All the Right Moves

[Note: thanks to Sue Katz Miller for drafting this!]

For schools that have a clubs program coordinated by the PTA, contact the PTA President or Clubs Liaison for help. For schools that have clubs coordinated by staff (often Title I schools) contact the Principal to find out who coordinates clubs.

Whether they are school staff or a PTA volunteer, the clubs liaison should help you with the following:

1. Announce the club through morning announcements, PTA/school newsletter, and a flyer (preferably translated into Spanish and/or French and Amharek depending on your school community).
2. Distribute a sign up form for students.*  It will need to get distributed at least two weeks ahead of the club start time in order to get signed permission forms back from kids. Sometimes the PTA runs a single sign-up form with multiple club options on it.
3. Reserve a room in the school.
4. Plan for snacks.  Match the students who turn in forms to the number of open slots and determine if you have taken in enough money to cover snacks etc.There should always be an option on the sign-up marked "I can't pay the fee" and one marked "here's $5 extra to cover those who cannot pay."**
   
5. Produce a list of parent emergency phones and emails that you will have with you at each session. This is particularly important to call parents who do not pick their kids up on time -- because you will need to wait with the kids until their parents show up.
6. Email parents in the class to introduce yourself and seek help in providing snacks, unless you're willing to do this yourself each week (less work to do it yourself in some ways).
   
7. Communicate with school staff about snack policies (what and where they can eat). Generally, you want to get stuff that doesn't leave crumbs (apple slices, not popcorn). Be sure to note any allergies; seek notification of allergies on the club sign-up form if you conduct signups separately from the PTA.
8. Make friends with the teacher whose classroom you are using, and be sure to leave everything in perfect order. Do not under any circumstances allow students to touch classroom materials. Leaving behind a mess can cause you to lose your space and even end the program.
9. You will also need to have your parent group email list to communicate with parents/guardians about chess tournaments and open play opportunities.

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* While it's best and easiest to coordinate with the school PTA's (or administration's) after school club signup process, ATRM.org will develop a simple signup form for this purpose; watch this post for a link.
** There may be an issue with snack fees under a new MCPS fee policy.  We'll look into this.

Thanks to Pyramid Atlantic community arts store ArtSpring
for the use of their site as a training area!

"All the Right Moves" chess activist Fernando Moreno held several training sessions on Saturday, showing parents and other interested people his manual and the supplies available for anyone willing and able to lead chess clubs in Montgomery County schools.

Meanwhile, dozens of kids and adults participated in another "open chess" event hosted by "All the Right Moves" and Downtown Silver Spring on a beautiful day. Senator Jamie Raskin and local chess prodigy James Pinkerton were on hand as well, playing chess matches against young and old challengers alike, and often teaching basics of the game as well.

"All the Right Moves," Montgomery County's exciting youth chess movement, is sponsoring another open chess play event at Downtown Silver Spring on October 3rd from 1-4pm.

Everyone is welcome!  Join Senator Jamie Raskin, Fernando Moreno, Blair High School chess team members, parents, community leaders, and chess players both young and old for exciting pick-up chess games and loads of fun.

This time we're also holding 3 short one hour trainings for adults interested in leading or helping out with school chess clubs for their kids.  The times are 12-1 pm, 2-3 pm, and 4-5pm, and the place is Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, a short walk away at 8230 Georgia Avenue (map). Fernando Moreno -- our resident chess club guru --will be showing us how he does it at Broad Acres Elementary School. 

In addition to the training, we can check out a well stocked chess supply box (see the "School chess club supply kits available" post below) to a parent or parent willing to take on a chess club at their kids school.  The supply box has 10 chess sets,  a demonstration chess board (hangs on a wall), and a lot of instructional materials.

The upshot is that we have both the expertise (with Fernando) and the supplies to help jumpstart a lot of school chess clubs.  We hope you'll be a part of it.

For more information contact Fernando Moreno at morenofe@aol.com or 240-988-3211.

We owe a great deal of thanks to a number of organizations and people around the county and around the country. 

Downtown Silver Spring has been wonderfully generous not just in letting us have the "open chess" events on Ellsworth Avenue, but also lending stages, tables, and awnings that turned chess meetups into true community events everyone is talking about.

IMPACT Silver Spring sponsored the community meeting where Jamie Raskin raised the idea of starting a chess movement, after talking with Fernando Moreno, and began to get volunteers like myself.  IMPACT has also continued to help us in a very concrete way, by serving as a financial sponsor willing to hold donations in their bank account, and write some important checks that have helped us get the supplies we need to jumpstart school chess clubs.

We're also deeply grateful to an anonymous donor and the good offices of the Montgomery County Foundation for a seed donation that has enabled us to purchase substantial amounts of chess supplies and instructional materials. 

