Darlington Community carnival - Chess tent

On 25th June Darlington held its annual community carnival.  The carnival centres around Stanhope park just outside the town centre.  The centre piece of the whole day is a themed parade that starts and ends at the park.  Many local schools supported the parade, which was bright, colourful and noisy.

The park was full of different stalls and activities.  There were slides

Rides

face painting

and a giant chess set

The event was very well attended and there was a real buzz in the park.

Darlington chess club decided to take one of the pitches.
We were able to loan a giant chess set

We also loaned a gazebo.  Add a couple of tables, chess sets and willing volunteers and we had a very good pitch.

Anybody who wanted to play got a game.

There was steady stream of willing participants, most seemed to enjoy their games. We had printed some flyers with the club's details and handed them to anyone showing any interest.
There seemed to be two main groups that wanted to play:

• Kids - We play with our Dad at home, but we haven't anywhere else to play
• Adults - I used to play ages ago, but haven't played for years

All were invited to the club and there seemed genuine interest.

The day was really good fun.  It was interesting to see how many people expressed a genuine interest in chess.

Thanks go to
The willing volunteers:
Alec Cinamon
Rod Gilpin
Dave Harris
Jonathan Sams
Bob Donner
AJ Thorne-Wallis (And Sandy AJ's Mum)
John Williams

Special thanks to
Aidan and James Garner for helping to set up, pack away and helping all day