The weekend chess scene in Britain had started to stagnate by the early years of the 1990's. As a result, two long standing weekend players, Norman Went and Les Day, decided to get together and improve the situation for the many enthusiastic players around the United Kingdom.

The idea was to find several good hotels who were prepared to host high quality weekend tournaments with low room tariffs for the competitors. The hotels would benefit from the increased business at a time of the week when most of their rooms would lie empty. Hotel managers up and down the land took up the offer and, in October 1994, Spectrum Chess was born.

January 1995 saw the first Spectrum Chess congress, held at the Roseland Hotel, Torquay, in the beautiful surroundings of South Devon. Spectrum Chess continues to go from strength to strength.

Meet the Spectrum Chess Team:

Norman Went has overall responsibility for managerial and financial matters with regard to Spectrum Chess. He is the senior controller at each event and carries an enormous responsibility on his capable shoulders. If you have any comments or suggestions about how Spectrum Chess is run, good or bad, Norman Went is the man to contact.

yElena Went came to England from Russia after her marriage to Norman. Her first congress was at Dudley in January 2007, where she proved that her strong organisational skills would be an enormous asset to Spectrum Chess. Previously a director and manager of a construction company in Russia, she has a background in accountancy and bookkeeping. yElena is responible for the Spectrum Chess Accounts and assists in the arrangement of new venues for future congresses. yElena became the first Associate Member of Spectrum Chess in January 2009.

Kevin Thurlow is a Candidate Master and ECF arbiter with a wide experience of tournament organisation and chess journalism. Apart from controlling most of the Spectrum tournaments with Norman, Kevin is also responsible for creating a database of games from Spectrum events, some of which may be published on our Web site.

Colin Solloway is the Spectrum Chess Web Master. He comes from a technical and engineering background in broadcasting, working with the BBC for over thirty-one years. Colin is responsible for the design, creation and maintenance of the entire Spectrum Chess Web site. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about any aspect of the Spectrum Chess Web site, please feel free to contact him.

Karen Fowler has responsibility for the distribution of the event brochures.