First of all I want to congratulate Duncan Campbell on his appointment as Chairman of the Standards Committee. He will be an excellent Chairman
However, I have a question or two!! about the way this was done.
1/ This appointment should have been confirmed at the AGM in Glasgow. [i]t was not up to the Standards Committee to appoint the Chairman themselves nor is it within the remit of the management board to endorse it. Previous Chairmen have been appointed by the AGM, so why was this appointment not confirmed by the AGM?

The World Amateur Chess Championships 2016 will be held in Halkidiki, Greece on the northern coast of the Aegean Sea. The dates are 18 April (arrivals, technical meeting) to 28 April 2016 (departures).

REGULATIONS

Registration: Entries must be sent by 18 February 2016 to the email <!-- e --><a href="mailto:info@chess2016.org">info@chess2016.org</a><!-- e --> or to the fax number (+30) 2641500112.

Tournament Director
FIDE IO Nikos Kalesis:
Tel. (+30) 6938326161
Fax (+30) 2641500112
Email: <!-- e --><a href="mailto:info@chess2016.org">info@chess2016.org</a><!-- e -->
Website: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.chess2016.org/">http://www.chess2016.org/</a><!-- m -->

The following statement shall be posted on the Website Noticeboard tomorrow.

Following the resignations of the 2 elected Junior Chess Directors, the Chess Scotland Management Board considered a proposal from David Congalton regarding the way forward for Junior Chess.

At the moment, David Congalton has assumed responsibility for home and international junior chess, as he was involved in the discussions, planning and organisation during the brief period that the Junior Directors were filling these junior roles and was therefore able to pick up the reigns.

David has the experience of managing and/or organising our participation in
• three Liverpool events,
• one Glorney trip to Wales,
• our participation in the 2013 Euroyouth in Montenegro and
• the rescue of the 2014 Glorney which Scotland successfully hosted in Stirling.

Additionally, David has assisted previous incumbents in both roles wherever possible and when asked to do so.

For the benefit of the juniors involved and their parents I want to take the opportunity that has been presented and organise junior chess.

David is more than capable of managing both roles and his previous record, or chess CV, of organising not only our junior events but weekend congresses and other special events such as the visits of Paul Motwani and Sarunas Sulskis demonstrate that he is more than able to manage the planning, administration and organisation which brings things to successful fruition.

David does not intend to do everything himself but will call on a large number of people who would be happy to do a bit of the work but perhaps have neither the time or the inclination to take on all the responsibilities either role individually.

David has considerable contacts throughout Scottish Chess that would allow him to positively manage junior chess over the next year. Knowing many of the parents and children involved and taking the time to speak to them at congresses and events.

The Management Board believe that David is well placed to not only save Chess Scotland from having a void in junior chess organisation but to establish a workable, transparent system that will benefit junior chess in Scotland for years to come.

David therefore now has the formal approval of the Management Board to officially carry out the junior chess roles until the next AGM. This would allow David to quickly and officially address questions on junior chess whether they be from parents, junior chess organisations, CS members or members of the CS forum.

Jim Webster
President
Chess Scotland

Keti Arakhamia-Grant is leading the event with 5/5 after day 1! Including wins against Hawkins, Rowson and Hammer

Can anyone confirm date and venue for 2016?

can a game (mine) against a player from another country be graded if the player only has a national grade and no FIDE grade?

The results are now posted on the website <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.hamiltonjuniorchessclub.co.uk">www.hamiltonjuniorchessclub.co.uk</a><!-- w --> , just click on the news tab on top of page.

If you want the dates for events after Xmas/New Year click on the tournaments tab on top of the page.

Michael.

Apparently Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has been suspended as president of FIDE at his own request.

It's a pretty complicated situation but here's my understanding of it (so far...)

FIDE wants to sign contracts to have the 2017 World Championships held in the USA (that's where all the money is these days, and FIDE are not slow to follow the money).

However, Kirsan was recently added to the US sanctions list because of alleged links with Syria. He did play chess aainst Assad once, but then you could say the same about his relationships with Colonel Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and maybe a collection of unidentified 'Aliens').

So he has to stand down to allow the planned WC to go ahead.

Nihat Ali of Turkey (another controversia chess figurehead) seems to have got involved too, claiming that Kirsan has been involved with buying oil from the Islamic State. Of course Russia is making similar claims about the Turks. There is currently a propaganda and media war being waged between them.following the recent shooting down of a Russian warplane.

No doubt Putin himself will soon step in and complicate the situation still further. And I am sure Gary Kasparov, Nigel Short and others will have something to say too.

Is this the beginning of the end for Kirsan? Or in the words of Winston Churchill, could it be the end of the beginning? I don't think so. His deputy will take over meantime and you can be sure that behind the scenes Kirsan will still be pulling the strings. And like Sepp Blatter once was, he is untouchable so long has he has the support of his friends in the third world whi can easily outvote all of the rest.

Whether the US and the Turks going after him will have any effect remains to be seen. And if Putin and his allies back him, he will probably not be on the way out anytime soon.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151201...future_rss

Good luck to all involved in this year's event.

Smashing line up of players and coaches. Bound to be challenging but think they might do well