It was a most successful tournament! There were 42 players in the Senior Section, and 32 in the Junior Section, making 74 players. The field was made up of Postal Scrabble® Players, newer club players who have played fewer than 30 rated games, School pupil and others who have enquired about Scrabble® or responded to advertisements and articles in the press.

There were wonderful prizes, and SANSPA wishes to thank, in particular:

• Mike Robson for donation of the Janice Robson Windsor West Roosevelt floating trophy for the winner, in memory of his late wife.
• Baring Richardson of Nestlé and Candy Shortt of J Walter Thompson for the posters and Nestlé chocolate hampers.
• Angelique Thompson of Just Fun Toys for the toys and games prizes
• Shirley Cooksley of Quartet Sales and Marketing for the Chambers book prizes.
• Kevin Plumb of SASBO for the Junior Spell-Bound game.
• Alan Moore for the Franklin Scrabble Master, donated for our raffle.

Despite a few small computer glitches and a late start for which we apologise, the day ran smoothly. The only real way to combat these delays is if entries are pre-paid.

There were several category prizes:

In our Puzzle, we asked which 8-letter words contain only one vowel and no Y:

BORSCHTS, PSCHENTS, SCHLEPPS, SCHLICHS, SCHLOCKS, SCHLUMP, SCHMALTZ, SCHMECKS, SCHMOCKS, SCHMUCKS, SCHNAPPS, SCHNORRS, SCHTICKS, SCHTUCKS, SHRIGHTS, SPRIGHTS, STRENGTH, TSKTSKED, TWELFTHS

3 GAMES - SWISS PAIRING

HIGH GAME: Joanne Bullen 528

HIGH WORD: Joanne Bullen 149 "UNPRAISE"

Elizabeth Jackson 1 -86 AND Isse Lerman 0 -144

** Joe Roff was a replacement.

3 GAMES - SWISS PAIRING

HIGH GAME: Gideon Wilk 387

Did not finish - had to leave after 2 games

Gabi Abratt 1 58 AND Leah Constantinou 0 -81

Thanks so much to everyone who played in the first ever Novice Scrabble® Tournament in SA!

I hope you all enjoyed yourselves, learned a lot about Scrabble and will come back and join us soon.