Circular Letter 2 / 2002

Written by Heinz Herzog, WebAdmin

Monday, 24 December 2007, id:325 Article cached on Friday, 25 July 2008 05:36:05

Pic-Id:116

To:

All European Federations

Associated members, Board members,

FIDE and FIDE Zonal Presidents

15 February 2002

Dear Friends,

The ECU Board had a meeting on 09 and 10 February 2002 in St.-Vincent/Italy. We would like to thank the Italian Chess Federation and the Comité Valdôtain d´Echecs for hosting this meeting.

The co-operation between ECU and GamesParlor in order to establish an internet playing site does not work. Therefore other companies will be contacted in order to offer them a co-operation with the ECU.

The following ECU coperative e-mail accounts for Board members have been created and can be used from now on:

Boris Kutin: president@eurochess.org

Horst Metzing: secretary@eurochess.org

Egon Ditt: treasurer@eurochess.org

General information: info@eurochess.org

On behalf of the Hungarian Chess Federation Peter Rajcsanyi recommended at the General Assembly in León to set up a special ad-hoc committee in order to deal with the following two issues:

• Priority of the European Championships due to the large number of events
• Chess education in Europe especially within the European Union and in co-operation with European authorities

The Board agreed with the proposal and set up one ad-hoc committee for both issues. The members of this committee are as follows: Peter Rajcsanyi (chairman), Boris Kutin, Dirk De Ridder, Horst Metzing, Georgios Mastrokoukos.

The Board agreed in general to approve or to recommend all kind of chess materials. A list of the approved equipment will be published on the ECU website. The commission in charge for checking the equipment consists of Dirk De Ridder, Werner Stubenvoll, and Egon Ditt.

The Board approved the amended regulations for fees for European chess events prepared by the treasurer Egon Ditt (annex). These regulations have to be confirmed by the next ECU General Assembly in Bled/Slovenia.

The Board took notice and discussed the decision of FIDE regarding the payment of penalty fees for late submission of rating reports. As the majority of tournaments are organized in Europe and mostly European federations are involved, ECU will ask FIDE Presidential Board to reconsider the issue and to waive the penalty at least for this year.

As Groningen and Andorra were not able to hold the 2002 European Individual Championship the bid procedure had been reopened. As President Boris Kutin informed the Board the Turkish Chess Federation has sent in a bid. Due to the proposed dates and prize fund it was decided not to accept this offer. Boris Kutin will negotiate with some prospective organizer in order to have a final decision by 04 March 2002. If there will not be any acceptable offer, this European Championship will not be held this year.

Bids for the European Individual Championship 2003 should reach the ECU secretariat by the end of March 2002.

The European Individual Women´s Championship will be held from 26 May (arrival) until 09 June 2002 in Varna/Bulgaria. The invitation will be sent to all European Federations within the next days.

The European Junior Championship will be held from 14 July (arrival) until 25 July 2002 in Baku.

As a result of the questionnaire concerning the change of age limits for youths in European events, the Board will put forward a motion to the General Assembly in Bled to abolish the European Junior Championship (U20). The majority of the federations which answered the questionnaire was in favour of holding one event for all age categories including the U18 which will be named in the future “European Junior Championship”. There was no majority for a change of the age categories especially because of the present qualification system for the World Championships. FIDE should be asked to take similar decisions for the World Championships.

The European Youth Championship 2002 is to be held in Peñiscola/Spain from 28 September (arrival) until 09 October 2002 (departure).

Deadline for bids for the European Youth Championship 2003 is the end of March 2002.

It was confirmed that the European Club Cup 2002 will be held in Kallithea/Greece within a period of 22 until 29 September. The invitations will be distributed as soon as possible.

The Board recommended once more to hold the European youth events between July and September because of school reasons. Deadline for bids for the European Youth Team Championship 2003 is 1 September 2002.

St.-Vincent/Italy will organize the next European Senior Individual Championship from 28 September until 06 October 2002. The invitations will be prepared by the end of March.

The 1. European Grand Prix is going to be finished with a final tournament in St.-Vincent/Italy. Tournament director Werner Stubenvoll will establish new rules and publish the list of the tournaments for the 2002 cycle as soon as possible. A final tournament will be held once more in February 2003 in St.-Vincent.

In order to avoid as many clashes as possible between the European and the national championships or important international tournaments all European Federations are asked to inform the ECU secretariat of their respective dates. These which then should be published on the ECU website for general information.

The next meeting of the ECU Board will probably be held at the end of May 2002.

Best regards,

Horst Metzing

Secretary General