by Michael Negele

Dear Fellow-Members,

some of you may remember my reports on certain visits to chess places or to some of our members during the years 2003 to 2013. These travels were mostly related to business trips. So after some changes in my job position my "collection of collectors" didn't increase too much during the last couple of years. However, after my retirement a nice holiday trip to South Africa in January 2018 was combined with a visit to a long-term chess friend. By chance this opportunity led to the highest concentration of CH&LS founding members on the African continent ever since.

Manfred Mittelbach, formerly located in Hamburg, moved to Cape Town after his retirement in 2012. Every Christmas season Manfred kindly invited me to visit his wife Pauline and him in Stephen Street, Gardens, a very nice quarter of the "Mother City". So at the end of January this ideas materialized and so each morning I had a very impressive view of the Table Mountain.

We have all been eagerly awaiting the launch of our new website for a long time. There were various reasons for the delays, however be assured that our two webmasters, Wilfried and Frank have done their very best to develop this new website with modern functionality and design as quickly as possible. Both friends were not members of the Ken Whyld Association when they committed themselves to these responsibilities in autumn 2016.

In the Netherlands the Frisian institution Tresoar has announced the ambition to found a Dutch centre for mind game collections. Recently, Tresoar, that means ‘treasure’, has applied for the institutional membership of the Ken Whyld Association (by the way the association will be formally renamed as Chess History and Literature Society at January 1^st, 2018).

Tresoar, Friesland Historical and Literary Centre, has been based in Leeuwarden, the capital of the Dutch province Friesland (English Frisia, and in the Frisian language Fryslân). Next year Leeuwarden will be the cultural capital of Europe. Tresoar is the result of the merger of the Frisian Provincial Library, the state archives of the province of Friesland and the Frisian Literature Museum and Centre for Documentation. In its meeting of November 24^th in Braunschweig the Board accepted the application of Tresoar as an institutional member, whereupon Tresoar appointed Mrs. Martha Kist as its representative.

This book is some sort of travel guide for chess lovers. It describes more than hundred places where cultural chess motives can be found. Mostly in museums, churches and castles in The Netherlands, Germany and France. Think of extraordinary chess pieces, chess boards, chess tables, chess clocks, chess statues, chess paintings, chess tapestries, chess villages, chess mosaics, chess graves, etcetera, etcetera.

The book is in an A5 paperback format, has 328 pages, has many (black & white) pictures and sells for € 19,95.

Hopefully the most critical remark will be that the book is available only in Dutch. The title is Reisgids voor Schaakliefhebbers, which translates as "Travel guide for chess lovers".

For more information contact the author via robspaans64@gmail.com

Rob Spaans