Neil Tasker had improved the library by fitting decent shelving and further enhancements came in the form of a computer, with Fritz and the internet. The club now ran 4 public blogs and had an impressive website. The membership had risen from 35 at last year’s AGM to 41 at this year’s. There were five winter tournaments for members to enter. Two new summer tournaments had been created: firstly, the Ladder, which Andrew Caswill had generously commissioned and donated to the club, was a rapid play competition; and, secondly, the Holcombe Handicap, which Charles Holcombe had generously donated a cash prize for.

The third match against the club in Dieppe had taken place last month, with eleven people travelling with the club to France. The match had resulted in a draw, with five wins each. Shortly afterwards, the Greater London Council Chess Club had visited us. We won that match by ten points to five. The club had been so busy that it had to turn down a request from St Albans to come and play us!

In the forthcoming season in the Mid Sussex Chess League, we had entered six teams, one more than last year. Horsham Chess Club had done likewise and it was important to keep up with Horsham! In last year’s season, our teams had performed admirably with the 3rd team winning promotion to the second division and the 4th team winning promotion to the third division. Simon Hayward had captained the 4th team and had achieved the best match average in the division. Two teams had also entered the McArthur Cup last year.

Turning to individual success, Geoffrey James had become joint British Senior Champion at Torquay this year [applause] and Felix Haxby had played fourth board for Sussex Junior Chess’s team in the National Under 14s final. The team won the final, with Felix scoring 3½/4 [applause]. It was great to see more juniors in the club and more women too.

To give an idea of how much work had been done by the committee in the past year, whereas there had been 173 posts on the general club blog, 12 on the video blog, 21 on the match reports blog and none of the book review blog, 662 messages had been posted on the committee blog. In other words, the committee had worked quite hard behind the scenes. The club had also changed its bank account to a branch over the road from the Railway Club because the old one had become hard to use. Although the publicity campaign had not been launched yet, posters had already been designed and these were available on the club website. There were plans to launch interactive seminars with an touch sensitive projected screen; these were being worked on by the technologically minded committee members.

The club champion, Luke Rutherford, had kindly agreed to play a simultaneous match against up to 20 members.

 

Elections

1. President: Duncan Roy proposed and Duncan Badham seconded Susan Chadwick to be president. There being no other candidates, Susan Chadwick was elected.

2. Treasurer: Susan Chadwick proposed and Paul Selby seconded Geoffrey James to be treasurer. There being no other candidates, Geoffrey James was elected.

3. Tournament Controller: Susan Chadwick explained that Neil Tasker had suffered a very nasty accident which had left him in intensive care. The club’s best wishes were with Neil. David Langridge mentioned at this point that he had confirmed that Neil was in a hospital in Haywards Heath and could not receive visitors for at least another three weeks. Kevin Gee had kindly stepped into the breach for the end of last season. Simon Hayward proposed and Luke Rutherford seconded Kevin Gee to be tournament controller. There being no other candidates, Kevin Gee was elected.

4. Librarian: Nathan Gregg proposed and Jack Icaza seconded Simon Haward to be librarian. There being no other candidates, Simon Hayward was elected.

5. Secretary: Simon Hayward proposed and Jack Icaza seconded Duncan Roy to be secretary. There being no other candidates, Duncan Roy was elected.

6. First ordinary member: Duncan Roy proposed and Adrian Pickersgill seconded Paul Batchelor to be the first ordinary committee member. There being no other candidates, Paul Batchelor was elected.

7. Second ordinary member: Kevin Gee proposed and Simon Hayward seconded Duncan Badham to be the second ordinary committee member. There being no other candidates, Duncan Badham was elected.

8. Third ordinary member: Susan Chawick proposed and Simon Hayward seconded Michael Cain to be the third ordinary member. There being no other candidates, Michael Cain was elected.

9. Fourth ordinary member: John Smuts proposed and Andrew Shoulders seconded Andrew Caswill to be the fourth ordinary member. There being no other candidates, Andrew Caswill was elected.

10. Fifth ordinary member: there were no nominations.

 

Prizes