Chess at Maria A. Shchuka - AMAZING

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!!! :)

Opening at Maria A. Shchuka Library - A Success

Last Saturday, the Chess in the Library officially opened its third location - the Maria A. Shchuka library. Whether it's the organizing members or the participation members, they were all great successes and it was a fantastic start for the program at Maria A. Shchuka.

I would like to welcome 3 new members who just joined our organization team. They are Lucas Sterling, David Sterling and Kostya Golovan. Of course, we cannot forget Jan Lazo who has already volunteered at Brookbanks before. They all did a wonderful job with organizing the meet last weekend and I'm sure that they will keep up the good work! I will be at this library for a couple more weeks just to stabilize the program there and let the rest of my team volunteering there get familiar with the routine of organizing the program.

As for the chess players who came to play in the library, around 20 showed up. I was so glad to see them excited about the new chess club at their local library!! I really want to take this chance here to thank all the supportive staff at the Maria A. Shchuka library who has helped the Chess in the Library program start up. There is one librarian who has contributed enormously toward our program and that is Janet. She is extremely supportive and very keen in making this program run successfully. One action that really touched me was that she called every single pre-registered player to remind then of the program the day before the program opened there. There are many other things that the staff there did for us such as promoting the program at school curriculum nights and taking a portion of their annual budget to purchase their own chess sets.

Without the librarians and volunteers who organizes the program, the Chess in the Library program at Maria A. Shchuka library wouldn't have been possible. Thank you!!!