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).