It's been suggested that it would be much more welcoming if rules to the ongoing games were readily available. Perhaps we could post here, and English Tea mods could sticky the thread and tidy up afterwards if necessary? I volunteered for the one I started on this version of the board:

Animal, Vegetable or Mineral
The goal of this game is to identify a specific living or nonliving item from the Chalet School series. It may be as big as the Tiernjoch or as small as the weights on the cuckoo clock in Tom's doll's house.

1. The winner of the previous round begins the next with a statement such as "I'm thinking of something animal," or "I'm thinking of something that's vegetable with a little mineral."

2. Players frame questions about the item that can be answered "yes" or "no," although the person who knows the answer is free to qualify the answer.

3. Each player should ask only one question at a time, and wait until that question is answered before asking another.

4. It is fine for players B, C and D to ask their own questions while waiting for an answer to player A's question.

The "animal" category includes persons, animals, and animal products. Leather, wool, silk, feathers, non-vegetable sausages, wasps, and eyes that have not yet needed glasses all fit into this category.

The "vegetable" category includes living plants and detached or cooked plant parts as well as products such as wood, paper, linen, cotton, cork, sugar and castor oil. It also includes the fungi and algae that botanists don't count as plants.

The "mineral' category includes metals, gems, salts, chemicals, rocks, mountains, and bodies of water. For purposes of this game, all plastics have been dubbed mineral, even though some are derived from plant products rather than petroleum. Likewise, fossil fuels and amber count as mineral. It is not necessary to include "mineral" to account for the water in fruit juice (vegetable) or milky coffee (animal & vegetable), since both animals and vegetables contain water.

Have I missed anything?

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Castor oil: Triacylglycerol from Ricinus communis containing hydroxy-fatty acids.

Since I started it, I'll try and explain

Subject and Object

It's based on the game mentioned in chapter 18 of Ruey.
One person thinks of a subject and his/her/its related object, which may or may not actually belong to the subject.
People try to guess both subject and object by asking a series of questions in a similar manner to the questions in Animal, Vegetable or Mineral.
The person who finally gets both subject and object sets the next pair. That person may actually only have to identify the object (if the subject has already been guessed) or vice versa.

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A schoolgirl answered the question 'In what countries are elephants found?'
'Elephants are very large and intelligent animals, and are seldom lost.'

Sorry to spree, but it's probably simpler to have a different post for each game, and I was also responsible for

Odd One Out

One person names four people from the CS series. Three of them have something in common, and the fourth is the odd one out. Players have to try and guess which is the odd one out, and why.
The correct guesser sets the next set.

Actually I can't see why we should have to stick to people - we could use any set of four similar CS related items.

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A schoolgirl answered the question 'In what countries are elephants found?'
'Elephants are very large and intelligent animals, and are seldom lost.'

I started Word Association and Which Book is this Line From?

Word Association is just random words - you type the word that comes immediately to mind after you've read the previous poster's word. There is a separate Chalet themed Word Association too, I think. (EDIT: just checked, no that one is called CS A-Z)

After starting Which Book is this Line From? I, em stopped playing fairly quickly so I think the rules have changed a bit and now you have to specify which chapter, event or passage the line is from. The idea is to post a quote from a CS book and then for others to guess where it is from (possibly now you have to say who is involved now too?). Someone else will be along to explain properly soon

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[size=75]"Somehow, he felt, as he had never felt before, the want of a woman to sit facing him as he read a new book on pulmonary complaints." (Jean of Storms)

I started Who am I?

As the name suggests, you have to describe one of the characters from the books. You can put as much or as little detail as you like. Each person takes it in turn to guess, the winner then posts the next challenge.

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A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. Terry Pratchett

I began Five of a Kind:

You have to name five people, places, things, incidents etc that fulfill the given criteria. These range from simple things, like naming five head girls, to really tricky ones that take several contributors to get five answers - like five occasions when the girls were eating ice cream!

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When the going gets tough, the tough eat chocolate.

CS A-Z

What it says on the tin really!

The object is to find a person or thing beginning with each letter of the alphabet in turn (when we can remember the correct order for the letters!)
Usually we have some sort of theme for each alphabet, just to make it a little more challenging and less boring. Check the thread for the begining of the current alphabet to find out what the topic is.
Oh! We sometimes have to cheat a bit when it gets to the harder letters at the end of the alphabet, otherwise it can get completely stuck.

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A schoolgirl answered the question 'In what countries are elephants found?'
'Elephants are very large and intelligent animals, and are seldom lost.'

I would describe it as 'being creative' rather than cheating

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“I have had too much experience of life to believe in the infallibility of doctors. Some of them are clever men and some of them are not, and half the time the best of them don’t know what is the matter with you.” ~ Miss Marple

Since there are still a few games missing here I'll do

Anagrams

It's another one that's pretty self-explanatory.

To quote Lorna, who began the game

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A schoolgirl answered the question 'In what countries are elephants found?'
'Elephants are very large and intelligent animals, and are seldom lost.'

Connections

To quote Maeve, who started it up again:-

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A schoolgirl answered the question 'In what countries are elephants found?'
'Elephants are very large and intelligent animals, and are seldom lost.'

Virtual hide-and-seek

To quote LizB who began it:-

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A schoolgirl answered the question 'In what countries are elephants found?'
'Elephants are very large and intelligent animals, and are seldom lost.'

Sorry! I'm spreeing again. However I just realised that we're in danger of losing the instructions for

Analogies

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A schoolgirl answered the question 'In what countries are elephants found?'
'Elephants are very large and intelligent animals, and are seldom lost.'

It has been brought to my attention that we don't have any instructions for Pointless Questions - thanks RoseCloke!

One person asks a question. The next person answers it and then asks a question of their own. Sometimes the answer can take the form of a question itself. The questions and answers may be serious, or rather less so!

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A schoolgirl answered the question 'In what countries are elephants found?'
'Elephants are very large and intelligent animals, and are seldom lost.'

Sorry - this is probably my fault. The 'instructions' were in the first post of the first thread - it has proved so popular that we are now on the 3rd one!

The questions are meant to be fairly lighthearted and sometimes, frankly daft, and the answers should be equally apt or amusing, and not too serious!

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to be nobody but yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
e.e.cummings
http://stitchwords.blogspot.co.uk

Five Word Story

Just thought I better post the instructions for this before we lost them:

This is sort of like a communal drabble but each person only contributes 5 words to the story at a time. Obviously this allows for many many random plot twists and lots of cliffs - in other words, it will probably be drivel (but hopefully amusing drivel)!

Example … Jo Maynard sat down suddenly …

… which snapped the tree branch …

…. so she fell to her ….

… knees in the cabbage patch …

… squashing Bruno, causing him to …

… shout Frieda for help as … etc.

Six Degrees of Separation

Since I started it, I might as well post the instructions for this too, whilst I'm doing!

This one is loosely based on Connections; in this game someone names two characters from the books and then the next person has to connect the two in exactly six steps. To make it slightly harder you can only use the connection method e.g. friend, sister etc. once.

Example: Gisela Marani > Len Maynard

Gisela Marani
1. was married to Gottfried Mensch
2. who was brother of Frieda Mensch
3. who was second prefect like Ted Grantley
4. who shared a name with Ted Humphries
5. who worked for Jem Russell
6. who was Uncle to Len Maynard

Once they have connected the two characters, they can then set two characters for the next player to connect.