Persons celebrating an Anniversary in May 2007

This year’s May selection is opened by Günter Büsing: our member from Munich is well-known for being a problemist and collector, now he could celebrate a real anniversary as on May 3rd it was possible for him to look back on six decades. He was already represented in our 2004 column and as a board member of the "Schwalbe" he is still considerably integrated in the activities of the "German Association for Problem Chess". It’s true he stepped down as secretary (in favor of Volker Gülke from Lübeck) at last year’s restructuring of the board but he continues to perform the deputy chairman and he is also partly working as an editor of the club magazine "Die Schwalbe": for many years now he runs a column "Current Affairs" which not only reports the members’ anniversaries and deaths but also contains the interesting "Page of the Calendar", dedicated to problem history by looking back on composers of the past. Furthermore he occasionally contributes by reviewing new publications or writing articles such as the specialist parade "From AB to TZ" (February 2006) or the commemorative article on Josif Kricheli (June 2006); naturally we included him in the Publications of our Members long ago ...

Only two days afterwards our Dutch member Joost Felkers celebrated his special day, he has now reached the "65". He is our second member from Rijswijk and exclusively known to us as a collector.

For Lothar Schmid too one year has gone by, hopefully he could enjoy a carefree 79th birthday on May 10th. It’s true that we have already collected in the last years (see the 2005 and the 2006 column) many pieces of information about his interesting and successful chess life, but as he carried on being active in the world of chess there is always something new (or missed till now) to report. We only recall the Lasker weekend at the "Bonner Haus der Geschichte" from this year’s January which he has enriched by his participation. Furthermore we may add the laudatory article The man who saved Fischer-Spassky. Lothar Schmid turns 75 at ChessBase, and perhaps you venture a look at the History of the Karl May Publishing House which among other things would allow you to have a look at his career. A quotation from Lothar Schmid which has become known is "Great events cast their denials in advance", we hope that great chess events of the future will not overtake this fate.

Our next greetings go to the Swedish town of Lund where our amazingly active founding member Calle Erlandsson celebrated his 65th birthday on May 20th. We had already linked his Curriculum Vitae in 2004, in the meantime he has been present in many KWA and other events too – accordingly often he has appeared at our pages. During the last months he has also sent some contributions for our website such as a statistical analysis on the ChessCafe Holiday Quiz and short reports on his visit of Cuba as well as on the chess book auction in Gothenburg.

In our still short KWA history our Spanish member of Dutch origin – Govert Westerveld – appears a little later: last year we included him for the first time in our column, this year he reached the "60" (on May 23rd). Naturally we have included his main work on Isabella of Castile and her influence on the game of draughts and modern chess in the Publications of our Members. We are curious to see his new works still in preparation.

The following day our Yugoslavian member Dusan Vukovic becomes the focus, he celebrated the 60th return of his birthday as well. We have often met our friend and collector from Belgrade at chess book markets which allow him to offer items of his extensive stock, so he already joined our Forchheim meeting, but he is also a frequent and welcome visitor of the MEC book markets.

Congratulations!

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