Chairman’s report 2017 18
This year has been an extremely busy year for me personal and within the club
The year started with the death of our resident housekeeper Roy Bourne he and his late wife Iris had held the housekeeper’s job for over 25 years
Elizabeth Lewis and former member Michael Dean and both died in June and Brian McCague who Was a member in the early 70s died in August
I would like to express my condolences and those of the chess club to all the families on their loss
The early part of the year I spent getting the now vacant housekeepers flat up to a letting standard
I also took on the cleaning duties for the club for a fee until a new housekeeper was found
The committee decided to advertise internally for a new housekeeper on the basic lines of free accommodation for opening and closing the club and also cleaning duties
On this basis two members applied Paul Kelly and myself in order to assure that the vetting process was above board A committee was set for this purpose
Their decision was that I myself would become the new housekeeper this in itself meant a lot more work, as I had now had to vacated my property at Manor Road and get my stuff move to the club at the date of writing this report I am 90% there but have not yet got into a routine at the club
Being chairman and now housekeeper there is the potential of a conflict-of-interest for this reason the committee has put proposal to the AGM whereby all matters relating to the housekeeper where there is a potential of a conflict of interest with the chairman’s job would be resolved by the subcommittee I would urge you to support this motion if you consider that the conflict is too great then consider running for chairman however I am happy to continue in this role
During the year, we had two twinning matches one against Bethune which is a biannual match and a new one against Dordrecht a club we had links with in the 60s and 70s
Both twinning matches were considered I believe to be a huge success I must thank Mason Woodlands to taking the lead in organising this event also thanks to Greg Chandler this is translating
Dana and Lila Woodlands with their waitressing and Jim Wheeler the supplying the Beer and Sharon Woodlands for ferrying various equipment
The Dordrecht twinning match was held in May and again seemed to be considered by the members took part as a great success thanks to Jim Wheeler for supplying the beer which seem to be greatly appreciated by the Dordrecht players
Bernard Cafferty again give a couple of talks one preseason talk and 1 at the end 0f the season which was greatly enjoyed by all those who attended and for which I thank him for
In club league matches it is probably fair to say we had one of our best seasons ever winning mid Sussex league division one and Division II titles and getting to 3 Kent league finals many thanks to the captains Paul Kelly Mason Woodlands Gary Wilson Adrian Cload and Umberto Jozwiak
club tournaments continue to be run in an efficient manner under the watchful eye of Rasa Norinkeviciute for which I thank her
I would like to congratulate John Sugden on winning the championship Steve Blewitt on winning the Pelton and Patrice Tournier on winning the rush
Paul Buswell did a couple of his famous one-day rapid play at the club was greatly enjoyed by everyone who played and I would like to thank Paul for his efforts and congratulate John Sugden on winning the Iris and Roy Bourne Trophy
The premises officer Adrian Cload had a reasonably quiet year we did have a leak from the roof
I thank him for his efforts
club finances due to some creative accounting we made a very small profit this year
, we need to keep a watchful eye on our finances and should be looking to try to make a good surplus each year rather than rely on reserves which slowly diminishing many thanks to James Wheeler
Ken Lucas acted as secretary and minute taker this year bearing in mind he is not playing very much chess I thank him for his continued support
The library had a large donation of book this year by MR John Knott 300 titled books for which the club was extremely grateful a lot of these titles the club did not have and very much enhanced our library however this does mean that we may well have to increase our library space Bernard Cafferty has continued in his diligent role of librarian for which I thank him

The Hastings International Congress is continuing to survive on a shoe string budget under the watchful eye of Alan Hustwayte’s and his team Bob Elliston is the club representatives I thank him for his efforts
I would like to thank all members of the committee who have served this year
I would like to take opportunity to wish all the club members a good chess 2018 2019 and remind you all the Subs are now and on that happy note I conclude this report
Marc Bryant
Chairman

Club Secretary Report 2017/18

Due to health reasons I haven’t played Chess this year, nor visited the Club regularly (except for Committee Meetings, where I take the Minutes).

I continue to act as a ‘clearing house’ passing on Emails and telephone calls to the
relevant Committee Officer, and general information to the membership as requested.

Unfortunately, more I cannot now do, but when I make my come-back BEWARE !

Ken Lucas

Premises Report
There has been no major work carried out to the premises over the last 12 months. We have had the roof Dorma window repaired under insurance during the winter and most recently a water leak in the roof tank was repaired.
There has been some work carried out preparing the upper flat for re occupation. All the gas servicing has been carried out and the fire extinguishers have received their annual checks.
We are hoping to have the new signage that we purchased last year installed before the AGM

Adrian Cload
Premises Officer

Tournament Controller Report

In the season 2017-18 we had three usual groups Championship, Pelton and Rush. In total we had 28 players taking part in these competitions.
The Champion is John Sugden . Pelton was won by S.Blewitt and Rush was won by P. Tournier.
Two places received a right to move to further section. Therefore, from Pelton S. Blewitt and J. Kimber received a right to play in the Championship and from Rush P. Tournier and G. Chandler received a right to play in Pelton.
We have a system where a few last places are demoted to the lower sections.

