The 2011 ICCF-Europa Meeting was held in Järvenpää on 2/08/2011, during 2011 ICCF Congress.

The Zonal Director, Gian-Maria Tani, presented a short overview of his report, asking the Delegates for their comments.

The Zonal Director emphasised that, in his opinion, one of the main tasks of ICCF-Europa (the best developed ICCF Zone, where almost all the countries are ICCF members) is to offer new tournaments to the players, especially national team tournaments for medium and lower-ranked players (as in the H. Otte, W. Bielecki, G. Radosztics, T. Løvholt Memorials, or the European Postal Cup). In this way, players will feel a better connection with their national Association and this will be useful for Member Federations, ICCF-Europa and the whole chess correspondence movement, too.

The following items were discussed:

1) European Team Championships

The Final of the 7^th ETC is near to a conclusion, and so are the Semi-finals of the 8^th ETC.

The Final of the 8^th ETC will start at the beginning of 2012, hoping all the qualified teams will be known.

The Semi-finals of the 9^th ETC began on 15/07/2011 with a record number of entries (34 Member Federations out of 36!).

The Semi-finals of the 10^th ETC could start at the middle of the 2013 and the Final of the 9^th ETC in the winter 2013/2014, but this dates will be decided in the future.

2) European Individual Championships

The Final of the 67^th EIC began on 1/07/2011 with 15 players.

The Semi-finals of the 69^th EIC will start on spring 2012.

The “Working Group on EIC”, chaired by Marjan Šemrl, will arrange a proposal for a new structure of the EIC and it will be discussed during 2012 ICCF-Europa Meeting.

3) National Team Tournaments for medium and lower-ranked players

3a) “Harro Otte Memorial” (web-server; ELO < 2000). The Final is quite over and the winning team is Slovenia.

3b) “Gerhard Radosztics Memorial” (postal; ELO < 2000). Approximately 90% of the games in the Semi-finals are over. The Final will (hopefully!) start in the first months of 2012.

3c) “Witold Bielecki Memorial” (web-server; ELO < 2000). It will be announced in September and the games will start on Jan./Febr. 2012.

3d) “Thor Løvholt Memorial” (web-server; medium-rated players). It was started on 9/01/2011. Many thanks to Neil Limbert who perfectly organized it.

4) Promotional Tournaments

The European Tournament Director Leonardo Madonia informed that both postal and web-server tournaments are going on regularly with a satisfactory number of entries.

The Meeting decided unanimously to keep the actual single-round structure for postal tournaments, to offer a different option to the postal players (from now on, world postal promotional tournaments will be played with double-round).

5) European Postal Cup

It has been a success! 23 teams, with a total of 92 players from 15 Member Federations, began play in the Semi-finals on July 2011.

6) Other team tournaments

ICCF-Europa teams are fighting very well in Interzonal 2010 and Rochade 5171 20^th Anniversary Tournament.

7) Financial matters

The Finance Director, Carlos Flores Gutiérrez, sent his yearly report, whose figures where checked by the Auditor George Pyrich.

The balance shows a very florid economical situation.

The balance was unanimously approved by the Delegates, with a special thank to Carlos and George for their very good work.

The Zonal Director proposed to not request entry fees for any international team match organized by ICCF-Europa in 2012. His proposal was unanimously accepted.

The Meeting unanimously decided to confirm the financial support of 1.500 € from ICCF-Europa for the organization of 2012 ICCF Congress, if requested by the host Federation.

8) European Ladies Championship

The German Delegate, Uwe Staroske, proposed to arrange this.

The Zonal Director objected that there are very few playing ladies of high level and most of them are already busy on Ladies Olympiads and Ladies World Championship.

All Delegates confirmed the difficulties to find women for international top tournaments.

The German proposal was, therefore, postponed.

9) Friendly match Ukraine vs. Rest of Europe

The Ukrainian CC Federation proposed to organize such a friendly match.

The Zonal Director suggested some criteria for friendly matches played by a M.F. against the other ones.

The Meeting authorized the Z.D. to try to organize, together the Ukrainian CC Federation, the above match.

10) Interzonal Individual Tournament

The Zonal Director suggested a few criteria for the selection of the European players for this new tournament that will be organized by the Africa/Asia Z.D.:

-          a) Former European Champions (no more than last 5 years); b) GMs; c) SIMs; d) IMs

-          no more than one player from each M.F. -with the only exception for players under a)-

-          ELO rating for players under b), c) and d)

The Delegates unanimously approved.

Finally, the Zonal Director thanked all those who have helped him during 2011 and for the whole period of his 4 years in office.

He particularly thanked the Finance Director, C. Flores Gutiérrez, the European Tournament Director, Leonardo Madonia, the web-master, Giorgio Ruggeri Laderchi and all the Tournament Directors and the Team Captains.

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Page updated  26.08.2011 ,  photo by Auno Siikaluoma