New Year Resolution Completed 1 Month in Advance!

"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."

Does this quote sound familiar? Well, to all those supports that reads my blog often, I'm sure it does! I wrote this in a post in January this year called "2010 - New Year, New Changes". At that time, CITL had only 5 locations in Toronto since the establishment of this organization in June 2009. Thus, I gave myself and the rest of my teammates a goal, and that was to build an executive board along with the expansion of this program to a total of 15 locations by the end of December 2010.

Our executive board was elected at the end of August, as I mentioned in an earlier poster. If you don't remember, then here are the board members:

President - Yuanling Yuan
Vice-President - Michael Kleinman
Executive Director - Kevin Wu

Our VP is current organizing a volunteer banquet that will be held next weekend and our Executive Director is currently contacting a new location in Scarborough - the Woodside Square branch. And I'm just doing what I always do, the usual management stuff. As the organization grows, the three of us will just get busier and busier...

One by one, my teammates and I worked hard to introduce the Chess in the Library program to new public libraries. Each and every one of them took effort as planning, promotion and operation were essential to the program in each location. From 5 locations to 6, from 6 to 7, 7 to 8...slowly, we were closer and closer to our goal - 15 locations. Today, I'm pleased to announce that we finally confirmed our 15th location - the North Gloucester Library in Ottawa! Here's some info about the CITL program there:

North Gloucester Library

2036 Ogilvie Rd.
Ottawa, ON
K1J 7N8
613-748-4208

Open from 1:30pm to 3:00pm on Saturdays, starting from January 22nd, 2011

I'm sure that by now, you all know who is our project leader in Ottawa. That person is none other than one of Canada's young masters - Joey Qin. He was the one who discussed the details of this new location with the local librarians and make sure that everything was going go smoothly. Joey has even made a complete training plan for the program there! He showed me a list of the materials he will be covering during the session and on specific dates too! I won't be giving anything out because I'm sure that Joey would like to share this awesome plan with you on his own blog. :)

Another person that I must thank is Gerry Litchfield from CFC. The librarians first contacted him about the possibility of having a chess program at the North Gloucestor branch and he was the one who forwarded us the information. Without both Gerry and Joey's involvement in this, our new year resolution would've still been incomplete.

Actually, my original plan for this year was to expand the program to 10 more locations in Toronto, and focus of the rest of the country next year. However, we already have 3 locations outside of the city that makes us officially a nation wide program (2 in Ottawa & 1 in Victoria, which was completely unexpected! Thus, with the help of Brian Raymer & the Victoria Chess Society, Joey Qin and all the other volunteers invovled in this program outside of Toronto, we haven't just completed our goal for 2010, but exceed expectations!

Our next step is to expand the program to at least 1 library in each province in Canada. So if you live outside of Toronto and would like to lead the Chess in the Library project at your local library (like Joey and Brian), please do contact us! I know that in our beloved country, there are so many people out there that are very passionate about the game and would like to see chess in Canada become super popular one day. I understand that the current situtation doesn't look very appealing but I believe that one day, dreams do come true. Nothing is impossible - keep that in mind! CITL's 15 locations will become 16, 16 becomes 17, 17 becomes 18...and one day, we might even reach 100! By then, think about how many extra chess players we'll have in the country! These kids will eventually go on to play in CMA or CFC tournaments (many do at the moment), which will contribute to everything chess related here. We need your help! Email us at info@chessinthelibrary if you want to help make Canada a better place for those that love chess. Thanks!