Rasa

Webb Site
Since Christmas I have had very little spare time and have done little with the website other than putting up basic information and results
prior to Christmas I had more or less finished the past players profiles and had set up players pages for current members
I would urge all players to write something about themselves it can be personal or about your chess activities
more with it enables new members to be able to integrate more easily into the club knowing something about the existing players M
Marc A Bryant

Mid Sussex league second-team report

It was a good season for the second team in which we use 9 players in our squad

of the players who played more than one game 6 of the 9 players remained undefeated

We started the season off with wins against

Hastings 3               4.5–5

Horsham 3              4–1

Eastbourne 2           4—1

Crowborough         41/2   ½

Horsham 2              4—1

Lewes 2                 4—1

this left us in a very strong position for promotion

we then tie the the match at Uckfield 1 where we defaulted a board this guaranteed us promotion

we now needed a draw from our last match to be league champions

we achieve this against Wood pushers 1

This meant that we finished champions 0f Division II and gain promotion to the first division next year a big thanks to the nine players who made the squad Bernard.Cafferty Paul Kelly Marc Bryant Nicholas Varley Brendan Ruane Steve Blewitt Jim Wheeler Derek Cosens Henry Cove and Steve Blewitt had the best performance in division two of the league this season averaging 79% Win rate

Division 2 Results

Marc A Bryant

Report from Gary Willson on Hastings & St Leonards 3rd Team in the Mid-Sussex League

The matches for the season went as follows:

1 0.5:4.5 loss to HSL 1 (as expected)
2 3:2 win at home to Crowboro, an excellent result
3 3:2 loss away to Horsham 3, a very creditable performance
4 1.5:3.5 away win to Woodpushers, arguably our match of the season. It made avoiding relegation a distinct possibility, but also gave our 2nd team a green light to go for promotion ias division champions
5 1:4 loss at home to Horsham 2, an expected result.
6 2:3 away win at Eastbourne 2, possibly our most satisfying result, as it “guaranteed” our safety, as well as beating our neighbours :).
7 2.5:2.5 away draw to Lewes, a very close game, tense to the very end.
8 2.5:2.5 home draw to Uckfield. Good performance against our higher rated opponents, Brendan’s draw on the top board a notable performance.

My thanks go to all the players who contributed throughout the season. Needing to balance putting out as strong a team as possible whilst giving opportunities is not an easy thing to achieve. Equally difficult was managing the nominations rule in the MSL, and I think across the 4 teams we managed this as well as can be expected this season.

Away games continue to be problematic. Getting a team together can be a difficult task, so my thanks (and the thanks of the club) go out to all the players who contributed this season (esp Mssrs Bryant, Wheeler, Hann, and Woodhams, and also to Mssrs Blewiit, Ruane, Cload, Cosens, Stock, Hudson, and Ms Pontonutti)

Gary Willson

Mid Sussex League Rep
comments on the MSL AGM. I am sure the details of the discussion on the changes to the default time will be reported and discussed elsewhere. For my part, I attended the AGM with an open mind, having sought the opinions of the players. My own personal view was: I would be happy with an incremental control of 80 mins + 10 secs as I find adjudication somewhat artificial, and the majority of the feedback I received was along the same lines. However, a distinct schism became apparent at the AGM: lower graded players (dare I say like myself), the vast majority of the attendees, were pushing through the motion, where as “stronger” players, grossly under represented at the meeting, were strongly opposed to such a small increment. One comment made to me on the evening sharpened my view, from a long time regular top board, div 1 player: he would not play in the league with only a 10 sec increment.

The manner in which the meeting was conducted was poor: before any real discussion had taken place, the chair forced through a vote on the principle of an incremental time controls being the default across all divisions. What should (in my view) have been a better outcome (different default time controls between Div 1 and the other divisions) was no longer possible. The end result is based on the proposal by Adrian Pickersgill of HSL, but made through the Eastbourne Club, of all the moves in 65 minutes with a 30 sec increment from the beginning, ought to be considered in this light. If it had not been passed, 80 + 10 would have been imposed on Div 1, with the high likelihood that the division would fragment. As Div 1 champions, the club representatives at the AGM collectively chose to steer and influence the decision in the 65 + 30 direction. It is to be “trialled” for one year, and is to be discussed again and reconsidered at the next AGM.

Gary Willson
Team Captain 2017/18 HSL 3

Stevenson report
We took part in the Stevenson Cup in the Kent league again this year playing 8 matches of which we lost 2 both to Tunbridge Wells home and away. We reached the semi final and played away to Lewisham, we won 2-4 which came as a nice surprise to us. We had reached the finals along with the En Passant and County Cups but all 3 teams were a victim of our own success as we had to field weaker teams so lost all 3 finals in Dartford on May 13th without winning a single game but had a nice day out!

Adrian Cload

Kent league

The Harvey the Kent league
This is a six-player tournament played in a round robin for teams averaging under an average grade of 125.1
We had a solid season this year in the Harvey finishing just outside the qualifying places for the semi-final we won matches against Maidstone and Tun/wells drew two matches against Medway and Swale in both went on to the semi-final and lost Weald of Kent and the bottom placed side snodlands here is across table of the final positions
•
Team Play Won Draw Lost For Against Points SP MP IM
Team Play Won Draw Lost For Against Points SP MP IM
Medway 1
6 3 3 0 20½ 15½ 9 0 0 0
Swale 2
6 3 2 1 21 15 8 0 0 0
Hastings & St Leonards 4
6 2 2 2 17½ 18 6 0 ½ 0
Weald of Kent 2
6 3 0 3 17½ 18½ 6 0 0 0
Tunbridge Wells 4
6 2 2 2 17 19 6 0 0 0
Maidstone 4
6 2 0 4 19 17 4 0 0 0
Snodlands 2
6 1 1 4 13 22½ 3 0 0 0

in the course of the season we use 17 club players

And a special mention Umberto Joziak played five times for this team scoring fourth from five and remained undefeated

M.A Bryant