Ex ACF president George Howard is leading a petition to change the Australian Government's definition of sport, as presently defined in the Australian Sports Commission Act 1989, to something more along the lines of the UK's Charities Act 2006. That UK Act and its impact on chess is best described by the English Chess Federation here.
Frankly, I've never been one to be bothered by whether chess is a sport or not. It's a little like that other debate: is chess a form of art? As they have nothing to do whatsoever with actual chess play, I've always considered these discussions to be a waste of time! But I might just be plain bloody short-sighted. Whatever gets us closer to government funding, then I'm all for it. If success comes to this petition, we can then all move on to that next likely debate: how to spend the money! We'll worry about that later.
Of course, this is not the first time that the local chess community has rallied to such a cause. I remember something similar way back seven years ago. You can read about it in bulletins no. 120 and no. 121, again in no. 124, no. 126 and no. 130.
I should mention that all those past bulletins have pretty much become must-reads after all these years. They bring back memories. Just scroll through them here.
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