Hi Everyone
Firstly thank you to all of you that have supported us and for the kind and constructive comments that have been posted over the last week about the London event, I hope we can continue to improve and attract more players to future events.
Well we have been busy closing everything after the London events and ensuring all players and suppliers have been paid. We have also been analysing the feedback from players, press and corporate partners and though we still have much more information to piece together I thought it would be good to give out a brief summary of what we hope to achieve in the next few months. I would also like to clarify our position with live events in 2015 and the aims for 2016.
Jeanette Paul and many others have been assisting us with our software and it is our intention to have this launched now by the middle of January. Once it is launched we will start running on line tournaments and various other promotions. We will also plan to run our first “tablet tournament” by the end of March. These will be explained more in our next update as we have so much to achieve I don’t want to promise something that we cannot deliver.
With regards to our next championships and support for local events. We have a call this week with the ABSP to see if we can move forward our discussions on how we can support each other in the coming year. Many members have been supportive and the conversations we had at the SCT and since have meant that we are much closer to formalising a plan. This is also the case with John Chew of NASPA and we hope that we can also make an announcement for the USA before Christmas. Once we have an agreed structure that we feel works for live event support we will be contacting all the other countries to offer them the chance to join in on a global qualifying solution for the next MSI world championships in 2016.
Elie and several WESPA members have been very supportive and in many areas we have received positive comments from several countries. We do however recognise that many players do not like our event format and prefer an invitational style approach. This is something that we do not agree with at this time as in our opinion it is detrimental to attracting new players and sponsors.
We were approached some time ago and informed that WESPA wished to run their own event in one of three territories in 2015. We were planning to run an event in Hong Kong had we felt that the support would have been available from the community as a whole following the London event. It quickly became clear that several WESPA members had decided that they wished to run their own event no matter what and so we had a decision to make. I spoke to Mattel and we agreed that it would be damaging and financially difficult to run two events close to the same time in the same hemisphere and as a result we felt it best to stand aside. We also decided it would be prudent to return to the bi Annual running of the SCT which would also give us time to run more qualifiers and recruit more countries. We are considering a European and USA event instead but will gauge a response before we do. We wish WESPA every success with their event and hope that they can increase the awareness of Scrabble globally.
As many of you know Collins will be launching an updated dictionary next year. They visited the SCT and as a result we are hopeful that we will be working with them and their education department with the launch in May. We are seeking to encourage Collins to become more involved in the Scrabble community and to support with more training solutions and educational events. As soon as I have more to report I will let you all know.
We will be asking the community that have the technical knowledge to support a developer group that we wish to create in the New Year; we wish to add several new features to the academy throughout 2015 and offer free tournament software to everyone globally. Given the knowledge and expertise around the world we feel that together we can also build training assets, puzzles, dictionary training and much more.
Laura has been in touch with several other countries and we expect that when we launch the first phase of the ranking system (should be mid-January) that we will have Spanish and French players as well. We are still working on getting the WESPA data in a useable format.
When we re launch the academy site we are hopeful that the new features and pricing will encourage all of you to join and help support the growth of the sport to a wider community. We have learnt many things over the last few years and now that we have the ear of the media we intend to take very careful and constructive steps forward. Please continue to offer your suggestions as constructively as possible and we will do our best to asses as many of them as possible. There are so many FB pages, websites and other community pages it is sometimes difficult to monitor them all so please post your suggestions on the Mindsports academy or Mindsports international FB pages.
We will issue another update before Christmas.
Thanks
Dave

