3rd Library Officially Open!!

I would like to officially announce that the Chess in the Library program has entered another library here in Toronto, the Maria A. Shchuka district branch. Unlike the other two locations we have (Brookbanks and Pleasant View), this one is located in the west part of Toronto. I just got a confirmed that they will start running the Chess in the Library program every Saturday from 12-2pm, starting from November 7th. The Maria A. Shchuka library is located at 1745 Eglinton Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M6E 2H4 (Closest major intersection: Eglinton Ave. West and Dufferin St. Located on south side of Eglinton Ave. West, one block east of Dufferin St. at Northcliffe Blvd.)

Last Saturday, I visited the Maria A. Shchuka library and the program room that will host the Chess in the Library program. It's a really nice room, around the size of the one at Brookbanks, so the capacity will be the same as Brookbanks. I also had a nice chat with the one of the program managers there and found out that there is already a huge interest in this program! Even though the first meet of the Chess in the Library program at Maria A. Shchuka is more than a month away, they already starting doing the registration for this program! The best part is, they not only had a huge interest in participants, but volunteers as well! The program manager showed me the two lists she had and guess what? There were 11 neighbourhood teens who are interested in volunteering and 9 kids who are anticipating the program to start so they can play chess! :) I was extremely happy to see this and I'm definitely looking forward to Nov 7th!!

Calling all chess players living in west Toronto, the day you've been waiting for is soon to arrive! Come on down to the Maria A. Shchuka library on Nov 7th or after to play chess!

3rd Library Opening SOON!!

The Maria A. Shchuka district branch, located on Eglinton and Dufferin, has expressed huge interest in running a Chess in the Library program there. I just received a call from the program manager and she told me that all the staff at Maria A. Shchuka are so excited about the program! They know this program is doing extremely well at the Brookbanks branch, for the fact that attendance is relatively high compared to other programs.

I will pay a visit to the Maria A. Shchuka library this Saturday and have a look at the room. The time we're going to run this program there will be most likely from 12pm - 2pm. We are currently finalizing the flyer and the starting date. Once we do so, I will definitely let you guys know! One thing I know for sure - this program at the 3rd library will be running very very soon!! Perhaps within the next month or so.

I can't wait till it starts running! Get ready to come down to the Maria A. Shchuka library to play chess soon! :)

Labour Day Weekend

I just heard from Xiaohan, who was in charge of the Chess in the Library program at Brookbanks last week, that they had 33 participants again despite the fact that it was a long weekend! Most of our volunteers at the program played in a chess tournament that weekend so thanks to Xiaohan and the other volunteers who helped out, everything went well as usual! I'm really looking forward to seeing how the school year will affect the turnout for the program. Perhaps a whole lot more kids coming in, perhaps a whole lot less, who knows?

The Most We've Ever Had

Last weekend, we had a surprising number of young chess players coming to play chess in our program. Guess how many? 33! That broke the record of 32 participants which occurred a month ago. I was also really glad to hear from one parent saying how this program got her son so into chess recently! Don't forget everyone, the Chess in the Library program runs all year round, not just during the summer!!

The second big number we had last weekend at Brookbanks was the amount of volunteers as we had 8 people helping out! I would like to welcome the 4 new members of our organization team: Dragos Parausanu-Sprinceana, Magas Yusuf, Jesse Wang and Jan Edmund Lazo! Once we open this program at a couple more libraries in the future, these volunteers will be divided among them. The room was a bit crowded last weekend but that was okay, everyone still had a great time! A picture of the 8 volunteers at Brookbanks this week:

From left to right standing: Dragos, Jan, Jesse, Kevin, Xiaohan and Magas
From left to right sitting: Yuanling (me!) and Tony

Some more pictures of our hard working organization team members (now increased to 14!):

Look how happy Tony is!! :)


Kevin carefully setting up the pieces :)


Xiaohan recording the results. Another happy face!

Our official email is now info@chessinthelibrary.com. Feel free to email us your suggestions, comments or anything you want to share with us! Remember to keep checking our website chessinthelibrary.com for updates!!

Our Big Day - Website Uploaded!

I have excellent news to announce! The Chess in the Library website is finally up on the Internet! www.chessinthelibrary.com is the official site for our program. It will be updated regularly with news, pictures, progress and more! Make sure to check it out!

We first started working on this website at the beginning of July. It's been a real journey from day 1 of website making. At the very beginning, we had to decide on the layout, the colours, and basically design the entire website. Then we had to think about what kind of content our viewers would like to read, and then write it all out. The final 2 weeks were the toughest, as we had to make a ton of small changes here and there. I think we finalized the website 8 times before we all agreed that this was it, and we're ready to upload! I was engaged in most of the discussions with other members of our organization team, but of course, Yutong was the one who did all the coding!

I must thank Yutong Luo (grade 10 student), our webmaster, for working countless hours on designing and creating the website. It's his big day too, and he's sure excited!! I also want to thank Barry Thorvardson as well as his company TechForceOnCall for sponsoring our web server. Without these people, this website definitely wouldn't have been possible.

Brookbank's Chess in the Library 10 Weeks Anniversary! :)

Yesterday's Chess in the Library meet at Brookbanks concluded the 10th week this program has been running at this branch. This reminded me of exactly 3 months ago when I first proposed the idea of this program to the Brookbanks branch head. Time sure passes by fast as these 3 months went by in a blink of an eye!

28 participants showed up yesterday, including an adult! It's great news because this program is for everyone to enjoy regardless of their age and level. I also posted a list of prizes participants can exchange for their certificates! They sure were excited about that, and was eager to know what did the prizes look like. Perhaps I will bring some of the prizes to the library next week and show them.

Thanks to Kevin, Tony, Xiaohan and Michael, the meet ran very smoothly yesterday. Speaking about volunteers, another excitement for us was that there was a guy who came into the chess room and offered to help out in the future! I asked him how he knew about our program and he said that he was just wandering around in the library and simply saw our program running. He left me his email and I'll be in contact with him soon. It's great to see more and more people taking initiative!!

One, Two, Now Three Donations!!

When the mailman dropped by today, I picked up the stack of envelopes and read all the covers one by one: “My dad's, my mom's, wrong address, another for my dad... for me!?" I usually don't get mail unless it's my school report but I already got that last month. Slowly and carefully, I teared one edge of the envelope and pulled out a thick piece of paper that was neatly folded. Guess what was inside that piece of paper? This!! (picture below)

Yes, it is indeed a $500 donation to the Chess in the Library program! The donor is an extremely kindhearted person who wishes to remain anonymous. This person believes that what we're doing here is something truly special and hopes to see more and more kids play this royal game at a young age. On behalf of all the participants coming to our program as well as our entire organization team, I would like to take this opportunity here today to thank this anonymous donor for believing in us and supporting our program. Without a doubt, this donation means a lot to us and we definitely appreciate it greatly. Everyone can make a big difference and with this donation, we would be able to run this program at a couple more libraries, meaning approximately 100 more kids would be able to enjoy the benefits of chess.

I will forever and always remember every single person who has helped us out with the development of the Chess in the Library program, anonymous or not it doesn't matter. Thank you again!!!