage youth to play the game, but is set cater for players keen on receiving news updates and game reports posted on the new website.
Yet, as one of Kenya’s newest and most progressive chess clubs based in the Westlands suburbs, WeCC has come a long way years after chess was introduced in the country as early as the 1920s, say British journal reports. The board game was officially registered as a club for in 1958 by the Nairobi Chess Club. Years later, as the game emerged in the country, Paras Gudka and his supporters, felt the need to open Westland’s very own club.
Thus, the Westlands Chess Club was opened in August 2011 having its base at the Westgate courts beginning with one chess board and handful of players. And today, it now accommodates at least 40 players at the Slush Coffee World, Parklands Nairobi, in tournaments and even on busy Saturday afternoons. Its membership packages cater for a wide range of players including chess veterans, complete novices and a few occasional spectators.
According to the WeCC website developers, the new site is expected to deliver better user experience for visitors to find information efficiently. It has a design that makes better use of screen space accessing it through a desktop computer, laptop or mobile phone.
“This site works really well on my smart phone too,” noted WeCC Director, Paras Gudka.
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Visitors can now post comments under each news item and event pages making it more interactive.
While adding PNGs of games played in the WeCC tourneys would be the club’s next mission, participants of tournaments organised by the Club would be assigned a rating of 1300 at the start of their first Blitz, Rapid and Classical tournaments, all of which would be expected to be posted on the website for further details.
But for now, the names and URLs of its website’s pages will remain the same. To view the website, follow this link: http://westlandschess.com/
