By the way, in my chessclub, I asked for allowance of (a) computer(s) to participate in the ClubChampionship 2011. This will be discussed on 03/09/2010. If no-one opposes (or a majority votes in favour) then we mainly have to discuss how strong the computer may be and the pace (fixed time / move or tournament level). As I organised yesterday my 2nd Humans - Computer Match after 2 years of absense, I can see that for the clubplayers its a challenge, surely now the members are dropping nearly everywhere in our country and you have to make quite some distances to play under tournament conditions / championships.

Mid 80's we had about 8.000 affiliated chessplayers Belgium , now hardly 4.000. This all makes it easier to introduce a computeropponent ! People tend to stay local to their town as much as possible (or they will eventually stop) , and seeing others even playing a game against the computer and talking on both subjects (chess & computers) regives them their joy of chess and keeps them going. To me this brings new enthousiasm to go to the Club at least for some of them.
I have been asked now already to plan 2 Man against Machine matches on the Calendar. Thats a sign of appreciation !

I left up some balloons at the Ligue level, to enroll a computer , put on a team list, and play to avoid a forfeit game if one is missing an opponent. But to get this through is much more difficult, eventually someone will loose his title or end last because of an computer.....
and my personal influence and recognition as in my ChessClub is much less.