The Greater Toronto Chess League

As one of Toronto's largest libraries, the North York Central branch is almost ready to join the Chess in the Library network. One small piece of the project needs to be filled in before we can announce a firm "yes" to everyone supporting and following the program.

However, do not be disappointed because the librarians, volunteers and I have all made a tremendous progress in regards to the program at the North York Central Library since my last update about the program there.

If all goes well, the Chess in the Library program will run weekly in a slightly smaller room and monthly in a larger room due to the following formula. :)

The formula works this way:
large library = many rooms + tight bookings = must book the rooms early

I want to take this opportunity to thank the librarians and volunteers at the North York Central Library for working so hard during the past few months to get the program set up.

Stay tuned for updates on the program at NYCL!!!

Chess in the Library is expanding to another location - Humberwood Library!! The librarians and I started talking about chess club possibilities at the Humberwood branch for half a year now, and finally it's going to start running! Isn't that exciting?

We've confirmed to start the program there on March 27th, 2010. That's only 2 weeks away! We will still need to do some advertising, however, the volunteers are already all in place and ready to go.

The Humberwood Library is located on the far west end of Toronto. We are definitely spreading this program in all areas of Toronto!

We welcome you to come on down to the Humberwood Library to play some chess on our opening day - March 27th. The program will run every Saturday from 2-4pm. Below are the details of that branch:

850 Humberwood Blvd.
Toronto, ON
M9W 7A6
416-394-5210

A while ago, we received an email from a librarian at the Downsview Library asking for support from the Chess in the Library team. Their chess club has just started and they hope to teach the kids not only the basic rules, but some "advanced techniques" as well. Hearing this news, the Chess in the Library team was most definitely willing to provide aid.

Since we have many volunteers that are chess masters, we have no problem with teaching the kids. As a matter of fact, we're already started doing some teaching within our own system after receiving the demo boards donation. Thus, we've decided that one of our volunteer will go to the Downsview Library to teach the kids once in a while. We'll also provide support with one of our demo boards, which is essential to teaching chess.

Although this case is a bit different - we're providing aid instead of helping to start up a chess club, it doesn't mean that the Downsview chess club is an outsider to our organization. Since we will give them our full support, the chess club at Downsview is now a part of our Chess in the Library network!! Downsview chess club, welcome to the big happy family! =)

Please support the Chess in the Library program by coming down to the Downsview Library to play some chess! Here's the info:

Downsview Library
2793 Keele St. (*Closest major intersection: Keele St. and Wilson Ave.)
Toronto, ON,
M3M 2G3
416-395-5720

Chess club opens on Monday nights from 6:30-7:30pm for now and 7:00pm-8:00pm starting from April 5th, 2010.

Everyone has their own dreams, and I do too. I have different dreams for different aspects of my life, and as for chess, one of my dreams is to own a giant chess set one day. I dreamed of taking the set and placing it in the middle of the mall or in a park for kids to enjoy the game of chess with 100x more fun! It's also really big, so getting people to notice that chess actually "exists" in Canada wouldn't be a problem!

Guess what? This dream came true already! A generous person has donated a giant chess set to our program after listening to me talk about my dreams. It was a huge surprise for me too - I never expected it to come true so early in my life! I want to take this opportunity to thank this person for supporting chess in Canada, for giving me hope and most importantly, making one of my dreams come true. Once spring comes, I will try to make arrangements with some shopping malls to place the giant chess set there, and just promote chess in general! I also plan to host a 2010 Grand Chess in the Library Tournament at the North York Central Library (they have a huge room!) sometime this summer and place the giant chess set there. I'll post details regarding this tournament once everything is finalized. WOW, this is really exciting!!

I absolutely LOVE the set!!! =D

Recently, we've also received a few other donations:

from Bob Armstrong - 1 box full of chess magazines
from Wilf Ferner - 3 used analog chess clocks
from the same person who donated the giant chess set above (as well as 100 chess sets to get our program started) - some endgame books + 3 used analog chess clocks *This person contributed the most to our program so far!*

I represent my team to thank you all for caring about "what chess in Canada will look like in 25 years" as well as supporting our program. I know that many people are watching us and with each touching donation that we received, I get more and more motivated.

