Personalia

Our Dutch founder member Joop Jansen makes now his debut in our column, he could look back on half a century on May 9th. We could already meet our collector friend from Oostrum (North Limburg) personally on several occasions (like the book fairs at the Max Euwe-Centrum, see for instance the meeting at Amsterdam, November 2006), and we have also included him in our Dutch Trilogy some time ago. You will find a short introduction of himself on the site of the Swiss Correspondence Chess Association, those chess friends who have a good command of Dutch will be able to read as well the one-page contribution "Joop Jansen verzamelt alles over schaken" [Joop Jansen collects all about chess] published on p. 96 of the chronicle 75 jaar schaken in Limburg (Venlo, 2002). But not only in correspondence chess, also in OTB play Joop was quite successful: so we can take from the chess column in Dagblad De Limburger of 29/05/2002 [1] that Joop has won the club championship of the Venlo chess association at that time.

[1] Reprinted in J. Stupp/ F. Clevers/ F. Esser, Allemaal Schaken. Het Limburgse Schaakfenomeen Alex Vinken. Venlo, s.a. [2005]



Thanks to the "mentions" of the previous years extensive material will be available to our readers about Lothar Schmid who clebrated his special day on May 10th. And it is not very surprising that even in the 81st year of our famous and undiminished active member (see also our picture gallery Eckberg Dinner, Dresden Chess Olympiad 2008) further "sources" have appeared. So we can find a chapter on Lothar Schmid in the chronicle Schach in Sachsen (p.227-232) published in 2008, putting the main emphasis naturally on the Saxon years of the grandmaster and thus forming a welcome completion of previous portrayals. We would also like to point out to you last year's online eulogy by Hartmut Metz on scr-kuppenheim.de: "Abenteuer mit Karl May und Bobby Fischer - Verleger und Schach-Großmeister Lothar Schmid feiert 80. Geburtstag / Kriegsbeil mit Freistaat Sachsen ausgegraben". And you may listen to an interview with Lothar Schmid on Bayern 2 by means of the audio files linked there (Eins zu Eins. Der Talk, 08/12/2008) – "Lothar Schmid - Schachgroßmeister und Karl-May-Abenteurer".

Iván Bottlik (in Dresden, 2008)

We have alredy introduced our Hungarian member Iván Bottlik last year (May 2008), this 18th of May it was a full ¾ century that has passed since his birth. We were pleased to welcome him personally at our last general meeting at Dresden, there - at our book fair - he has also offered the latest work from his pen, we have recently included it in the Publications of our Members.



Congratulations!




PS: You will find all previous birthday greetings in our archives!