Committee Changes

After 15 years, John Lewin is standing down as Club Secretary.

The Club does not run itself and we are all grateful for the work that John has put in behind the scenes.  Malcolm Mourant is taking over from John as Secretary.  His place as Club Captain is being taken by Doug Vleeshhouwer who has been co-opted on to the Committee.  These new appointments will be open to ratification at the AGM.

Fred Wellings
Chairman

KENT - COUNTY CUP - Beckenham v Maidstone

Well, would you believe it. A first time win of the County Cup (as far as I am aware) by 3½-2½. Congratulations to everyone but me on an amazing performance. We were outgraded on every board and by an average of 11 points a board. Full results: Ian Snape 0-1 Martin Taylor, Richard Selway ½-½ Andrew Mayhew, John Duggan ½-½ Paul Talsma, Nick Briggs 1-0 Ian Watson, Graeme Plato ½-½ Chris Howell, Andrew Ponting 1-0 Dave Mumford.

Bielski Cup

The Bielski Cup is a quickplay competition run annually by the Croydon Chess League. This year it was hosted and organized by the Coulsdon Chess Fellowship on 27^th February. It is an all-play-all competition between teams of 4 with a total grade under 750. Nine teams entered and so it was an 8 round all-play-all with seven minutes on each clock in each match.

It was a close run thing but Beckenham & Bromley (under the team name West Wickham) eventually ran out winners with 25.5 game points ahead of Crystal Palace 1 (24.5 points) and South Norwood 1 (23.5).

This was the first time Beckenham and Bromley have entered a team.

Our team was:

1.  Ian Snape - 7 out of 8

2.  John Duggan (captain) - 7 out of 8

3.  Nick Briggs - 5 out of 8

4.  Douglas Vleeshhouwer - 6.5 out of 8

Hobell Library has a New Home

Andrew Ponting has agreed to host the Hobell library and to make it available for club members to borrow.  He's also agreed to make his own library available to borrow (one at a time!).

Members wishing to borrow something should contact Andrew in advance (see a committee member if you don't already have his email - it contains the word makiko) and arrange either to pop round to his place, or to meet on a club night.

The Hobell library books (see index) will remain property of the club, whilst Andrew's library (list to follow) will remain his property.

If other members are willing to make their libraries available, please do so.  Between us this could become a valuable resource.

John Lewin,
(Secretary)

Hobell Library

The club has a library of chess books which were donated by the family of Richard Hobell, who died some years ago.  There is a listing of these books on the site.

As we are no longer able to store the books, the committee has agreed that they should be distributed to club members.  It is hoped that members taking books would make a donation to club funds, but this is voluntary.

I will be bringing the books to club evenings over the next few weeks.  If you are interested in any specific ones, I will endeavour to reserve them.

John Lewin

Tony Stebbings Achieves FM Title

Those of us who know Tony from playing Charlton in the Kent league or as part of the Beckenham & Charlton team in the London League will be happy to learn that he has ("finally!") achieved his FIDE Master title recently.

There's more detail on that news here, which also includes a nice picture of Tony playing board for a "senior" England team against a certain GM V. Korchnoi...

Andy H.