Author: Cejones

At this week’s meeting, the new club members will arrive.  We ask all returning club members to make sure and help the new kids feel welcome and help them learn how our club sets up each Friday.  We will watch the ten golden moves video and then make a few announcements to the kids and parents.

Announcements:

1. Upcoming Tournament information
2. Chess club folder information
3. Chess store and chess bucks information
4. Expected behavior during club meetings

Last year, we noticed many of our chess club folders were getting lost or damaged over time.  We decided this year to purchase plastic folders that are more durable and have a built in pocket for the kids to store their earned Chess Bucks.  We chose the Mead StayPut folder shown below:

At tomorrow’s Chess club meeting, we have only returning students attending.  New students will start the following week.  Here is a short 7 minute video we plan to watch during tomorrow’s meeting on the three phases of a Chess game.  The Opening, the Middlegame and the Endgame.

Phases of the Chess game Chesskid video

You will need to log in using your Chesskid account to watch this full 7 minute video.  If you don’t remember your Chesskid account information, or don’t have one, please contact Chris Jones during the meeting or email him at chris@spicewoodchess.org

In the past we had seven different chess skill groups that we used to split up our players.   Panthers, Groups A, B, C, D, E and T.  This year, we decided to simplify into four skill groups:

	New Group Name	Last Year's Name	Description
	Panther Pawns	Panthers and Group E	Beginner Players typically grades K-2 with little or no Chess experience
	Knights	Groups C and D	Intermediate players with some tournament experience typically grades 1-3
	Rooks	Groups A and B	Advanced players with tournament experience typically grades 2-4
	Spicewood Kings	Group T	Expert players with tournament experience typically grades 3-5.

The coaches and club leadership will have the ability to move players into the appropriate skill group based on their observation of the students chess play.

Today the PTA and Spicewood staff held a Get to Know Spicewood Elementary meeting for new 1st – 5th grade parents and students from 8-9 AM in the library.  The students were given a tour of the school while the parents met with the school staff and listened to details about what to expect the first few weeks of school.

The Chess Club setup a table with information about the club and provided the parents with a flyer that describes the club details and a new bookmark for the students to take home.  The bookmark has our website address displayed and on the back has the Fall Chess local scholastic tournament schedule.

We met many new parents that showed interest in joining the Chess club.