BGA Demos Go 1-1 to 200 Youngsters Over Two Days

Despite floods disrupting travel, especially in the N-W, this year's Doki Doki Festival went ahead as planned, in Manchester. Thanks go to all the organisers, helped considerably by members of the friendly Japan Society North West (JSNW).

The annual fun event, with all imaginable Japan-themed activities, stalls and competitions, attracted its usual huge (4,000 over 2 days) and largely youthful attendance. For each such occasion, the organisers invite us back (we're the British Go Association - BGA), to give free Go demos to the public. As ever, we quickly accepted.

17 BGA members helped out over the two days, giving 200 individual people (or small groups) face-to-face introductions to Go, which we ran from 11:00am to 5:30pm, after parking and setting-up our four stalls from 8:00am. Having 17 - especially on the Sunday - helped cover us at busy times, enabling us to take refreshment and other breaks. Our team included six teenagers, two of whom have enjoyed helping out on a number of such occasions, and one of their parents (see below for the names of all our volunteers). At the peak, an impressive 10 Go demos were in progress, simultaneously! We first showed "Easy Go" (first to capture a stone), and played the newcomer. We always asked them to play each other if possible, as it's more fun for them like that. Then for the hardier souls, and queues-permitting, we went on to show and play territory Go.

Good fun was had by volunteers and public alike. We handed out many BGA tri-folds, with details of 5 N-W Go clubs, thus sowing fertile Go seeds and often gaining more club members.

This year we again had 9x9 / 13*13 beginner sets to sell, and also sold some N-W BGA stock of plywood boards and stones.

Helen and Shirley provided important 'front-of-house' duties, helping to encourage public into the demos, and handling sales.

We look forward to next year's Doki Doki, which is already on the BGA Calendar; do come and join the fun!

Photo gallery

Big thanks go to all of:

Amy, Sam, Joseph, Rahul, Abdul, Megan, Shirley, Oliver Bustos Langton (Keele Uni.), Pat Ridley (Chester), Rob Begnett (Beverley), Nils Hanebeck (Kiel and Beverley), Chris Barwise, Joel Barrett, Gary Ashworth, Baoliang Zhang, Helen & Martin Harvey.