From: DANERUD MARTIN <martin.danerud <at> TELIA <dot> COM>
Date: 12 mar 2002
Subject: Girl power

Dear shogi friends,

During the weekend, Mr Robert Soderberg and I visited the little known
southern Sweden village Knislinge. At Snapphaneskolan, a school named
after the southern Swedish guerilla fighters in the late 1670s, there
was the yearly Swedish Chess Championship for girls with more than 100
participants in four age groups, totally ranging from seven to twenty
years age.

http://www.schacknyheter.com/nyheter/200203/knislinge.shtml

http://www.ungdomssidan.falkenbergssk.com/

We sold some chess books for a friend, who is also a member of the
Swedish Shogi Federation. At earlier chess events, he has been kind to
host the Swedish Shogi Federation at the stand of his company, which
thereby has enabled us to be at the chess events in a natural way
without provoking anyone. We also brought some shogi sets, distributed
our shogi leaflet to all participants, had a simple tsume prize event,
and waited patiently to teach the shogi rules to the girls using two
animal shogi sets for the youngest girls and two normal shogi sets.
And it was a big success! Surprisingly, we had around 25 girls trying
shogi from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon, several of them for
the first time in their young lives. They played consecutive handicaps,
and some of them displayed an unquestionable talent for shogi. There
were 23 participants in the one move tsume prize event, where the first
prize was a shogi set. On Saturday, shogi was played until midnight by
some new, young shogi players. Eventually, five new members paid the
membership fee for 2002 and joined the Swedish Shogi Federation. The
winner of the C class, Ragna Lofgren, participated in the Swedish
Championship of shogi in 2001 (see the pictures at the second link
above).
What then did we accomplish?
Several chess playing girls now know that there is another, genuine,
chess game called shogi. They also know that it is well organized in
Sweden, and that there is a chance to join the federation and
participate in events. Some of them have tried to play, and I daresay
that some of them will be part of the Swedish shogi movement in the
future, regardless of whether they joined during the weekend or not.
Maybe we also inspired you to do something similar in your country?

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Martin Danerud

President of the Swedish Shogi Federation and of FESA