I suppose it's alright to "advertise" for my club, since I'm not making any money off of it and I've already introduced a few hundred kids to ChessKid.com in less than a year. 

I run a free online chess club for kids of all ages and skill levels. It's called the CurrClick Chess Club. Our priorities are fun and safety. It's on ChessKid.com, and we're currently the site's second-biggest group. We have live chess classes about once a month, through Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro.

A homeschooling company called CurrClick (http://currclick.com) started the chess club, and I volunteered to be the club's leader. In less that a year, more than 350 kids have joined. However, that does not mean that only homeschoolers can join - the club is open to everyone.

You can message me through this site, email me at jim.v.chesskid@gmail.com, or visit our website to learn more or sign up: http://currclickchessclub.blogspot.com/p/home.html

--Jim

how old are you?

I'm 16 years old.

Hey Jims, that's great! I teach chess in the public and private school systems here in San Francisco. find a safe Internet site for my kids to join is sometimes a problem. It is good to know that you have a program. I checked out your link and it looks great. Thanks for the posting and I'll spread the word!

Thanks a lot!

Before I started the chess club, I joined and looked through several websites. ChessKid.com was the best site by far. It's easy to use, appealing to kids, has plenty of features for chess players of any level to improve (even beginners), and it's clear that the site is designed around safety. The lack of ads is nice too,  but my favorite feature is probably the clubs (of which the CurrClick Chess Club happens to be the largest).

I am glad to hear that the ChessKid.com site is working for you. It's really hard to find a site that is safe for kids. By safe, I mean the chat and commentary/forum areas. I think you're going to improve your game so much by becoming involved with a chess group. My game improved greatly after I started teaching. The great thing about teaching chess is that it forces you to explain complex idea in the simplest of terms. Too often, we read a chess book, playing through the examples and thinking we fully understand them. Then when asked by another chess player for a brief explanation of what we've learned, we find it difficult to present the information. Teaching is the fastest way to improve. Keep us posted about how your club is doing!

I sure will! I agree with everything you said there. If you can teach a concept, then you know you understand it. How many years have you been teaching?

On ChessKid.com, there are no open forums or chat areas, or even the ability to comment on articles, but instead every club has their own private forums as well as other ways to communicate with each other. Blind-friending is also a major plus, so kids don't go adding strangers to their friends list.

Also, for the purpose of full disclosure I'm not a particularly good chess player (my online rating is just under 1000). When CurrClick sent out the newsletter saying they wanted to start a chess club, I just told them I was good with both kids and computers, and I'd taught both of my younger brothers how to play chess (they've both beat me on more than on occasion - and believe me, for my youngest brother it was really an occasion. He ran all over the house, telling everybody about it. Even though he beat me in the game, I felt like I was the one who really won). Anyway, the folks at CurrClick emailed me back and said I had showed the most enthusiasm out of everyone who'd responded, and I was named leader of the chess club.

Here's your first update: in this topic's original post I said over 350 kids had joined. Today, two months later, that number reached 400.

Update! The club is one member short of 550 members!

Hi Jim, Just read your post. I have a 10 year old who is looking for playing games in long duration format (45 mins and above).

Its really difficult to find opponents for anything beyond 30 mins at chess.com.

Please let me know if this is possible to play such games at your club.

Thanks,

Raghav

Update: The club is nine members short of 700 members!

Hi Raghav,

I don't think most people want to play a live game that lasts that long (which would last nearly an hour and a half if both players were to use almost all of their time).

30 minutes is the maximum in live on ChessKid.com. However, if you son is willing to compromise, the site has been growing a lot within the last several months, so it's easy to find an opponent.