With every event/situation in the society, there are supporters and there must be people who go against it. Perhaps to some people (I hope not), my teammates and I are still considered "a bunch of teenagers that aren't trustworthy", and they are suspicious of us using the donated items for personal purposes. Of course, everyone has the right to doubt others, but honestly, I would feel heartbroken if someone says that to me. I can swear that I would never use the donated items for anything else other than our program or the promotion of chess in general. Everything that has been donated so far will be use in a proper way for the benefit of others. I add this paragraph to my blog post today because I actually did hear someone doubting the uses of the donated items. Honestly, I have put countless hours and efforts into this program, I don't get payed for this (neither does anyone else in my team), so why on earth would I waste so much of my time just for the sake of using the donated items myself? I had one and only one intention when I started the program and I hope that everyone will always remember it- to promote chess in Canada.

Since the beginning of this year, I had done promotions with my teammates for the program at three different libraries: with Jesse at Fairview; with Kevin at Pleasant View; with Kostya at Maria A. Shchuka.

Jesse and I originally created a poster that had a very general title with an information sheet that was removable and could be replaced by another anytime. That way, we would be able to do promotions at other libraries with the same poster and all that is left to do is to change the information sheet.

The story goes on as I brought the same poster to Pleasant View to promote the program with Kevin. After the promotion, the branch head suggested that we keep the poster in the library so that us, the volunteers, won't need to be at the library physically to promote the program. A week later, I visited the Pleasant View library and saw our poster right on top of the check-in/out counter! Beside it was the registration sheet for the program. Indeed, the bright orange poster was attracting a lot of attention! More people signed up for the program because of that.

Now, the purpose of visiting Pleasant View was actually to get the poster for the Maria A Shchuka promotion in the following week. Realizing how influential the poster was, I finally decided that this poster would be kept at Pleasant View and I would sacrifice a few more hours of my life making another for the Maria A Shchuka promotion! =)

The second poster that I made. I forgot to take a picture of the first one...:(

Enlarged removable information sheet. It's being taped onto the poster so it's easily removable.

I think the poster took me about 3 hours to make since I had to cut out all the letters and design them. Although I love art, a major reason to why I stopped taking art in school was that it was way too time consuming. If you know me well, you would know that I'm a "perfectionist" as I like to make everything 100% perfectly. Thus, I thought about having one of these bright posters at each library and I do encourage the leader at each one of them to make their own!! We are a team, and if we all pitch in a little bit of our time to make these posters, we would be able to see way more kids playing chess! That was the main purpose of the program, wasn't it?

Let's welcome the Gerrard/Ashdale Library that will be joining our organization starting from April 24th, 2010! I've always wanted to get the program started somewhere in downtown. Last year I tried the Bloor/Gladstone Library that just finished its 3-year renovations. Unfortunately, things didn't work out for us.

Although the Garrard/Ashdale branch is not even half the size of the Bloor/Gladstone branch, it now definitely has something that the Bloor/Gladstone branch doesn't have! Yes, of course, I'm talking about the Chess in the Library program that will open there in two months.

I have not yet personally visited the Gerrard/Ashdale branch but from what the librarians say, the space that we're going to use for chess is quite small. If my memory serves me right, I recall that the librarians said something about fitting up to a maximum of 16-20 players. However, that's not the main point. What's important is that chess is starting to spread to a new community!! Isn't that exciting? =P

Some info of the Gerrard/Ashdale Library:
1432 Gerrard Street East
Toronto, ON
M2N 5N9
416-393-7717

The program will run from 2:00pm –4:00pm on Saturdays, starting from April 24th, 2010. Please support us by coming down to play some chess!!! =)

I'm sure everyone knows the feeling of finally finish writing some important exams. No matter how well you did, you feel relieved because you got it over with! Well, that describes my emotions right now. =D

In high school, you hardly ever get to relax for a long period of time, especially for me, since I'm in the IB program. Winter and summer breaks are always piled with things to do. It's the mental stress that kills it all. Perhaps my mind can rest for a day ( actually not even, haha ) and then the next day when I wake up, I usually start worrying about this and that, and trust me, there's always more and more things to do! Although my exams are over, I cannot relax as I have a busy weekend ahead of me. Tomorrow morning, I will head off to the Pleasant View library to do some promotion of the program. I just finished making the poster ( it looks quite decent to me :) and we'll be playing a simul to promote the program. "We" as in - me and Kevin Wu. Kevin will be the new leader of the program at Pleasant View due to Yutong departure, as he moved to a land far far away. Yutong will remain as our Webmaster and of course, his contributions toward the program will always be remembered.

