Dear chess friends,
The ECU General Assembly which took place on 10th October in Bar, Montenegro approved the new ECU Tournament Regulations valid from 1st January 2016. (Annex 1).
ECU opens a call of interest for the arbiters (at least 10) who will be appointed by the ECU President for the Chess Olympiad 2016 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Proposals can reach the ECU Secretariat till Monday 22th February 2016. Proposals can be sent through National Chess Federations, ECU Board members and ECU Arbiters Council.
European Chess Union announces the Chess in School Conference in co-operation with the European Parliament. The conference will take place on 24th of February 2016 in the premises of the European Parliament in Brussels. Main target of the conference is to present case studies and successful stories supporting the introduction of chess in more countries education systems. More details and the schedule will be announced in January. Coordinators of the Conference are the ECU Deputy President Ion Dobronauteanu and the ECU Chairman of Educational Committee Jesper Hall.
The European Universities Games 2016 (http://eug2016.com) are scheduled in Zagreb & Rijeka, Croatia from 12th to 25th July 2016. Throughout 15 days, 5000 students from 45 European countries and more than 300 Universities will compete in 21 different sports and will be part of the most beautiful sports story ever told in Croatia! Chess is included for the first time in the program after the agreement signed this year between European Chess Union and European Universities Sports Association (EUSA).
Chess competitions feature Open and Women’s tournament, with Blitz as a side event, and will be held in Zagreb. The tournament starts on July 11 with the General Technical Meeting and finishes on July 15 with the finals. University teams representing any higher educational institute in Europe may register through their national university sports bodies in any of the 45 EUSA-member European countries. (Annex 2). Official site for the chess competitions http://eug2016.com/sport-posts/chess/
The European Seniors Teams Chess Championship 2016 will take place in Halkidiki, Greece from 18th to 28th April (Annex 3) Official site: http://www.chess2016.org
ECU participated actively in the London Chess Conference with this year’s theme “Chess and Society”. Many interesting projects and actions were presented supporting the social value of chess. ECU will create a new column “Chess and Society” in its monthly newsletter presenting and promoting related articles and case studies. We invite such articles/studies to reach ecupressoffice@gmail.com .
The European Championships 2015 concluded with the European Rapid & Blitz Championship, in Belarus, Minsk with the participation of more than 700 players from 30 European federations. The results and final standing can be found on the official site http://champ.openchess.by/en/
The ECU President Zurab Azmaiparashvili, the ECU Board and the ECU Officers are sending you the warmest season greetings, wishing you a happy, peaceful and fulfilling year ahead.
With the best wishes,
Theodoros Tsorbatzoglou
ECU Secretary General