News & Weekly Bulletins - May 2006

1. There has been a very small surplus in the operating revenue over operating costs for the calendar year 2005.
2. Subscriptions were affected by another 60 members who chose not to renew in 2005, repeating the churn seen in 2004. Many of these were full-paying adults and the absence of their subscription renewal caused continued pressure on our expected income. Membership of our Club stood at 140 financial members as of 31/12/2005, after 60 non-renewals were eliminated from the register (again the reflecting the 2004 position also).
3. Major events were less expensive to run as the Committee did not have to seek outside Arbiters for some tournaments.
4. The Club was not asked to act for fund-raising in 2005.
5. The Clubs eviction, from the venue managed by the Box Hill Senior Citizens Club, was very distracting for the Committee. Special thanks should be recorded for the efforts of:
   • Kerry Lyall, who located our new premises,
   • David Flude who researched and visited many alternate venues,
   • Rolf Exner who chaired some difficult meetings as we worked our way through the re-location issue.
   Once the decision had been made to re-locate to the Masonic Centre the efforts of Gerrit, David, and Rolf have been first class in bringing the venue on stream. A special TRANSITION fund was publicised and many members proved to be generous to help us out of our cash flow problem. A big thank you to all who donated. The donations are visible on our web-site.
6. It is necessary to recommend an increase in fees in order to restore working capital to a level that doesn’t require us to run an overdraft at various times of the year and hence incur additional bank charges. The Committee recommendation is $70 Full, $55 Concession which is a $5 increase in each fee.
7. The Club finances will be recorded in 2006 in the MYOB software. This is a change from recording on EXCEL spreadsheets, and is designed to simplify the end-of-year reconciliation task.
8. The 2005 accounts were audited by Mr Clive Perrett. He has expressed a willingness to do the task again in 2006 if appointed.

 Trevor Stanning, Treasurer, Box Hill Chess Club.

Again I have to report this week David Flude’s good performance against Stojic; this time a draw against Svetozar; well done to our maturing correspondence expert. Howard Liston is showing a good return to form lately; a draw against the well-prepared Rukman Vijayakumar was hard fought.

I gave George Umber a stern talking-to a few weeks back, and told him to pick-up his game. ;-) . Since then he has had two fine wins to repair the damage to his rating. Well done George.

James Cameron had a good win against Grayson O’Connor, and he shows continual improvement. On board 21 both Laurie Dalton and Eric Neymanis had identical ratings, 1233; but Laurie’s win will enable him to edge ahead. Laurence Matheson (a rapidly improving micro-junior) left stalwart Frank Benjamin shaking his head at the ability to play solidly; it was a good game from start to finish. Micah Dalton’s rating should take a big leap after a good showing against Linden Lyons; Micah is a must-be-watched ‘upstart’.

The Victorian Junior Championships are scheduled for June, and Whitehorse is the sponsoring club, so the event will be on our premises. Generous sponsorship by NSK will make the prize-money attractive.

The captain's report to the Annual General Meeting on 3.5.06:

Introduction

Well as we now know we never quite got the equivalent nor did we get what we found at quite the equivalent rent. However what we do have has great possibilities:

• It is a lot quieter due to the carpeted edge, the distance from the analysis room, the higher ceilings, and the non-return of some of the biggest noise makers
• When we get it to work properly it will be better heated.
• Our landlords are glad to have us and are going out of their way to make us feel at home and assist us with the improvements we want to make.
• There are great possibilities for additional activities we may want to undertake such as Victorian Championships or Australian events.
• There is less work to be done in the putting away of the equipment. The chairs and tables stay where they are, The computers stay where they are.
• There is room for larger tournaments. If necessary we will be able to accommodate 120 players.
• Our new location has brought us quite a few new members.

However there have been disappointments as well:

• A large number of players did not come across with us. It seems that 50 players[!] who played in the championship last year are not in this year’s event
• The lack of continuing support from some of the young players whom the club has supported when they were selected for overseas events

The move just prior to Christmas went surprisingly well. There were lots of helpers and we had the hire of a van from Bruce’s friend Russell at minimal cost. Our new landlords allowed us to store everything prior to our occupation and gave us plenty of time to settle.

The appeal for funds to buy tables and pay for further work [very necessary] has been a great success and we are grateful to those who supported us. The $1000 relocation donation from Whitehorse council did not go astray either.

However as you can see when you look around there is still a lot more to be done and I would urge those of you who have not yet made a donation to consider doing so.

2005 Club championship, 102 entrants:

• Champion IM Peter Froehlich
• 1st. B div. Eugene Schön

2005 Box Hill Open, 104 entrants:

• =1st IM Peter Froehlich, Domagoj Dragicevic
• 1st. B Div. Zeljko Podvorac

2005 Christmas Swiss, 57 entrants:

• 1st. A Div Chris Wallis
• =1st B Div. Eugene Schön, Derek Yu

2006 Autumn Cup, 76 entrants:

• =1st Sam Chow, Chris Wallis, Ascaro Pecori
• =1st. B div. Alan Elliott, Sally Yu, Zhong Hao Gan.