Well, hope the promotion goes well tomorrow! I need some sleep now... :)

For the program, different library sizes have their own advantages and disadvantages. With larger libraries, we don't need to worry about promotion since tons of people go in and out of the library each day. However, the downside of larger libraries is that room bookings are tight because it is first come first serve. The bigger the library, the longer you'll have to book the rooms beforehand.

Yesterday night, I went to a meeting at the North York Central Library (NYCL) to discuss the Chess in the Library program with the Youth Services Specialist, Elsa as well as our future leader of the program at NYCL, Gal. Since the NYCL is Toronto's second largest library, the room bookings there are just plain crazy. According to Elsa, in order for us to have a large room booked weekly for the program, we'll have to wait until 2012. In 2010, we are able to get a very small room (can fit about 12-16 people for playing chess) on almost every weekday night and only the large room (can fit about 30-40 people for playing chess) once a month on a weekday night. Saturday room bookings are even tighter than the ones on weekday nights. Perhaps the program at NYCL will be the first one that will not run on Saturdays. Well, it's always nice to try out new things!

We are still currently in discussion and once we finalize the starting date and the time period we will run the program there, I'll let you guys know!

The opening of the Chess in the Library program at Northern District took place last Saturday. Thanks to Michael and his team of volunteers for making it possible! Welcome to the team Steven Barnett and George Wan! Of course, I couldn't forget Brent Zhang, who couldn't make it to the opening day but will be volunteering at the program in the future. Please visit Michael's blog for an upcoming full report and lots of great pictures (the playing site was huge)!

The opening of the program at Fairview was just yesterday and it was a huge success! All I'm going to say is that we had a total of 50 (that's right, 50!!) participants including many adults. Jesse Wang is the leader of the program at Fairview and he did a lot of work to make everything go smoothly. He even brought a laptop to record the results!! Round of applause to Jesse for showing initiative! :) Of course, if you want to hear about all the juicy details of the program at Fairview yesterday, visit Jesse's blog for an upcoming "interesting article" (that's what Jesse calls his written work) and loads of awesome pictures!

Well, if you can't wait for Michael's and Jesse's posts to come out, take a look at a few of my pictures below (teaching chess at the Fairview's program yesterday):



Me teaching :)

As you can see, I was teaching the names and values of the
pieces to kids who knew nothing about the game

A few of my audience - notice how they are girls! Who said girls can't play chess?

I'd also like to welcome a few more volunteers to our team: Yolanda Zhang and Arsalan Beg-Menhaj who will be volunteering at the Fairview library as well as Jesse Feng who will be volunteering at the Brookbanks library. Also, speaking about the Brookbanks library, we've got some news that might interests you. Want to find out? Check out Kevin's blog!

Well, this week I had to say my goodbyes to Brookbanks library, as Yualing Yuan (the leader of the program) has asked me to head over to Pleasantview library. The former leader of that library has moved, and so there is currently a need for a new leader there. I am both sad to leave, and happy to take a new position (as well as only having to walk 10 minutes to get there).

Last week, the program at Northern District opened successfully. I took some pictures and I will be uploading them tomorrow. As for the full report, expect one very soon from mine or Michael blog.

However, that's not the biggest news of this month. The Chess in the Library program at the Fairview branch will be opening TOMORROW. Now why am I making this such a big deal? You'll know why once you hear how many people have registered so far---------------->63!! That number was reported to me early this week so I'm assuming that by tomorrow, there would be close to 70 registrations! That is just crazy~~~

We've never had that many people interested in our program before. 63 is double of what we usually get! How can I possibly not be excited? Well, another factor to this is the fact that me and Jesse Wang (click here for his blog) went to the library 2 weeks ago to do 2 hours of promotion. We got about 40 registrations on that day!

I'm very curious to know how many people will show up tomorrow. I've placed 20 chess sets there so there's room for 40 people. If the number overflows this week, I'll bring more sets next week.

Come support us and have fun at the same time!! Open to everyone at all ages and strengths. Location:
35 Fairview Mall Dr.
Toronto, ON
M2J 4S4
416-393-7610
Open from 10am - 12pm on Saturdays

See you there~

The Chess in the Library program started in June 2009 and since then, the program has expanded to 5 different locations. During these 6 months, my team and I have been through the wind and the rain, encountering numerous barriers and difficulties with the program. Looking back, it's hard to imagine that what we've actually accomplished with the program is a reality. Especially the fact that we have a website that people visit quite often! Overall, the 2009 year for the Chess in the Library Organization was quite a success. More importantly, it was the start of all hopes to bring Canada's chess popularity to new heights.

