Worcestershire Chess News

13 Oct. ECF Annual Meeting. Worcestershire-based Alex Holowczak (Warley Quinborne) was elected unopposed to the post of Director for Junior Chess. Other directors were re-elected unopposed except for the post of Director for Home Chess: Adrian Elwin had a narrow win over Tim Wall. The meeting agreed to recommend a phased increase in ECF membership fees to help fund strong international teams and ideas in the strategy paper published for the meeting. Recommended increases will be subject to formal votes at future meetings. Worcestershire CA secretary Paul Sharratt, who attended the meeting, comments: "I voted against because I believe it to be too much too quickly - I have no objection to an eventual fee of around £20 but it can be achieved over 2-3 years. The ECF has sufficient funds in its reserves to support this and still achieve its objectives with immediate effect. There was also much disquiet about the issue being put to a vote at the AGM rather than at the Finance Meeting next April - some, including myself, felt it was an attempt to put pressure on the Finance Meeting to comply - given that it still has the final say on the matter. There is, in my opinion, a need for the ECF board to provide more detail in its proposals through a more carefully constructed development plan, and more accountability in its procedures through publication of key performance indicators for its various officers. This is a view shared by others in the meeting - there is a danger of a schism between the board and council if formal communication is not improved and deadlines for publication of papers are not adhered to." The Coventry & District CL delegate has published a summary of his impressions of the meeting on the ECForum.

10 Oct. Worcestershire B crash out of Butler-Thomas correspondence chess. Captain Jim Keene was unable to find two new players for the B team and reluctantly has had to withdraw Worcestershire B team from the competition. The county still has a presence in county correspondence chess with the Worcestershire A team in Division 3 of the British County & District Correspondence Chess Club.

26 Sep. Draw for team KO Cup. The competition for the Wheatley Cup is underway. In the first round games: Mercia play Worcester, Kidderminster play Greenlands, Redditch play Shirley & Wythall and Malvern play Droitwich. See more details.

16 Sep. County juniors do well in Terafinal. Current county junior champion Finlay Bowcott-Terry scored 4 points from his 6 games in the under-14 UK Chess Challenge tournamant at Peterborough and Manvith Sandhu scored 3½ ponts in the under-10 tournament. Full results on the chess results server.

5 Sep. The first league result is in: Olton at home beat Halesowen B.

29 Aug, Stourbridge report. Power cut shortens Dudley Memorial Rapidplay. In the tournament to celebrate Brian Dudley’s contributions to Stourbridge chess Nic Fallowfield was the winnner on 5½ points from 6 games. The power cut came just as father Nic was playing the key game against son Jeremy, but power was resored nearly half-an-hour later and the tournament was completed with one fewer round than originally planned. Jermy was second on 5, Joe Friar (Kidderminster) shared third place with David Anderton (Walsall) and Hossam Aboushady won the u145 grading prize. Ethan Chan Smith won the junior tournament with 5/5 points and Cameron Henry (Kidderminster was second. Seefull details and pictures on the Stourbridge website.

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