Dear chessfriends,

As the old year draws to its close, I should like to reflect briefly on events during the past year.  In my opinion 2006 has been a peaceful and successful year for the whole ICCF family.

The new elected ICCF President, Mohamed Samraoui, is doing excellent work on our behalf and the difficulties which we encountered during 2005 have now been resolved.  Following the successful Congress held in Dresden, the ICCF Executive Board now has two new members (both from the European Zone!) and I am sure that we can all look forward to the new year with great optimism for the future.

I am pleased to report that 2006 has also been a good year for ICCF-Europa!  Our excellent team of organisers have ensured that all our events have run smoothly and our Treasurer, Carlos Flores Gutiérrez, confirmed our healthy financial situation in his yearly report delivered at the Dresden Congress.

Whilst we did not start any new European Championship events during the year, our current events have continued to progress as planned and I can confirm that a new European Individual Championship Final will start in the New Year.  I very much hope that we will be able to celebrate the success of a new European Champion when we next meet at the 2007 ICCF Congress!

I can confirm that a few weeks ago, three European teams (24 players from 24 different countries!) started out in their adventure in the 2006 ICCF Interzonal Team Tournament.  We are fortunate to have been able to field three strong teams, each with excellent Team Captains (Georgi Sapundjiev -BUL-, Ian M. Pheby -ENG- and Josef Mrkvička -CZE-) and I am hopeful that one of them will secure first place in this important tournament (our "A" team is still in the running for 1^st place in the ongoing 2004 Interzonal event although the NAPZ team remain favourite).

I can also report that the ICCF-Europa team achieved an honourable 5^th place in the very successful "Chessfriends Rochade 5171 - 15th Year Anniversary" friendly team tournament.  I should like to offer congratulations to our friends from the Czech Republic whose team secured 1^st place and also to all those great many players from the European Zone who participated in this excellent tournament.

I am also pleased to report that our promotional tournaments have continued successfully during the year and should like to extend a warm welcome to our new TD for the EU/H groups, Leo Lahdenmäki -FIN-.

As before, our webmaster, Giorgio Ruggeri Laderchi, has continued his excellent work and our web-site has at least 90 visitors daily despite having our tournament tables moved to the ICCF Webserver.

Looking forward to the future, I am sure that 2007 will be a successful year for ICCF-Europa!  Our proposed new Regulations are at the draft stage and will soon be distributed to Federation delegates for approval.

Our last meeting in Dresden approved the setting up of working group comprising Witold Bielecki -POL-, Josep Mercadal Benejam -ESP-, Per Søderberg -SWE- and myself to discuss the structure of future European Championships (both Individual and Team) and I hope that at our scheduled 2007 meeting we can move forward with significant developments in this important area.

As we are all aware, new technology progresses very quickly and it is vitally important that we keep abreast of developments.  Soon we will commence new promotional ICCF-Europa server tournaments on the ICCF Webserver and it is hoped that these events, following evaluation, will become a permanent feature. Unfortunately our e-mail tournaments continue to decline and we may soon have to consider discontinuing these.

Finally, I can report that our Dresden Meeting accepted my proposal for a new and experimental team championship exclusively for lower rated players who normally can have no expectation to represent their countries in official team events.  This new tournament, whose official announcement will be distributed shortly, will be dedicated to the memory of our dear friend Harro Otte, a long serving director of our promotion tournaments, who sadly passed away during 2005.

In closing I should like to acknowledge the wonderful efforts of all those who work each day on our behalf in order that we may continue to enjoy our favourite pastime. I refer of course to the army of volunteers comprising the Tournament Directors, Team Captains, Tournament Commissioners and all the other officials who work quietly in the background. On behalf of everyone, I should like to offer sincere thanks to these great people!

Along with my colleague the Deputy Zonal Director, Sergey Jakovlevich Grodzensky, I should like to wish everyone in ICCF a peaceful, happy and prosperous New Year 2007!  May the true spirit of amici sumus shine throughout Europe and the world!

Amici sumus!

Torino, 30.12.2006.

Gian-Maria Tani
ICCF Zonal Director for Europe