This web site is provided to us through the generosity of the management of Webs.com, an online blogging and site management service that is second to none. 

Montgomery County Safe and Drug-Free Schools provided prizes for the Tai Lam Tournament in May 2009, and David Mehler of the US Chess Center helped run that tournament.  Pyramid Atlantic Art Center has helped by letting us do indoor chess club leader trainings at their ArtSpring store.  Arts on the Block designed and produced t-shirts distributed at the first tournament and free chess events. 

Finally, Chess For Teachers (Tandem Publishing) were fair and prompt suppliers of the excellent instructional materials we've obtained.

Thank you all so much!

Because of the generosity of the Montgomery Foundation and an anonymous donor, we can now supply chess sets and instructional materials for up to 25 Montgomery County school clubs.

Below is a photo of a supply box and its contents.

Each box contains chess game supplies...

• Plastic box and lid
• Chess board mats and bagged sets of white and black game pieces (10 sets) (green bags not shown)
  
• Demonstration chess wall board
• Demonstration chess pieces (next photo)

The board shows the positions after 12 moves
of the famous "Opera Game" between Paul Morphy
and two aristocrats, played in Paris in 1858.

... as well as instructional materials:

• Dynamic Chess Lessons (teacher's manual)
• Teaching Life Skills Through Chess: A Guide for Educators and Counselors (by Fernando Moreno)
• "All the Right Moves" Guide to Start a Chess Club notebook (by Fernando Moreno; not shown)
  
• Welcome to the Game of Chess (2)
  
• Welcome to Chess Ideas (2)
  
• Welcome to Checkmate (2)
  
• Chess Poems (for younger students)
• a donation of 3 books to your school library: one of each of the "Welcome" chess manuals
  

These instructional materials come highly recommended by "All the RIght Moves" own Fernando Moreno -- he's used them with great success at Broad Acres Elementary School.    They're written in clear, simple terms that will help anyone of any experience level -- in chess or in the classroom -- be a success in leading a chess club class.

If you're interested in leading a chess club at your child's school, please contact either Thomas Nephew (301-562-9393, thomasn528@prodigy.net) or Fernando Moreno  (240-988-3211, morenofe@aol.com). 

We'll be very happy to check out a supply box like the one above to you for as long as you're active with your school's chess club.  (In the event that you can't continue as a chess club sponsor, coach, or parent, we ask only that you return it to us at the end of the school year or pass it along to another parent and notify us.)

We look forward to hearing from you!

"All the Right Moves" held two more summer events this summer at Downtown Silver Spring -- one on July 26th and the other on August 23rd. 

I can only speak about the July 26th event, since I was in Maine when the second one took place.  The July event was a big success, with lots of chess play, the familiar "giant pieces" chess game on the stage set up for us by the great people at Downtown Silver Spring.  In all, we added over two dozen more players, parents, and volunteers to our list of supporters. At this point, there are already nearly 60 players on our supporters list, and dozens of parents and volunteers. 

The Tai Lam tournament was a great success, with nearly 60 kids from participating from all over Montgomery County.

The Takoma/Silver Spring Voice did a pictorial combining photos from the May 8th kickoff and the May 30 tournament. (PDF, HTML), and Sue Katz Miller wrote a great article ("All the Right Moves: More Chess, Less Violence", PDF) for the Voice explaining the origin of "All the Right Moves and the Tai Lam tournament:

State Senator Jamie Raskin wants to launch a national “chess movement.” In his first move, he plans to use chess to capture every school in Montgomery County and promote the game as an alternative to gang violence. Or at least that is the goal of “All the Right Moves,” a new organization founded by Raskin, school guidance counselor Fernando Moreno, Impact Silver Spring, and a coalition of community activists. Raskin will announce the creation of All the Right Moves and a new chess tournament at a kickoff event in downtown Silver Spring on Friday, May 9th at 5 p.m. on Ellsworth Avenue.

The location on Ellsworth is no coincidence. It was a favorite spot of 14-year-old Tai Lam, who was randomly shot and killed by a gang member on a public bus on his way home from downtown Silver Spring last fall. All the Right Moves is planning the first annual Tai Lam Invitational Chess Tournament in his memory, with students from elementary, middle and high schools competing on Saturday May 30th [...]. Tai Lam’s family has endorsed the idea.

The Tai Lam Chess Tournament will now be held at the same location as the May 8th kickoff event -- Silver Plaza, Downtown Silver Spring (map)-- with many thanks to the wonderful hospitality of Jennifer Nettles and Downtown Silver Spring. 

Downtown Silver Spring is within walking distance of Silver Spring Metro stop; for those driving, there are two nearby parking garages with free Saturday parking -- one on Wayne Avenue just off Fenton, the other a block further north on Ellsworth Avenue just off Fenton.

