CSC Training Day Tour 2023-4: A Classic Training Day

The latest leg of our 2023-4 CSC Training Day Tour brought a return to London and a new venue in the form of Marylebone Theatre, Rudolf Steiner House - a place of many features and lots of stairs.

Our day tied in very nicely with the 13th London Chess Classic, which is proving to be one of the most exciting of the famous series, with a significantly high number of decisive results.

Matt Piper and I were very pleased to be able to work with an excellent set of delegates - 15 in all - on a day full of chess activities.

We also had three special guests from CSC Head Office: Malcolm Pein, Chris Fegan and Matt Read.

Here are a few captured moments from our busy day.

Chris Fegan addressing the delegates

Malcolm Pein entertaining the audience with a chess puzzle

Thank you, everyone, for helping to make the day such a great success.

Here is Malcolm's chess puzzle.

White to play and checkmate Black in two moves

Our forthcoming tour dates can be found here.

CSC Training Day Tour 2023-4: A Great Day in Hull

The annual CSC Training Day in Hull proved to be another fine day in the fabulous city.

Isaac Acheampong and the excellent team at the Hull Central Library always make us feel very welcome and we had a wonderful set of delegates.

Jo Hutchinson was the official assistant for the day and she did a lot of the preparation too, all of which helped to make the day such a great success. In fact, the day would not have gone ahead without Jo's admirable endeavours.

Isaac also addressed the delegates at the start of the day and Chris Matthews, the local CSC Regional Organizser, did the same towards the end of the day.

As always on our training days, we worked on many topics, including the CSC curriculum, mini-games and a discussion on the benefits of chess.

The special room we use 'also holds a significant collection of books about Napoleon, based on the collection assembled by John Wilson Smith, a local fish merchant, from whom the collection was purchased in 1958. The collection was added to until the 1980s, though only English language material was purchased' according to this document. 

It certainly is an extremely impressive collection and anyone wanting to research Napoleon and his life should take note of the facility.

I always feel very at home in Hull and would like to do more in the city. Consider me open to offers.

Thank you, everyone, for a very enjoyable event (and more thanks to Isaac for bringing three fans to our room to counter the full-on radiator effect, which had pushed the temperature to an extraordinary 30°C).

Here are some captured moments from the day.

Three Ducal Coronets - 
the famous Coat of Arms for Kingston-upon-Hull

I wonder who won this game?

It is always great to be reunited with Jo

Chris Matthews addressing the delegates

'Maybe two knights, Josephine?'

CSC Training Day Tour 2023-4: Salford Debut

October's leg of the CSC Training Day Tour took us, for the first time, to Salford.

John Merry, Deputy City Mayor of Salford, was instrumental in bringing the training day to the city.

In former years, we had always delivered training days in Manchester (such as in 2022) but this time we were making our training day debut in a city which is obviously geographically very close, but nevertheless quite different in so many ways.

There is a lot of history in Salford. Remarkably, they were on the opposite side to Manchester during the English Civil War (Salford was Royalist).

Famous people hailing from Salford include Albert Finney, Christopher Eccleston, Alistair Cook, Robert Powell, John Virgo, Elkie Brooks and Al Read; all hard acts to follow, but we can only try our best.

I spent some time exploring the Council Chambers and absorbing some of the immediate history on display.

Then it was time to meet the delegates and tell them as much about CSC and our methods as possible over the course of the busy day.

It was the first time we had delivered a training day within council chambers. The facilities were excellent (thank you, Abel!).

We were joined by several special guests, namely Catherine Lloyd, John Merry, Chris Fegan and Neil Dainty.

The delegates worked hard all day and especially enjoyed the Kahoot Quiz finale, for which we made excellent use of the very large screen.

Here is a gallery from the day.

Catherine Lloyd helped me to deliver the training day

With Chris Fegan, CSC Chief Operating Officer

John Merry, Deputy City Mayor of Salford

Thank you, Salford! We hope to return to you soon.

Head here for details on our forthcoming CSC Tutor Training Days. More dates will be added very soon.

28th Yarm Team Chess Championships

The 28th Yarm Team Chess Championships took place yesterday and the event attracted 26 teams of four players.

This was considerably more than the other post-COVID years (we had 12 teams last year, for example).

We had an exciting and very busy day and the weather was on our side, too; we were expecting rain but it didn't appear and the children were able to enjoy themselves playing football, table tennis or just relaxing with their teachers and parents in the wonderful surroundings of Yarm Preparatory School.

CSC provided medals for all of the teams finishing in the top three positions of both sections and book prizes for the highest-placed CSC schools (thank you, Nevil!).

Every player received a certificate of participation and there were extra certificates for the top three teams in both sections.

Well done and thank you to the control team of Catherine Lloyd and Johannes Grundmann - and to everyone who helped to make the event such a great success!

We are proud of what we are achieving together and this particular event, which is one of the longest-running series of chess tournaments in the world, looks all set to go from strength to strength.

Here are the results.

Under-9s

1st: Yarm A, 14.5 points

2nd: Yarm B, 14 points

3rd: Holy Trinity, 13 points (and top CSC school)

11: Yarm C

10.5: Fairfield A, Yarm E, Westgarth

7.5: Fairfield B

4: Yarm F

1.5: Yarm D

Under-11s

1st: Yarm A, 18.5 points

2nd: Yarm C, 14 points

3rd: Yarm D, 11.5 points

11: Fairfield B (top CSC school)

10.5: Norton A, Norton B and Preston A

10: Yarm E

9.5: Fairfield A, Westgarth A

9: Yarm B

8.5: Preston B

7.5: Throston, Westgarth B

6.5: Yarm F

5.5: Whale Hill

We conclude our report with a gallery from the day (all photographs are © Johannes Grundmann).