I want to thank all the kind individuals and organizations that have donated and sponsored the program in the 2009 year (remember to visit our website at www.chessinthelibrary.com!):

Donors Donations Anonymous Individual $500 Anonymous Individual 100 sets value $700 Anonymous Individual $20 Filipovich Family, in honour of Ms. Vineeta(Bini) Kalia 274 chess materials including various informants, chess magazines, and chess books Gordon Ritchie $250 Southam Family Various chess books, chess clocks, trophies and plates of $200 value Maurice Smith 6 demo boards Bob Armstrong 1 box of chess magazines

Sponsors Chess 'n Math Association Scarborough Chess Club TechForceOnCall The Greater Toronto Chess League Toronto Public Library Toronto School Chess League Victoria Park C.I.
Our new year resolution for the program is to build the team larger, perhaps we will form an executive board and expand the program to 15 different locations in total (10 more than what we have now). I personally have lots of faith in my team and I believe this goal is definitely achievable.

Now with the changes of the program this year:
1. We will try to rate our games with CMA rating as often as possible. Thanks to Larry and the Chess'n Math Association who have agreed to sponsor us 3 months of free rating!! Of course, with the ratings in place, more kids would be interested to play because seeing their ratings go up and down is an incentive. This is a huge step in our program and I cannot express how much I appreciate Larry's support toward our program! I believe our volunteers are still trying to get familiar with the system, and our first rated tournament will be held this week. :)

2. We will set up an activity for the first 20min of the program each week. We have currently decided to rotate between basic teaching (thanks to Maurice Smith for the demo boards!!), puzzle competitions and simuls with our volunteers. We have already tested out each one of the 3 at different location and they seem to do well.

3. New flyers for the program! Well, of course you guys won't be able to see it here (I am not aware that I can upload a PDF file yet - any tips, guys?). However, it does look better with more information on it!

4. We consider purchasing 1-2 clocks for the program at each library. Sometimes when the kids play too slow and we need to end the program, we'll need a clock to speed up the games. I always hate the idea of counting pieces to see who wins by the way. My teammates and I are currently voting on whether we should purchase them and how many.

Alright, that's it for now. I'll announce new changes as soon we have an agreement within our team. Any suggestions? I'll be more than happy to hear any comments, opinions or suggestions!!

Let's hope that the 2010 year for the Chess in the Library program will be 3 times more successful than it was in 2009!! Thanks to everyone who's supporting us!! :D

Yuanling

Of all the chess clubs that I've been to in Canada, there are 2 that are the best of the best in my opinion. :)

The first one is the RA Chess Club in Ottawa. Although I do live in Toronto right now, I've lived in Ottawa when I was little. It's the place where my chess career began and where I played in my first tournament. There is a chess club in Ottawa that would run every Thursday evenings and my parents would take me there every week. At first, the club didn't allow kids that were under 14 years old to join, but I believe that I was their very first exception. At that time, I was a 8 years old girl whose feet couldn't even reach the ground when sitting on the chair! The friendly environment and all the nice and kind people around me made me excited every Thursday because I knew that I would be going to the RA Centre that day!!

Personally, I've received a tremendous amount of support from the club members. Some sponsored me to play in the WYCC in 2003 and others gave me chess books and printed opening lines to prepare me for the tournament! I had a wonderful time at the RA Chess Club and that's definitely a place that I would want to visit often and of course, it will forever be in my heart. Thank you RA Chess Club and all the members for everything!!!!!!!!!

If you're chess player living in Ottawa and need somewhere to play chess, I would definitely recommend the RA Chess Club to you. I promise that you'll find your experiences there just as incredible as mine! Visit their website - http://ottawarachessclub.pbworks.com/

The second amazing chess club is the Scarborough Chess Club (SCC) in Toronto. When I moved to Toronto 2 and a half years ago, I was looking for a club to play chess and found the Scarborough Chess Club right away. At that time, there were only a few masters in the club - I believe it was just Bryan and John. Nevertheless, I was sincerely welcomed to the club and during these 2 years, I'll had a great time there. Recently, the club moved to a new location with a much bigger and better room. However, that's not what makes the club so significant to me. It's the people in the club that makes the club so friendly and worth attending weekly.

Many of the SCC members have contributed greatly toward the Chess in the Library program. Maurice Smith, the current President of the club, has donated 6 demo boards so that our dreams of teaching some basics about chess can become a reality. Bob Armstrong, who publishes the club's newsletter and enters games into the database, has also donated a box of chess magazines to add to our program's chess library. I want to thank these two people for not only supporting the program, but also for making the Scarborough Chess Club possible.