Awards

Most Improved Players award goes this year to Eugene Schön.
The Whitehorse Junior Chess most improved Junior player award goes to Sally Yu.
|The person who has given the club his best shot goes this year to Shaun Fielder for his sterling work as the web master.

It is fair to say that we are in a position where we need to rebuild the club so that we can generate greater revenue to support the improvements we need to take and also to remain viable as an organisation. As it stands now our rent is up and our membership is down. We have been fortunate so far that we have been well supported by the members who have come with us and by our small but growing band of sponsors.

Gerry Harland, Club Captain 3.5.06

• Chess Club Championship, Round 3

  The top board was one of Marcus Raine’s most accurate games, and he had a good draw against Chris Wallis. The first major upset was David Flude’s win over Dusan Stojic. Perhaps Dusan was jet-lagged after his recent tournament in Dubai. George Umber showed a good return to form to defeat fast improving Jason Tang.
   

• Rookies and Queens Cup for May

  This was successfully run on Sunday the 7th of May and was won by Vijay Sunder and Hirumi Ranabahu. The adults money section was won by Domagoj Dragicevic, second was Marcus Raine, and Chris Wallis tied with Leon Kempen for third place.

  The next ROOIKES day is in July 2006.
   

• Box Hill Chess Club AGM

  A small group met on Wednesday the 5th to hear the reports from the President, Captain and Treasurer.
  I hope these reports can be posted on our web-site so that all Club members can read them.
  The current office-bearers were re-elected by those present. It was good to see stalwart John Kable attending.
  The AGM passed the motion proposed by the out-going Committee to set annual fees at $70 for Full members, and $55 Concession.

The top two boards of our Championship are being played on electronic DGT equipment. The moves are captured by computer and displayed immediately on the Box Hill Chess Club web-site. The feature games for round 2 were C Wallis v Rukman Vijayakumar and M Rothlisberger v V Kildisas.

The second round games saw some good performances from lower rated players. The experienced Howard Liston was able to account for Svetozar Stojic, and Afshin Ashar won with the black pieces against the consistent Shane Lawson. Devrim van Dijk returned to the Club for 2006 and was a bit rusty in his draw against the fast improving Jason Tang. Newcomer Samin Kosari (unrated) played Rochelleh Ziffer in a keenly watched game; a draw was a good result for both.

Two good players tuned up for the forthcoming VIC JUNIOR, and James Cameron was able to defeat Laurence Matheson this time. Finally, Susan Sheng breezed in only to find that Daniel Glasson has been improving with his ROOKIES Cup experience.

April is the time of the year when we renew our annual subscription to be a Club member. If yours is still outstanding please chase down the Treasurer.

It is always interesting to hear of Club members who excel in other cultural areas. Eugene Schon is a keen flautist, while on the art/painting front we have a few who have proved to be a dab hand. Did you know that Vladimir Zacharczenko has a major exhibition of oil paintings in an East Melbourne Gallery 27 April to 10 May? A brochure for the exhibition may be viewed on our brochures table. His exhibition is at the Victorian Artists Society Galleries, 430 Albert St, East Melbourne.

Sixty entries into our first Championship held in the new premises at Canterbury. And for the first time we had to switch the wall-heaters on; only to find that there is a warm side of the hall, and a not so warm side. I wonder how the set-up crew will distribute the board numbers to favour those who feel the Melbourne cold spells?

April is the time of the year when we renew our annual subscription to be a Club member. If yours is still outstanding please chase down the Treasurer.

Two Box Hill members did extremely well at the recent Doeberl Cup in Canberra. This Easter Week-ender is the premier week-ender in Australia, and three Victorians shared first place; Darryl Johansen and Dusan Stojic, from Box Hill, and Igor Goldenberg from Elwood. Congratulations to all these. At the moment Dusan is in Dubai at the World Championships; we wish him well. Nur Yachou is playing in the same championships in Dubai.

The top two boards of our Championship are being played on electronic DGT equipment. The moves are captured by computer and displayed immediately on the Box Hill Chess Club web-site. Judging by comments on the Australian Chess chat-board, quite a few observers around Australia followed the moves in our Croft v Wallis, and Kildisas v Lawson game.

We welcome new members to their first Championship. Roger Croft, Dmitri Dyson, Zeljko Podvorac, David Schneider, Chris Gillson, Vijay Sunder, Eric Chua, Paul Kelsen, Samin Kosari, and Sarthi Ravitharan.

Our Club continues to try to manage with a high turn-over of membership; 57 entrants into the 2005 BH Championship are not entrants into the 2006 Championship. Study obligations seem to be the most common reason.

The first round games saw some good performances even where the rating gaps were substantial. On particular, Rolf Exner’s draw with Leon Kempen, George Umber’s draw with Janusz Dutka, Elliott Renzies’ draw with Peter Frost, and Daniel Glasson’s draw with Steven Doon. There were few upsets too; the most noticeable was Laurence Matheson’s win against Shaun Fielder… Laurence showing the benefit of Sunday coaching from Darryl Johansen. Rochelleh Ziffer got under the guard of Alan Elliott.