Hi Everyone
Firstly thank you to all of you that have supported us and for the kind and constructive comments that have been posted over the last week about the London event, I hope we can continue to improve and attract more players to future events.
Well we have been busy closing everything after the London events and ensuring all players and suppliers have been paid. We have also been analysing the feedback from players, press and corporate partners and though we still have much more information to piece together I thought it would be good to give out a brief summary of what we hope to achieve in the next few months. I would also like to clarify our position with live events in 2015 and the aims for 2016.
Jeanette Paul and many others have been assisting us with our software and it is our intention to have this launched now by the middle of January. Once it is launched we will start running on line tournaments and various other promotions. We will also plan to run our first “tablet tournament” by the end of March. These will be explained more in our next update as we have so much to achieve I don’t want to promise something that we cannot deliver.
With regards to our next championships and support for local events. We have a call this week with the ABSP to see if we can move forward our discussions on how we can support each other in the coming year. Many members have been supportive and the conversations we had at the SCT and since have meant that we are much closer to formalising a plan. This is also the case with John Chew of NASPA and we hope that we can also make an announcement for the USA before Christmas. Once we have an agreed structure that we feel works for live event support we will be contacting all the other countries to offer them the chance to join in on a global qualifying solution for the next MSI world championships in 2016.
Elie and several WESPA members have been very supportive and in many areas we have received positive comments from several countries. We do however recognise that many players do not like our event format and prefer an invitational style approach. This is something that we do not agree with at this time as in our opinion it is detrimental to attracting new players and sponsors.
We were approached some time ago and informed that WESPA wished to run their own event in one of three territories in 2015. We were planning to run an event in Hong Kong had we felt that the support would have been available from the community as a whole following the London event. It quickly became clear that several WESPA members had decided that they wished to run their own event no matter what and so we had a decision to make. I spoke to Mattel and we agreed that it would be damaging and financially difficult to run two events close to the same time in the same hemisphere and as a result we felt it best to stand aside. We also decided it would be prudent to return to the bi Annual running of the SCT which would also give us time to run more qualifiers and recruit more countries. We are considering a European and USA event instead but will gauge a response before we do. We wish WESPA every success with their event and hope that they can increase the awareness of Scrabble globally.
As many of you know Collins will be launching an updated dictionary next year. They visited the SCT and as a result we are hopeful that we will be working with them and their education department with the launch in May. We are seeking to encourage Collins to become more involved in the Scrabble community and to support with more training solutions and educational events. As soon as I have more to report I will let you all know.
We will be asking the community that have the technical knowledge to support a developer group that we wish to create in the New Year; we wish to add several new features to the academy throughout 2015 and offer free tournament software to everyone globally. Given the knowledge and expertise around the world we feel that together we can also build training assets, puzzles, dictionary training and much more.
Laura has been in touch with several other countries and we expect that when we launch the first phase of the ranking system (should be mid-January) that we will have Spanish and French players as well. We are still working on getting the WESPA data in a useable format.
When we re launch the academy site we are hopeful that the new features and pricing will encourage all of you to join and help support the growth of the sport to a wider community. We have learnt many things over the last few years and now that we have the ear of the media we intend to take very careful and constructive steps forward. Please continue to offer your suggestions as constructively as possible and we will do our best to asses as many of them as possible. There are so many FB pages, websites and other community pages it is sometimes difficult to monitor them all so please post your suggestions on the Mindsports academy or Mindsports international FB pages.
We will issue another update before Christmas.
Thanks
Dave

Hi
A quick thank you
Firstly I would like to offer my congratulations to Craig Beevers on his fantastic performance and on becoming the world champion. He is a very gentle and intelligent young man who I believe will represent the Scrabble community in an educated and professional manner. He was one of the first people I met in the community and he has helped my team over the years in understanding and developing the game, I hope that this continues as we try and progress the awareness of the sport in future years.
I would also like to add my congratulations to Chris Lipe and all the other players who made the event a great success, the MSI team thank you for your support and hope to see you at future events. As John Chew also noted it was wonderful to see so many players over the weekend playing in the open and youth event, it made for a great atmosphere in the room.
With the world of on line streaming quickly becoming the norm we felt it was important to try and add a variety in the reporting and I believe that the quality and diversity of the live reporting was excellent. I thank everyone who participated and can assure you that they will be back many times in the future as this is something we intend to do a great deal of in coming years.
Many players spoke to me during the event and I will be reporting back to all communities in the coming weeks on what we are planning but for now this is Craig’s moment and I don’t think it is the time to make new announcements.
Last but not least I would like to thank everyone who helped make this possible, the list is too long to mention them all (special thank you to Siobhan though, you are a star) but I know the hours of dedication that went into pulling this off. You are a pleasure to work with and I hope that the 18 hour days, lousy food, constant e mails, phone calls and travel have not put you off doing this again
Dave

Hi
A quick thank you
Firstly I would like to offer my congratulations to Craig Beevers on his fantastic performance and on becoming the world champion. He is a very gentle and intelligent young man who I believe will represent the Scrabble community in an educated and professional manner. He was one of the first people I met in the community and he has helped my team over the years in understanding and developing the game, I hope that this continues as we try and progress the awareness of the sport in future years.
I would also like to add my congratulations to Chris Lipe and all the other players who made the event a great success, the MSI team thank you for your support and hope to see you at future events. As John Chew also noted it was wonderful to see so many players over the weekend playing in the open and youth event, it made for a great atmosphere in the room.
With the world of on line streaming quickly becoming the norm we felt it was important to try and add a variety in the reporting and I believe that the quality and diversity of the live reporting was excellent. I thank everyone who participated and can assure you that they will be back many times in the future as this is something we intend to do a great deal of in coming years.
Many players spoke to me during the event and I will be reporting back to all communities in the coming weeks on what we are planning but for now this is Craig’s moment and I don’t think it is the time to make new announcements.
Last but not least I would like to thank everyone who helped make this possible, the list is too long to mention them all (special thank you to Siobhan though, you are a star) but I know the hours of dedication that went into pulling this off. You are a pleasure to work with and I hope that the 18 hour days, lousy food, constant e mails, phone calls and travel have not put you off doing this again
Dave

Hi All
We are travelling at the moment and excited to get into the Excel centre tomorrow morning and set up. (They wont let us in tonight, so tomorrow morning will be a VERY early start ) I just wanted everyone to know that only pre registration on the site is closede, you can still turn up and pay in the morning before 8.45am. The building opens at 8am. We seem to have a lot of last minute interest and so we want to give everyone the chance to still enter.
Thanks
Dave

