The third residential Youth Camp took place at Caythorpe Court in Lincolnshire at the end of August, with 26 particpants. As before, it was a mixture of outdoor activities, Go games and mentoring, aimed at those in school year 6 or older, but a day longer than previous camps.

This year's Mind Sports Olympiad was held, like the previous five editions, at the JW3 community centre in London. As usual a large variety of games and mind sports, both new and traditional, was played over the eight days of the event. Several Go players and their families were seen in non-Go events, with some, like Natasha Regan, winning a Gold medal.

Unfortunately the first Go event (9x9) scheduled for the Friday morning, 23rd August, was cancelled by the organisers as they thought there was only one entry (Paco Garcia de la Banda from Spain), but it turned out there was an error in their registration system which was not passing that event over to their tournament system; some people were disappointed not to play.

Here is the final report from UK team leader and team coach, Martin and Helen Harvey, from their base in Xi'an:

19 Aug (Day 4): Today was full of Chinese history and culture. In the morning, the organisers took us to visit Louguantai Temple, situated in the northern foothills of the Qin Mountains (70 km east of Xi'an), the birthplace of Taoism. It is a famous holy place for tourists to visit, founded in the Western Zhou Dynasty and flourishing in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. It is a beautiful and scenic spot, surrounded by mountains, a bamboo forest and decorative buildings. Whilst there the teenagers dressed up in traditional costume, sang, played games of Go and practiced bow and arrow shooting, much to the delight of the media cameras. Great fun was enjoyed by all.

The 2019 Isle of Man Go Festival, held in memory of its creator, Leo Phillips, took place in Port Erin in a new venue, St Andrew’s Church Hall. Although attendance was a disappointing 21 the participants (and several spouses and friends) were a friendly lot and the congress spirit of previous years continued. The new venue proved a success. It was slightly nearer the sea providing a seaview from the kitchen window (the well equipped kitchen also doubling up as an analysis room). Although the cooler than usual for August and slightly breezy weather meant that no one took advantage of the garden to play outside while admiring the seaview.

The main Open tournament was won narrowly on tie-break by Richard Hunter (1d Bristol) from Sandy Taylor (2d Cambridge), but Sandy got his revenge by winning the Afternoon Tournament.

Two European teams, one from France and one from the UK, were invited thanks to Fan Hui to take part in the 2019 "I-GO" "The Belt and Road International I-Go Youth Go Invitational Tournament", for teenagers. This runs from 16th to 22nd August in Xi'an in China.

Here is the first report from UK team captain and team coach, Martin and Helen Harvey:

The UK Team are enjoying the first few days of their trip to Xi'an. There are 20 teams, from six countries. The 4 UK Team members are Edmund Smith, Rowan Borrow, Daniel Gascoyne and Amy Upton - the latter 3 from Cheadle Hulme School (CHS), where Helen and I volunteer. We have thus opted for Cheadle Hulme School as the UK team name, as most of the other teams have a school name.

Congratulations to Lizzy Pollitt (facing the camera), 18 kyu from Cheadle Hulme School, for winning Group E of the Pair Go tournament at the annual 2-week European Go Congress, in Brussels this year.

Partnering a 2 dan from China, Li Feng, they won 5 out of their 6 games, including the final. Their prizes - presented by Martin Stiassny, EGF President - were nice wood-mounted shields plus a cash prize, on top of the Pair Go T-shirts generously awarded to all competitors.

It's been a successful week for Lizzy, on her debut EGC, as she also won 3 of her 4 games in the Main tournament - the Open European Championship Main Tournament.

The Summer 2019 edition of the BGJ is now available for members to read.

The sun shone well for the 27th annual Welsh Open Go Tournament, held as ever in the coastal town of Barmouth, nestling at the foot of beautiful Snowdonia. 36 players vied over the two days, in the fine Min-y-Mor hotel, where many players had booked rooms, with others opting for the many nearby B+Bs. One intrepid youngster, whilst disabled, travelled solo from Potsdam in Germany, for his first-ever UK trip. The main organiser Helen Harvey was pleased both with the numbers and being sung Happy Birthday at prize giving! We were pleased to have a group of Chinese dan-players leading the field, plus four players who made it over from Nottingham for the weekend, and the return of old faces Eric and Elinor from Swindon.

In celebration of 25 years of Go in Durham, Durham Go Tournament 2019 was suitably festive - from the Go Club cupcakes to the 25 Year t-shirts (0.25% of the 10,000 year ko!)

The weekend started with players meeting in the pub for a meal on the Friday night. There were 36 entries to the tournament - 15 either current Durham players or alumni of the Durham club, and 18 people who had no connection with the Durham club at all. In total 16 clubs were represented; it was particularly good to see the fledgling Beverley Go Club in attendance.

Durham is a friendly, 6-round, weekend-long tournament. This year it was, for the third year running, held at the Oriental Museum.

The 38th British Pair Go Championship was held at its now regular venue, the Red Lion in Hatfield. As well as serving lunches and drinks, this has a garden to sit in (when it is not raining), is very close to the railway station and has some nearby shops (including that Hertfordshire delight, a Simmons bakery).

Some of the stronger pairs could not play this time; for instance Natasha Regan was lecturing on Go at the Cheltenham Science Festival. However, thanks to the minibus from Cheadle Hulme School (CHS) there were still 15 pairs, many including youngsters.