Sunday, February 20, 2011

CITL in ALBERTA!

Since the very beginning of starting up this organization, my goal was to open up a CITL location in every province of our beloved nation. It was only a few weeks ago that the executive board had decided to work on spreading the program to Alberta and Quebec this year and yet, 50% of our new year resolution has already been completed!

Thanks to the Calgary Junior Chess Club, the Chess in the Library program will host its debut session in Alberta very soon! Here's the info:

Country Hills Library
11950 Country Village Link NE
Calgary, AB
T3K 6E3
403-260-2600

Open from 1:30 to 4:30 on Saturdays, on the following dates: Feb 26, March 26, April 23, May 21, June 25, July 16, August 27

So if you live in Calgary and needs a venue to play chess, then come on down to the Country Hills Library on Saturday Feb 26th for some chess lessons and mini-tournaments!

A big shout out to Simon Ong, NM Roy Yearwood, Angelo Tolentino and Richard Canal for taking this initiative to promote chess in Canada! It is really people like all of you that keep me going because knowing that I can inspire others to join me in promoting chess is simply an indescribable feeling, in a good way of course.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Bridlewood Branch Reopens

After several months of renovating, the Bridlewood branch in Scarborough has finally reopened! According some librarians, it usually much longer to finish renovating a library than what was originally planned. So when this branch was about to close down for renovations, I was told that it would reopen in 3 months. My first reaction was: "Oh no! The kids in Scarborough won't be able to play chess until next summer!" You see, I was totally prepared for that library to keep renovating for an extra 6 months. Just like science labs, it is very important to include uncertainties! In this case the uncertainty would be plus or minus six months. :)

Anyways, I'm glad that everything was completed on schedule, although the library doesn't really appear to be a "library" anymore at the first glance. I visited the branch last Friday and got lost trying to locate the library in the mall. It totally looked like a furniture shop to me when I first walked past it! You can tell that it's a library from my pictures below but seriously, when you're outside the glass window and throw a sideways glance at the library, it will look nothing like a library!

After renovations, the library become much bigger!


This high-tech system allows people to check out the books by themselves!

Anyways, I just wanted to tell everyone that the Chess in the Library program is once again running at the Bridlewood branch every Friday night from 6-8pm. Just don't get lost when you're going there like I did! :)