Here are some pictures taken at the Maria A. Shchuka library:

The demo board - thanks Maurice!


Michael teaching in front of the class


Kostya busy making the parings :)


Playing site at the Maria A. Shchuka library

I hardly ever miss a game at SCC because after going to the club for more than 2 years now, it almost feels like as if it is my second home. I really appreciate the existence of this club and without a doubt, I would recommend it to anyone who likes to play chess and lives in Toronto. Check out their awesome website - http://www.scarboroughchessclub.ca/

The title of this entry is quite a tongue twister eh?

Well, what it says is true, because not so long ago, the program was fortunate enough to receive another huge donation from David Filipovich and his family. The donation was made in honour of Ms.Vineeta (Bini) Kalia who passed away on October 16, 2009 in Toronto.

The donation consists of 274 chess materials including Informants, Chess Life magazines, Inside Chess magazines and many other chess book:

We got 4 full boxes of chess materials!!! (It was very very heavy...)

Group photo! The tallest is David and below are his 2 kids and me :)

The whole family is extremely into chess, and I was so glad to meet them in person! They are all very nice people and during my visit, I even got to taste some delicious cookies that David's wife baked! Almost all of the family plays chess, as you can see below:

Me vs. David's son

Me vs. David's daughter

David, is of course the main chess player of the family. He's a strong master and we've played once in the 2008 Hart House Open. After fighting for so long ( I believe the game lasted 5-6 hours), the game ended in a draw. At that time, David to me was like any other opponent I had. However, now, he and his family means a lot to me and the Chess in the Library program. His donation will most certainly be used for the great benefit of our program members. Perhaps some will be used as prizes and others will be kept in our own chess library, where members will be able read on-site or take it home for a week or two. This is one of the many things my team and I will be discussing about during the winter break.

On behalf of my team, as well as all the program participants, I want to thank David and his family for greatly supporting the program and contributing to the development of chess in Canada. Thank you!!!!!!!

During this month and the last two Saturdays, it was different, not completely but unusual, for the good of it. In the first week of the month, kids were a bit late and made us think that we would have just about 5 kids so we considered closing early. It was at about 12:30 when all of a sudden, about 15 came simultaneously and 4 new kids came. We had a pack of volunteers again, at least 5 so we were able to somehow keep everyone in and play and learn chess. It was as if it was a deja vu of the second week in Maria A. Schuka even though we didn't have as many as we thought we had because of the euthusiasm and competitive spirit the kids had. The next week, we had half the number of kids but still had the same interest. Everyone was playing from the beginning till the end. After some time, I decided to introduce double chess just to bring something new and encourage them to play more aggressive. As I thought, they enjoyed although some were getting bored and wanted to play a tournament. Since some didn't want to and it was near Christmas, we had instead our first match play, Job vs. Tacuma. It lasted about 30 mins. but in the end, Job was victorious with 4 quick wins. Tacuma, however, when the match ended, was lectured and played a bit by a chess instructor. I forgot his name but he did teach a few things especially the technique Job used, the Scholar's mate (Bc4, Qh5/f3, Qxf7#). So, for tomorrow, we will have our first short lecture about openings and the chess fundamentals. This will a trial to see how the kids would like the idea of teaching. That's it for now. Hope to see you all tomorrow and may you all have a wonderful Christmas!

In the third week, we had an attendance of 20, 19 kids and 1 adult. Yuanling, Kostya, Michael, and I were there. During that day, we had our first use of the demo board. We had lessons led by Yuanling and Michael. Everyone who came learned or relearned the basics of the game and had some problems. We all had fun and enjoyed the lessons.

The fourth was a decline. The number of kids decreased by 3 and no registered adults were present. It was a bit of chaos since I was late and the length of games were uneven, some ended quickly like 5 mins. and some after at least 15 mins. It seems that it has become an actual tournament in the sense of quick victories or extremely long games that lead to blitz play. The only difference is that we had to end it early which is a bad thing for them. Hopefully, we'll be able to finish it all through out from 12 to 2 smoothly.

That's it for now. There will another one tomorrow. I'll be there tomorrow instead of the going to the 2009 Winter Super Challenge because I have the "binder." Check up for more updates about the Chess-in-Library program in Maria A. Schuka.

