Neighborhood kids

I live in a city where there is one chess club and sadly they meet on Wednesdays between 9am and 4pm, while all the children are in school. I was curious about starting a chess club that would meet at a better time and allow for more of the neighborhood children to participate. I watch the neighborhood kids wander around with their faces stuck in their cell phones or sitting at home killing their brain cells by playing countless hours of video games. What would be a good way to get more kids interested in learning and playing chess?

I know about needing a location and time to meet as well as advertising, but how do you get kids to actually show up? I tried something a while back with a friend and the only people that showed up were the same people that go to the wednesday club and they were all over the age of 60, not that it matters. I just want more kids to get involved. I am open to all suggestions. Thank you.

Start a chess club and fill the room with Pokemon Go lures...

(sorry, couldn't resist)

This is a tough proposition. We would all regard chess as perhaps an elevating cultural distraction. The truth is, unless the kids have a bedrock of discipline, intelligence and reasonable stable background you have as much chance as promoting classical music etc  There will always be those who can rise up circumstances, but they are few and far between.

I know someone high up in the ECF who has been frustrated by the promotion of chess in schools. I know from first hand experience as well that there isn't much milage in this. Your best bet may be to try and persuade the chess club to broaden or change their available hours as well a little bit of advertising. A young person interested will of necessity need support from a parent or older person in finding a club - in my case it was my older sister who inquired for me.

The domination of cell phone/video games is creating a generation of zombies, but there again I might do it myself to distract from a cold wind from behind if my jeans were half way down my arse. This is something where a  discussion about an everyday topic such as chess raises far deeper issues...and then sends us back to chess to forget about them ....

Don't give up, obed513. When I was a nine year old kid in the mid 1960s growing up in a fairly tough part of London, I became a member of a children's chess club that met in Kentish Town Public Library outside of school. We had an amazing inspirational and kindly teacher called Mr Newton who wore lemonade bottle thick glasses and a woollen Buster Keaton three piece suit and tie. He taught us using a demonstration board with hooks on which the pieces hung, when of course we weren't playing and conducting exercises in pairs using ordinary boards and pieces. Mr Newton taught us the principles of strategy, tactics, openings, middle game and endings, and made us into the most formidable children's chess team in London. Our six-board team of inner city urchins was so strong that we beat the shit out of all the other teams we played against (mostly from prep schools), usually 6-0. At that time there were few chess resources in Britain and I don't think there was even one grandmaster in the country at that point. As I recall IM Penrose was acknowledged as the UK's strongest player then. If I can remember what very specifically drew us kids into the library and under Mr Newton's spell, I'll post again. Of course mobile phones, video games, and digital social media didn't exist in those days and short of bashing parking meters for their contents there weren't too many other sanctioned distractions then other than the boxing club in West Kentish Town. Chess as taught by Mr Newton changed my life and I'm sure the lives of many of my friends.