The tournament will be on Saturday, May 30, as originally planned, but will take place from 1:15pm to 4:30pm.  Please register in advance using this web site or by contacting Fernando Moreno at morenofe@aol.com or 240-988-3211; to help organize the tournament, we'll need your child's name, grade, and school.

The tournament leader will be David Mehler of the US Chess Center. 

Prizes for participants have been furnished by MCPS Safe and Drug-Free Schools, thanks to Rita Rumbaugh.

We look forward to seeing you there!

The May 8th "All the Right Moves' kickoff was by all accounts a great success, judging by the smiles and the lively, friendly atmosphere -- and the fact that after just half an hour the plaza management agreed to make it a monthly event! 

The weather stayed nice, and passersby -- including lots of kids -- stopped to see what was going on, and then stayed to play chess at the wonderful tent and stage setup provided by Jennifer Nettles and her staff at Downtown Silver Spring.

The event was dominated by a stage with oversized plastic chess pieces on a rollout chess mat.  Allan Savage (a FIDE Master, U.S. Chess Life Master, and International Master in Correspondence Chess) lent some chess prestige to the proceedings, and played a number of games on stage, some against kids, some against passersby, and a grand finale against Senator Jamie Raskin.

Also on hand were community and chess activists like Susan Katz Miller, Fernando Moreno, Mary Hylander, Mike Hersh, and Alan Bowser -- who took a great series of photos of the event that you can look at at his flickr.com site.

But the real story was how many kids enjoyed themselves playing chess on a beautiful Friday afternoon, and what a great spirit "All the Right Moves" brought to Silver Plaza and downtown Silver Spring. 

About 2 dozen kids and a dozen volunteers signed up to play in or help with the May 30 tournament -- we'll be getting back to them soon. 

Again, many heartfelt thanks to Jennifer Nettles and the Downtown Silver Spring management for providing a wonderful venue and lots of support.  Thanks also to everyone else for helping, for watching -- and for playing chess!

Registering for All The Right Moves -- and for the Tai Lam Invitational Tournament on May 30, 2009** -- takes a few simple steps:

1. If you're a kid, STOP!  Get your parents and have them help you with this.
2. Click on the "Register Today" link here or to the right.
3. Fill it in and click "Sign up."
   
4. This should result in an e-mail sent to the address you specify in step 2, usually in a matter of seconds or minutes.  Be sure to look in your e-mail client's spam filter, too, since this will usually be the first e-mail you've ever received from this web site.
5. You now have the chance to "edit profile" about the child or (if you're a coach or interested parent) yourself, especially:

1. school,
2. grade,
3. chess coach and club (if any),
4. chess experience, and
5. (before May 30) ...registering to attend the Tai Lam Invitational Tournament on May 30* (we hope you do!) -- this is a little check box at the very bottom of the page. 
   
   If you're registering for the tournament here and want us to expect you on May 30, it's important you check this box!
   
   NB: People who don't have Internet access, or who don't wish to register their children for the tournament via this site, can contact Fernando Moreno (a Broadacres ES school counselor) at morenofe@aol.com; he'll need the participant's name, school, and grade level.
   

Privacy

Your child's school and grade help us figure out who to match him or her up with in chess tournaments and clubs.  This and other identifying information (e.g., name and age) is kept private -- only administrators (adults in charge of this "All the Right Moves" web site) can see it.

"I am..."

For parents interested in volunteering for "All the Right Moves," the right answer to "I am..." is simply "A parent of a chess player."  For those kids entering information about themselves (with their parents' permission), the right answer is "A chess player."  We would appreciate kids' parents allowing their kids to register as "chess players" so we can pair kids with fellow players in their school, and so we can pair them with opponents at their age and skill levels, and so we can award school level trophies.  All information is confidential and will not be shared with anyone but ATRM organizers.

About Me, Signature, Profile Image -- recommend leaving blank
This web site -- donated by a generous supporter -- has a signup process that currently automatically encourages this, but due to valid concerns about kids' privacy and online security, we recommend that you not fill in anything in this area for your child.  If you do fill in these items for your child or yourself, be aware that they would automatically be public to other members of the site.

Changing a profile

You can always come back later and change a profile -- including answers to any of the above items -- by clicking the "Edit Profile" link.

I hope these instructions work for everyone -- but feel free to leave comments (see the link just above this post, on the right)  about anything that needs more explanation, and I'll answer your question and probably go back and clarify this post.

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* Details about the Tai Lam tournament (time, place) are here.

** Again, you can register your child for the tournament without registering for this site by contacting Fernando Moreno at morenofe@aol.com; he'll need your child's name, school, and grade level.