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