Circular Letter 2 / 2004

Written by Heinz Herzog, WebAdmin

Monday, 24 December 2007, id:348 Article cached on Sunday, 20 July 2008 11:30:38

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To:

All European Federations

Associated members, Board members,

FIDE and FIDE Zone Presidents

18 February 2004

Dear Friends,

This year’s first Board Meeting took place on 14 and 15 February in St.-Vincent/Italy. We would like to thank the Italian Chess Federation and the Comité Valdôtaine d’Echecs (Mr Agostino Scalfi) for hosting the Board.

The Board members could attend the last rounds of the St. Vincent Open and the prize-giving ceremony of the ECU Grand Prix 2003. Congratulations to the top two players of the final Grand Prix ranking who participated in 4 tournaments:1. Aleksander Delchev, 2. Emilia Djingarova (both Bulgaria)

We face a real issue concerning the European Individual Championship. The Turkish Chess Federation intended to hold it in the period from 14 to 31 May 2004 in Antalya. But according to information from FIDE the World Championship will start on 8 May in Libya and will therefore provoke a clash with the European Championship. An alternative date for our event has not been found due to other big national or international tournaments. That is the reason why we need a reliable official FIDE tournament calendar with fixed dates for all championships. If the dates of the World Championship will be confirmed by the FIDE-Presidential Board, the European Individual Championship 2004 has to be cancelled.

The European Individual Women’s Championship 2005 has been granted to Chisinau/Moldavia from 10 to 24 June. This event on the occasion of the 70^th anniversary of Feodor Skripchenko will be fully supported by the Moldavian Government and the City of Chisinau.

The European Youth Championship 2004 will be hosted in Capodoccia-Nevsehir/Turkey. It will be held in a sport centre in the town of Ürgüp from 28 July to 7 August. The Turkish Chess Federation is trying to organize a charter flight between Istanbul and Kayseri, the nearest airport to Capodoccia-Nevsehir. Final announcements will follow by the end of March.

This year’s European Club Cups (Men and Women) will be held in Izmir/Turkey (instead of Istanbul) from 2 to 10 October.

Due to sponsor problems it is not yet clear whether the European Senior Championship 2004 can be held in St. Vincent/Italy. A final decision can be expected next week.

The two national federations involved have agreed, that the European Youth Team Championship 2004 will be organized in Belgrade and 2005 in Turkey. Originally it was planned in reverse order. The exact dates should be published as soon as possible.

The Board of the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP) have published an open letter to the ECU Board. They have criticized some activities and decisions of ECU bodies. The ECU Board is prepared to meet representatives of ACP and has invited the President Joël Lautier to the next Board meeting. The ECU Board is not ready to deal with the issues by open letters.

Following the decision of the General Assembly the Board has asked for proposals for nomination of an ECU Youth Co-ordinator. Three suggestions had been received. The Board finally decided to nominate Goran Antunac/Croatia for this task.

According to the ECU Statutes the Board resolved that Member federations being in arreas for more than one year do not have the right to participate in European championships. The federation which will not have paid the debts by 15 March 2004 will be informed respectively by treasurer Egon Ditt. At the same time a list of these federations will be published on the ECU website.

Due to technical problems it was not possible to move our website smoothly to another server. Meanwhile our webmaster Tobias Miklavcic (MMView) has succeeded in publishing the new ECU website under the current domain www.eurochess.org.

The ECU Manual will be updated each two years. The next Manual will be printed after the General Assembly 2004 in Calvia/Spain. Amendments of the tournament regulations and changes of addresses will be regularly published on the website.

In St. Vincent, President Boris Kutin awarded the official ECU Silver medal to 96-years-old Enrico Paoli/Italy as the oldest still active title holder.

We would like to remind you once more that bids for the European championships 2006 have to receive our secretariat by 1st July 2004.

The next Board Meeting will be held in Calvia (Mallorca, Spain) on 30 April and 1 May 2004.

Best regards,

Horst Metzing

Secretary General

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