Circular Letter 4 / 2007

Written by Heinz Herzog, WebAdmin

Monday, 24 December 2007, id:370 Article cached on Thursday, 07 August 2008 10:05:46

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To:

All European Federations

Associated members, Board members,

FIDE and FIDE Zone Presidents

14 May 2007

Dear Friends,

This year’s European Individual Championships in Dresden/Germany were a big success concerning the number of participants and the total amount of the prize funds. We would like to congratulate the new champions Tatiana Kosintseva and Vladimir Tkachiev. The final results can be found on the ECU website www.eurochess.org.

Attached you will find the regulations of the European Youth Championship in Sibenik/Croatia from 13 to 24 September 2007. Let us point out that for the first time there are special prizes offered by The University of Texas at Dallas. The winner of the boys under 16 section and girls under 16 section will receive an academic honours scholarship. The intent of selecting the winners from these sections is that they may not have already made a choice in terms of a university versus the under 18 section. These two scholarships have a combined value of 80,000 US Dollar. The prizes will be given at the closing ceremony by representatives of The University of Texas at Dallas.

At it has already been announced the European Youth Team Championship 2007 will be held in Subotika/Serbia from 7 to 14 July. Invitations have been distributed. As this championship should get a higher importance than for the time being the ECU Board asks all federations to send a team to this championship.

The European Women’s Rapid and Blitz Championships will be held in Predeal/Romania from 7 to 10 August 2007. The organizers including the Romanian Chess Federation have prepared the details which will be announced within the next days.

The European Amateur Championship 2008 has been awarded – once more – to Pardubice/Czech Rebublik. The ECU Board has agreed to propose to the next General Assembly to include the Amateur Championship into the ECU tournament regulations and to organize this event as an official ECU one. Therefore, starting with 2009, each organizer being interested in hosting the European Amateur Championship has to follow the normal bid procedure. This means, that bids for 2009 have to be forwarded to the ECU Secretariat by 1 July 2007.

As you know the 3^rd European Union Individual Championship will be held in Arvier/Aosta Valley-Italy from 15 to 24 June 2007. We would like to remind all federations to publish the information and to name their representatives (who may participate without any entry fee) to the organizing committee.

The ECU Board discussed with Senior Director Per Ofstad all kind of senior chess activities in Europe. Senior Chess needs the support of all European federations. In most of the federations there is no specific structure for senior’s activities. Per Ofstad is prepared to work for the improvement of this situation. On his proposal it has been decided to extend the deadline of bids for the 2009 European Senior Team Championship to 1 October 2007 (instead of 1 July 2007). Such a step should enable the federations to prepare respective bids in close co-operation with Per Ofstad. Attached you will find Per Ofstad’s letter to all European federations concerning senior activities.

The European Union Youth Championships under 10 to under 14 are usually held in Mureck/Austria. The Board has decided to grant this successfully organized event for the next 2 years once more to Mureck.

The EU seminar which should be held in Brussels from 6 to 7 June 2007 has to be postponed. Due to a change in the German Sports Office in Brussels and a missing confirmation of the European parliament we have to fix once more technical details. Maybe the seminar will be held at the beginning of next year.

The ECU Board thanks the City of Dresden, the Ostsächsische Sparkasse and the Organizing Committee in Dresden for hosting the last Board meeting on 13 and 14 April 2007. It was held in the frame of the European Individual Championships. The next Board meeting is scheduled in Novi Sad/Serbia from 23 to 26 August 2007.

Best regards,

Horst Metzing

Secretary General

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