CSC ChessKid Plans Unveiled

CSC have been working on many new plans since the start of the emergency.

YouTube videos and Kahoot! quizzes are all ready to roll and will be made available very soon.

Today's article in The Sunday Times highlights another major aspect of our major new initiative - no fewer than one million free accounts on ChessKid, valid until 25 July 2020.

From The Sunday Times
Page Four, 19.4.2020

Of particular interest to CSC Teesside are the concluding two paragraphs, which feature Jessica, one of our star junior players from The Links Primary School and Catherine, who has been a very active supporter of chess over the course of this school year.

Thank you, ladies, for putting Teesside on the map once more.

Jessica - one in a million - enjoying using ChessKid

In the words of Malcolm Pein, CEO of CSC:

“Our initiative is designed to help parents keep their children engaged constructively in these difficult times in an activity that is also fun. We’d love to enable every child in every school and household to learn and explore this wonderful game of limitless depth. The charity has seen how learning chess can give some children who do not excel in other areas the chance to shine and the game’s universality makes it an ideal tool to improve social mobility.”

For further details, please visit the special Chess at Home section of the CSC website and the two ChessKid sections, one for schools and one for parents.

We have many more announcements still to come, so stay tuned...

Chess For Life Interview

Today I was interviewed by Natasha Regan and Matthew Sadler for their Chess For Life video series.

Please click here to see the interview - and don't forget to subscribe to the channel.

New Blog

A new blog has been launched over at the Chess in Schools and Communities website, to start the ball rolling on a wealth of new projects.

The first post can be found here.

International Chess Challenge: Further Captures

We are pleased to report that our International Chess Challenge has resumed following a couple of weeks' readjustment due to the unusual global circumstances.

This is the last reported position. Black had just captured a knight with 11 ...Bxf3.

Hutt International Boys' School (New Zealand) v The Links (England)

Since then we have had these moves:

12 gxf3 

Capturing the bishop and dealing with the threat of 12 ...Bxd1

12 ...Nxd5

Capturing the pawn, stopping 13 dxc6 and establishing material equality.

This morning I received the latest move from Richard Catterall in New Zealand. His pupils spent some time deciding between exchanging the queens with 13 Qxd8 - bringing the game closer to the endgame - and keeping the queens on the board. They eventually chose the latter option.

13 Qe4

Hutt International Boys' School (New Zealand) v The Links (England)

A very interesting move, keeping as much tension on the board as possible.

Now let us see how The Links pupils will respond.

Napoleon

The post has been arriving infrequently since the start of the emergency and after a few days of letter drought I was very pleased to receive a special burst of chess colour from none other than Napoleon himself!

Can Napoleon remain calm during the current crisis? Corsican!

CSC War Cabinet

Good afternoon, chess players.

I hope you are all being sensible and keeping safe during the current emergency.

You would be forgiven for thinking chess has taken a rest while the ongoing situation prevents our school visits.

However, in reality, the CSC War Cabinet is working very hard on a whole range of new and very exciting plans which we will unveil in due course.

I don't think anyone who likes chess will be disappointed in what we are going to offer in the near future.

We are missing our schools and pupils but please stay tuned, stay indoors and await further announcements. I know you will recognise these as good moves in the struggle against this new and dangerous opponent. We will win this battle if we all keep playing as best we can.

Coexisitng

This week, as the enormity of the world situation became apparent to me, I had to make some tough decisions which would have a major impact on my own lifestyle and, much more importantly, those of others.

 None of my decisions were taken lightly but I believe time will show them to be the correct ones.

Just like so many other self-employed people my entire future career is now precarious and uncertain.

We are on the verge of a complete lockdown in the UK. The coming months will be a major test for all of us, regardless of all factors. Rich, poor, educated, uneducated, qualified, unqualified, privileged, unprivileged; it doesn’t matter. The current problem is widespread and indiscriminate. It is going to change the lives of every single person. Numerous aspects of our lives will never be the same again.



The delay in closing the UK’s schools has not been helpful. I have watched as class sizes have been cut in half and have understood the panic and fear among the front-line workers - even though they have managed to remain completely professional at all times.

Teachers, more often than not the easiest target when people want to start gratuitously criticising others, have, alongside all other school staff, displayed immense courage and commitment in recent times. I know for certain that some of the staff are more at risk than others due to various ailments yet they have still been there every day to provide for the children.

The children have been magnificent this week too. They should not be going through this dreadful experience. Somewhere along the line they have been failed.



Now is not the time to judge the actions - or inactions - of others. The panic-buyers clearly have a much lower panic threshold than the rest of us. We do not know how we would act if we crossed our own personal thresholds. Perhaps we will soon find out.



I am very fortunate to have a small circle of special friends who will always be there to help me (and vice-versa, of course). Many others are nowhere near as fortunate; their instincts and actions will be different. We all have our own battles. Some of them are internal and highly damaging.

Every single person now faces unparalleled challenges, which would have been unimaginable just two weeks ago. We are at a crossroads where suddenly the differing scenarios of ‘everything is important’ and ‘nothing is important’ coexist.



I hope we can find a way to replace anger with understanding, to forestall hatred with love and to use kindness to navigate away from selfishness. This time, we all need to be on the same side.



Please take care, everyone.

We are all valuable and fragile in equal measure.