We wanted our children back at the board. This is how we helped them come back.
We run Dragulf chess club in Norway. After the pandemic we had lost many members, and the children needed a reason to return. We built them one.
A passport to fill, stickers to earn, and a real chess skill behind every sticker.
The journey so far
Children come back for something to collect, and stay for something they can do. So every sticker stands for a chess skill: learned, trained and tested before it is earned. While our children tried it out, the club doubled its membership.
Other Norwegian clubs asked for it, and we kept building: printed test sheets, the coach's manual, lessons and training online, and Loftet, where every level has a toy to beat. Each part was shaped by what our coaches and the other clubs asked for. Today over 50 clubs across Norway, from Oslo to the far north, hand out the passport.
Now the whole program is translated, and we are ready for the next step: bringing the passport to clubs, schools and federations outside Norway.
Who we are
Fleur Sommerseth
Founder and CEO of Sjakkpass
Fleur designed the chess passport and Loftet from the ground up: the levels and stickers, every lesson and test, and the systems behind them. She is a chess coach, a Woman Grandmaster and a former national team player, with a doctorate in education on how cognitive abilities develop. She leads Dragulf chess club.
Simen Agdestein
Ambassador
Simen is a grandmaster, nine-time Norwegian champion, and coach to many Norwegian talents, including world champion Magnus Carlsen. He founded and runs the chess program at NTG, the Norwegian College of Elite Sport. He fronts the passport and Dragulf's work across Norwegian chess, as a former leader of the club and a board member today.
The company
Sjakkpass AS is a Norwegian company that makes the chess passport and runs sjakkpass.com. Our registered details are in our Terms.
Norway's rules on marketing to children are among the strictest in the world. The site has no ads, and nothing on it asks a child to buy.
See it in use
How it works shows what a child does to earn a sticker, at home or in a club.