Recently, I received another big donation toward the Chess in the Library program from Gordon Ritchie, a huge supporter of chess in Canada. He sent me the check below:


Gordon wrote to me: "I would like to make a modest contribution to your program in recognition of the enormous contribution you are personally making." As you see, attached to the check is also a note that says "keep up the good work". This sticky note is currently attached to a box beside my computer where it is visible to me everyday. This donation will not only have an effect on the program, it will also give me a tremendous amount of strength to continue to build the Chess in the Library program bigger each and every day. This let me believe once again that there are people in Canada who are like me, wanting the chess community to become better. Without these supporters, I doubt this program will have it's place today. Thus, I represent my team as well as all the kids who will be enjoying the benefits of this donation, to thank Gordon for making such a generous contribution toward our program!

I will make sure to keep up the good work!! :D

This week, at Brookbanks Library, we went back to our regular routine of the kids' tournament. I had not been present the previous week due to having a bad cold, and was worried at last week's disappointing turnout of only 9 kids.
But alas, this week we fared slightly better, having a grand total of 10, with one additional kid just coming to watch. Dragos, Magas, and myself organized the tournament and played a few games with the parents who had come to watch.
Still though, it would be nice to bring back the buzz of dozens of kids that was present in the summer, though to reach that full capacity again would be unlikely due to the setting in of Saturday language schools for many. We plan to spread the word by asking the kids to bring their friends, and by sticking a few more flyers around the library.
Thanks for reading!

The Chess in the Library program has been only running at the Maria A. Shchuka library (MAS) for 2 weeks and yet, it's already attracting lots of attention! For a full report on last week's meet visit Jan's blog. We had many chess players in the room as well as volunteers. Here's a picture of the hard working volunteers I want to thank for their efforts in making this program better:

The MAS team (from left to right): Yuanling, Jan, Michael, Kostya, Daniel & Lucas

New faces eh? Well, that's right, the Chess in the Library volunteer team is growing bigger and bigger every day!! Visit our website for a complete list of all the dedicated volunteers.

The Chess in the Library program is slowly introducing a new feature, and that is teaching. A detailed report can be found on Michael's blog. Well, last Saturday at MAS library, Michael had a training session with a small group of beginners. Some fundamental concepts were taught to kids and their parents, and they all seemed to be extremely interested! Claudette (the awesome librarian who helped us tons on Saturday :) , who was also watching Michael group, told me that one kid who is computer games addict is now sitting in the training group and excited to play a game of chess! Actually, that kid didn't come to the library for chess, he came to play computer games. However, he came into the chess room with his mom and was about to go back to his computer games until he saw the group of people talking about chess. He stayed to listen for 1 minute, and that 1 minute became 1 hour in the end! :D His mom was extremely happy at the end of the program because her son ended up playing chess, which is a much more education game than the ones on the computer.

Well if you like chess and need some people to play against (yes, playing against you're dad is boring) then come to the Chess in the Library program! If you know absolutely nothing about chess, still, come to the Chess in the Library program! Why? You'll get to learn all about it! Finally...if you have a son or daughter that is addicted to something you don't like and you think chess is way better, join us every Saturday at the Chess in the Library program!!! :)

The title says it all about the members of the new program in the Maria A. Schuka library yesterday. The first week was blogged by Yuanling and as said, it was a great success. Thanks to the library, staff, volunteers, and of course, the kids and their parents, it has happened.

I'm happy to have Lucas Sterling, David Sterling and Kostya Golovan, our volunteers for this program. All should not forget Yuanling and Michael who have helped made this program possible. They, along with me, volunteered this week.

During the second week, we had more than doubled our members, including the 2 adults who joined. The tables were filled with people playing chess in the first 10 minutes and by the near the end of the hour, parents with their children(about 5) were learning how to play chess. The place seemed to be filled and all were waiting for the mini-tournaments to begin. Before we did so, certificates were given to the winners of the previous tournaments which was received happily by the kids and everyone in the room. Soon, the mini-tournament began. Kids played non-stop and somewhat fast. Some even led to quick wins! Sign of talent and motivation. Interestingly, we had tiebreaks and used hand count since we didn't have clocks. Pressure was everywhere during those games and because of this, they shook hands and drew. Some won the section outright and some drew but no one lost! Everyone had a good experience and wanted to come back. Seems to me the numbers of members will be increasing, possibly even triple the number of members last week.

I thank all those who supported this program and hope this would continue in Maria A. Schuka library. Thank you all very much! :)