Blaxland Fundraising Event

Yesterday was the Blaxland fund raising tournament to assist the Phillip and John Hamilton with their expenses to travel to Malaysia for the World Youth Scrabble Championships.

There were a number of very pleasing aspects to this tournament.

1. Phillip and John organised just about the entire event. I did offer to help and did help, but to be fair there was not that much for me to do. They had most things sorted. I might also add that it was a family affair and Shelley, Ruth Hamilton also were there the whole day and assisted greatly.
2. The venue - This was the library at Blaxland High School. There was where Tony Hunt and myself did an exhibition match for the school kids in the library about 5 years ago. I remember the day well. This was the day John Hamilton became hooked on Scrabble. I wrote up the event as an article. Ellen King, the librarian was around then and was there yesterday as well offering wonderful support to the kids. Ellen has asked if I would do another exhibition match there next year.
3. There were so many youth players here...great to see. I will not name them all, but I think the count was 6 of the 32 players.
4. Also of great excitement for me was to see three players that have attended my house to play Scrabble over the last year take the plunge and play in their first tournament.

I will give more details later of wins and bonuses etc.