Waseca mom works to start chess club

About a year ago, a local mother who had recently moved back to Minnesota picked the game of chess back up after years away, finding it helped her to relax and deal with stress. Now, she’s trying to spread her passion for the game by starting a local chess club.

Such as it is, the fledgling Waseca Chess Club meets every Monday night at Waseca’s library from 6 to 7 p.m., taking advantage of five donated chess mats which the library keeps stocked for any interested person to play during its hours of operation.

With her son Charles (Wylie), who has picked up at least some of his mother’s budding love of the game, Chess Club Founder Elizabeth Northrup has come to the Waseca Library to play chess every Monday since the beginning of June.

Northrup has done her best to advertise the club on social media and around town and has had some success, helping to secure the donations of chess mats. However, Northrup said that sometimes she and her son have been the only people to actually attend on Monday nights.

On more fortunate days, Northrup said the chess club has had as many as 5 or 6 people come. The club is open to people of all ages and abilities, and Northrup said she is always interested to see if those who come are more advanced or beginner level.

When a new person comes to chess club, Gavi said she is eager to help them if they need it, or to learn from them if they’re more proficient than her. She admits she’s no chess expert, but she’s taught herself some of the basics of how to play chess via watching online videos.

Cognizant that too many people may have chess sets sitting in a corner collecting dust, the club has sought donations of those sets to the library, with the goal of ensuring that at any time during the library’s hours of operation, a chess set can be ready to play.

Still, Northrup’s biggest hope is that the club will help more people to build friendships and fall in love with the game of chess, enabling them to benefit from the mind-sharpening boost to problem-solving and critical thinking skills numerous studies have suggested chess can deliver.

Chess’s benefits are said to be particularly remarkable in adolescents, and in the past Waseca Public Schools has had a thriving chess club. Even with the appeal of video games, national reports have strongly suggested that the game is making a big comeback among young people.

While Waseca might not be the first place where trends catch on, Northrup hopes that an inclusive, free environment for young people to relax and focus the energies on one of the greatest mind games ever invented can find broad, growing appeal.