Hi All
We are travelling at the moment and excited to get into the Excel centre tomorrow morning and set up. (They wont let us in tonight, so tomorrow morning will be a VERY early start ) I just wanted everyone to know that only pre registration on the site is closede, you can still turn up and pay in the morning before 8.45am. The building opens at 8am. We seem to have a lot of last minute interest and so we want to give everyone the chance to still enter.
Thanks
Dave

Hi All
We are travelling at the moment and excited to get into the Excel centre tomorrow morning and set up. (They wont let us in tonight, so tomorrow morning will be a VERY early start ) I just wanted everyone to know that only pre registration on the site is closede, you can still turn up and pay in the morning before 8.45am. The building opens at 8am. We seem to have a lot of last minute interest and so we want to give everyone the chance to still enter.
Thanks
Dave

Hi Everyone

I would like to give a brief update about the forthcoming MSI world championships at Excel. www.mindsportsevents.com you may have seen that Mattel are now promoting this for the first time on their Scrabble site, which is a great step in the right direction. They are also helping support a free to play are and assisting us with the interest we have now received from the worlds press. To date we have had Channel 4, BBC Breakfast TV, Al jazzeera UK, NBC Universal all ask to attend and will be interviewing various players and groups. This is most likely on the Friday and Saturday.
There will also be various radio interviews in the UK as well throughout next week.
Collins is now going to attend and will be sitting with us to plan next year’s word launch. The ECF (English Chess Federation) will be there. We also hope to be able to announce an extra event that will take place in Seville in February during another major event we are running. The Go society will also be supplying information and equipment as well as working with us to add them to the Academy for the first quarter of next year.
The new MSA website will sadly not be completed on time but the new Scrabble software should be ready along with a demonstration on the new ranking system and calendar. We are receiving data every week from groups around the world (2.2 million records and counting) and this has delayed our launch until early January. This along with awaiting feedback from various groups on how they want to be supported in 2015 is taking up a great deal of time.
We obviously can only provide the events and services but if you truly want your sport to grow then there is no better way than to attend and to speak to us and all involved on how together we can move things forward and to attract new players. I am sure that many of you would attend if you could and in future I hope that our qualifying ideas prove a hit.
I hope to see you next week
All the best

Dave

Hi Everyone

I would like to give a brief update about the forthcoming MSI world championships at Excel. www.mindsportsevents.com you may have seen that Mattel are now promoting this for the first time on their Scrabble site, which is a great step in the right direction. They are also helping support a free to play are and assisting us with the interest we have now received from the worlds press. To date we have had Channel 4, BBC Breakfast TV, Al jazzeera UK, NBC Universal all ask to attend and will be interviewing various players and groups. This is most likely on the Friday and Saturday.
There will also be various radio interviews in the UK as well throughout next week.
Collins is now going to attend and will be sitting with us to plan next year’s word launch. The ECF (English Chess Federation) will be there. We also hope to be able to announce an extra event that will take place in Seville in February during another major event we are running. The Go society will also be supplying information and equipment as well as working with us to add them to the Academy for the first quarter of next year.
The new MSA website will sadly not be completed on time but the new Scrabble software should be ready along with a demonstration on the new ranking system and calendar. We are receiving data every week from groups around the world (2.2 million records and counting) and this has delayed our launch until early January. This along with awaiting feedback from various groups on how they want to be supported in 2015 is taking up a great deal of time.
We obviously can only provide the events and services but if you truly want your sport to grow then there is no better way than to attend and to speak to us and all involved on how together we can move things forward and to attract new players. I am sure that many of you would attend if you could and in future I hope that our qualifying ideas prove a hit.
I hope to see you next week
All the best

Dave

Hi Everyone

I would like to give a brief update about the forthcoming MSI world championships at Excel. www.mindsportsevents.com you may have seen that Mattel are now promoting this for the first time on their Scrabble site, which is a great step in the right direction. They are also helping support a free to play are and assisting us with the interest we have now received from the worlds press. To date we have had Channel 4, BBC Breakfast TV, Al jazzeera UK, NBC Universal all ask to attend and will be interviewing various players and groups. This is most likely on the Friday and Saturday.
There will also be various radio interviews in the UK as well throughout next week.
Collins is now going to attend and will be sitting with us to plan next year’s word launch. The ECF (English Chess Federation) will be there. We also hope to be able to announce an extra event that will take place in Seville in February during another major event we are running. The Go society will also be supplying information and equipment as well as working with us to add them to the Academy for the first quarter of next year.
The new MSA website will sadly not be completed on time but the new Scrabble software should be ready along with a demonstration on the new ranking system and calendar. We are receiving data every week from groups around the world (2.2 million records and counting) and this has delayed our launch until early January. This along with awaiting feedback from various groups on how they want to be supported in 2015 is taking up a great deal of time.
We obviously can only provide the events and services but if you truly want your sport to grow then there is no better way than to attend and to speak to us and all involved on how together we can move things forward and to attract new players. I am sure that many of you would attend if you could and in future I hope that our qualifying ideas prove a hit.
I hope to see you next week
All the best

Dave