December Chess Club Announcements

Sent 12/11/04

Please remember, do not hit reply. Use my email: timartha@swbell.net if you need to contact me. Thanks.

Party on Tuesday

We do have chess next week. Tuesday is our big party. Laurie Zimmerman is organizing the pizza sale and delivery. If your child wants pizza on Tuesday, it is $1.50 per slice. Many have already ordered and paid. But, you can still order it by emailing Laurie at LZIMMERM@HOUSTONISD.ORG and send the money on Tuesday. Specify cheese or pepperoni and give your child's name and grade. We will still have the usual snacks available free of additional charge. I will need many volunteers starting at 1 pm. We need to fold up chairs and tables in the cafeteria, get the human chess board out and taped together, get the costumes out, blow up balloon swords, etc.... So, if you can come, please do. We can use you whether you can get there at 1 pm or later. Also, it is always a good photo opportunity, so you may want to bring your camera.

Class will meet Wednesday, but not Thursday or Friday

The Wednesday classes will meet. School ends on Thursday with early dismissal at 12:45. So, there will be no Thursday or Friday classes. Classes will resume the first week of January.

Holiday Shopping

Kids like having their own tournament style chess set. I have ordered and received 10 new sets just like the ones we use in club. They are available for sale at $10 each. We have blue bags and green bags and blue boards and green boards. You can mix and match if you want. We also have club t-shirts (the ones we wear at all tournaments) available for $10 as well. We have children's and adult sizes still. Lots of parents wear them too. If you want any of this without your child seeing you buy it, let me know and bring a bag to hide it in.

Winter Chess Camp

We still have some space in our winter camp. I would like to get all registrations and payments in by this Tuesday at club, but will continue to register until the camp is full. Camp is open to kids from outside our club, so if you have friends or neighbors who are interested, let me know. Also, we have some adults coming, coaches from other clubs and one parent. If you want to learn to play as well, you are welcome to register. Note however we will not be teaching how the pieces move, we assume everyone knows the basics. If you need to learn that before coming, I have plenty of links on our web site to tutorial sites. It would just take a couple of hours for an adult to get up to speed with a beginner class.

New Chess Coach Coming!!

I have beeen trying to find another coach for our club. I am delighted to announce that Coach David's good friend National Master Jeff Ashton will be joining our coaching staff as of January. He is moving to Houston over winter break. He will teach in our camp in December and will start working with our club as of January 4th. We are extremely fortunate to have so much talent working with our kids.

Spring Club Fees are Due - New Options

As you know, the club has been struggling this Fall to have enough parental assistance available each week. Therefore, I have decided to go ahead and hire an aide. While one aide is not enough adult help per week to eliminate the need for additional parental assistance, it will at least give me some regular support. I still need at a minimum 2 parent volunteers each week to run the club in a safe manner. So parents, you have the option now of choosing to pay an additional $25 per semester to opt out of the 3 hour obligation you have to assist the club. However, I hope a number of you will continue to assist me. Parents, I am really trying to keep our fees such that everyone can participate. I do not want to price the club out of the reach of a number of families. However, adding the aide and another coach will substantively increase our weekly operating expense. Instead of increasing our base fee though (which is $50 per semester), I would like to suggest the following, and let each family make their own decision. We will evaluate this plan at the end of the semester and see how well it worked. Please not that we do offer financial aid to any family that needs it. We want every child who wants to participate to be able to do so.

Please write which option you are choosing and your child's name and grade in the memo section of your check. Make checks payable to T. H. Rogers. We will start accepting them this Tuesday.

Option 1 - $50
- This is our basic Spring Fee for Tuesday club. It covers all of the snacks, in-house tournament expenses, coaching, and materials.
- You agree to give the club assistance on at least one Tuesday afternoon. The obligation runs from 2:15 pm until were are done (typically no later than 5 pm).

Option 2 - $75
- This includes our basic Spring Fee ($50) for Tuesday club.
- Plus the $25 opt out option to not have to come one Tuesday afternoon per semester.

Option 3 - $50 + gift
- This includes our basic Spring Fee ($50) for Tuesday club.
- You still agree to come one Tuesday afternoon.
- You are including a gift - the amount of your choosing - to help the club defray the cost of the additional coach.

Option 4 - $75 + gift
- This includes our basic Spring Fee ($50) for Tuesday club.
- You are opting out of the Tuesday afternoon obligation.
- You are including a gift - the amount of your choosing - to help the club defray the cost of the additional coach.

Spring Classes

Spring classes resume Wednesday, January 5th. Coach Jeff will be covering Coach David's classes for him through January 12th, while David is away on a much anticipated holiday in the Bahamas. We are assuming all children currently registered will be returning for the Spring semester. The Spring fee is the same as last Fall - $125 for the semester. We only need one check for everything. You can combine the club and classes payments into one if you are registering for both. There are some children we would like to move between classes to better match their current playing level with the class. We will be contacting some families with our suggestions. You do not have to accept these suggestions. We know most of your children have other activities and changing days just may not be an option. However, we will make our recommendations. If you do not hear from us, assume we want your child to continue in the same class. If you are not planning on continuing with class in the spring, please let us know asap, as we would like to make the additional space open to others. If your child does not currently take class, but you are considering it for the spring, please contact me to see if there is space and if we can accomodate them. I do expect to have space in our lower level classes, as we hope to move some kids up.

Spring Tournaments - Information will follow in a separate email.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. However, please remember to use my email timartha@swbell.net and not spam the club.

Martha