Meeting of the Extended board of the Ken Whyld Association

(Friday June 23rd 2017 at 15:00h at the Klittich auction house, ended at 17:30h)

Claes Lofgren, Karl Klittich, Bob van de Velde
Claes Lofgren, Karl Klittich, Bob van de Velde

You'll find the full report in the Member Section: Documents (Registration required)

Present:

  • Michael Clapham, treasurer
  • Bert Corneth, web editor
  • Karl Klittich, member of the Board
  • Claes Løfgren, membership secretary
  • Michael Negele, honorary member, (from 16:00h onwards)
  • Per Skjoldager, ToBiblion administrator
  • Bob van de Velde, chairman

Matters of Practical Importance and General Interest:

The New Name of the Association

After a lengthy discussion the decision is taken to rename the Association, namely

Chess History & Literature Society, founded as Ken Whyld Association
Abbreviation: CHLS.

The chairman will submit the new name to the Council of Representatives for approval. This approval was granted, so the new name will be considered as settled. The chairman will take care of the necessary adaptions of the Statutes of the Association.

Meanwhile this new name was agreed upon by the Council of Representatives. Consequently, the new website of the CHLS will be launched under this new name and with a new logo.

No contributions for the KWA newsletter from members or non-members have been received for many months. The question whether the CHLS should continue the publication of a separate newsletter has no urgency at the moment and will be postponed until the next meeting of the board (in November 2017). At that time the new website will function and will have provided new experiences.

The Settlement of the Member List 2017

There are too many unsolved questions about the data of the latest published member list in connection with the data of the recently composed list of membership payments. Therefore, the membership secretary and the treasurer will try to compose in collaboration a up-to-date list.

The offer of Michael Negele to assist the KWA board in several urgent matters is applauded and will be discussed further as soon as he enters the meeting.

As soon as the member list 2017 will be fixed and after further discussion with the treasurer, the ToBiblion administrator and the website editor the membership secretary will propose a procedure for all membership issues to the board.

A general meeting in 2018

A general meeting of the CHLS will be scheduled for a weekend in first half of October 2018 in Berlin.

This meeting should be organized in combination with a commemoration to Lasker 150th birthday, planned by the Emanuel Lasker Gesellschaft and/or a meeting of the CCI Germany.

It should include a trip to the Kórnik library to visit the Von der Lasa collection. (2018 is also the 200th anniversary of Tassilo von Hydebrand und der Lasa). Michael Negele has been given the mandate for the preliminary investigation of the options for such a meeting.

The state of the Financial Affairs

After a positive assessment by Bert Corneth on behalf of the committee of cash auditors the Financial Report 1st January 2016 to 31th 2016 December of the treasurer is approved. As the overall financial situation looks healthy there is no reason to discuss the Report at length.

Bob van de Velde and Michael Clapham
Bob van de Velde and Michael Clapham

The further development of the database project ToBiblion [presented by Per Skjoldager]

The number of visitors and general interest for Tobiblion is growing. This is seen by the number of visitors we have now and in the past.

Since 1.1.2015 we have had 4500 visitors logging in.

Now and then some minor ideas are received for new features in the system. There is nothing the prevents us from using the system and build the database that has been one of the major aims for the KWA since its foundation.

Looking at the amount of data we have already included, we see the high mountain lying in front of us. It makes clear that there it will not benefit us very much to spend money on more software development. There is no major functionality missing.

What we really need are more hands to help inputting the data in new classifications that are not yet defined in the system. New classifications could be for instance: "Problem Chess" or "Correspondence Chess".

Therefore we urgently need:

  • One or more members who are willing to take leadership on one or more classifications and/or
  • Cooperation with libraries that will get us what we really need right now: Data

The current Tobiblion status:

We have four bibliographies defined

  • Bibliographies
  • Tournaments and Congresses
  • Magazines
  • Biographies

Bibliographies

We have 408 entries of which 61 are fully described with images and text. This is nearly 15 percent. 102 entries are partly described.

Tournaments and Congresses

We have 2723 entries of which 532 are fully described with images and text. This is nearly 20 percent. 867 entries are partly described.

Magazines

This classification has a slightly different structure.

The following magazines are described:

  • American Chess Bulletin
  • British Chess Magazine
  • Chess Player's Chronicle
  • Chess Review
  • Chess World
  • Lasker's Chess Magazine
  • Deutsche Schachblätter
  • Deutsche Schachzeitung
  • Deutsches Wochenschach
  • Kagans Neueste Schachnachrichten
  • Wiener Schachzeitung
  • Skakbladet
  • Tidskrift för Schack

They have combined 798 entries of which 282 are fully described with images and text. This is slightly more than 35 percent. The description on Chess World is complete. Kagans and Wiener Schachzeitung are nearly complete. American Chess Bulletin has almost not started.

Biographies

This classification is currently focusing entirely on Fischer. The plan is to expand it further to cover the full range. Currently 63 entries are fully described but only 2 have images. This classification is made by Hans Secelle, Belgium.

Auction data

Fully described from auction no. 40 and forward to auction no. 71. Images are available from auction 53 and forward to auction 71. Still an invaluable source for description, images and especially prices. The estimate of the number of records in the action database: around 30.000 entries.

Some more pictures from the meeting in the afternoon:

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