Dear EGF Members, With an early Easter this year the end of the Toyota - IGS-Pandanet Tour is coming up very soon. I hope many of you have taken the chance to watch the top games broadcast live on IGS-Pandanet from this year's tournaments. Next year is the last year of the second rotation. We are just trying to get the final confirmation of dates from the organisers before publishing the final calendar. Again we will expecting organisers to broadcast the top games on IGS-Pandanet, so we can work with this important sponsor of European Go in promoting playing of Go. Also very soon in Slovakia is the EYGC and the following weekend in Amsterdam is the Ing Memorial. Both of these look like being exciting events. And don’t forget to get your official and other pairs to enter the Pair Go Champs. Later in the year we have the Women's Championship in Leipzig and the Team Tournament is in St Petersburg 03/07/2005-06/07/2005 which leads on to their Tour event. Details are at http://www.go-federation.spb.ru/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Various lucky players have been taking part in international events. Germany's Barbara Knauf and Russia's Oleg Mezhov are the lucky youngsters playing Internet games against Mr Oomori (7p). This is in memory of Hans Pietsch and takes place on cyberoro on 26/02/2005 starting 11:00. Germany's Benjamin Teuber, Russia's Natalia Kovaleva and Mikhail Halchenko from Ukraine are our representatives at the 3rd World Student Championships in Tokyo which started today (25/02/2005-01/03/2005). In November Cristian Pop played Jie Li from the USA in the Seimitsu Cup Internet game, but lost so did not get to play Ms Suzuki 3p. Earlier Alex Dinerchtein represented us in an internet match to celebrate the Nihon Ki-in's 80th Birthday (he lost to Gu Li of China). Catalin Taranu will be our rep at the Fujitsu Cup in April. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Those who look at the EGF web site will see that the official calendar is at http://www.european-go.org/calendar/calendar.htm The European Cup and Toyota-IGS-Pandanet Tour have their own calendars. For all other events the recommended place to look is the calendar at Sensei's Library http://senseis.xmp.net/?EuropeanGoTournamentCalendar You should only refer to those and link to those from your web sites. Note that the date of the Rome European Go Congress (being held in Frascati) is from 29/07/2006 - 12/08/2006 (some incorrect dates have been published). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May I take this opportunity to remind you that subscriptions for 2005 are now due and should be paid before end of March, if not done so already. As usual, they are based on your number of members as of 31/12/2004 and are 0.50 euro per member with a minimum payment of 50 euros. The number registered is important as various things including Pair Go Points are based on it (and that you have actually paid). If it is easier to pay by cash, then I will take money from players at the Ing Memorial on 12/03/2005, but the preferred method is by direct transfer to the EGF Account, with notification of numbers and amount to hans.kostka@european-go.org Our account details: Account holder: Europäische Go-Foederation EGF Name of bank: Postbank Hannover - in Germany Account number: 0536 601 305 Sort code in Germany - BLZ : 250 100 30 IBAN code: DE15 2501 0030 0536 6013 05 BIC code or Swift: PBNKDEFF Account Holder's Address: EGF c/o Hans Kostka Zähringerstr. 56 79395 Neuenburg - Germany If you need to pay the EGF for any other reason, such as for a European Cup event, then this can be added at the same time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- We are restarting some of the Commissions. Some are already running in a tentative state. If you have keen volunteers to work on any of the following then let me know. Ratings - Ales Cieply wants helpers interested in Rating calibration. Rules - Matti Siivola has a few helpers and has set down aims. Toyota-IGS Tour - the format from 2006 needs deciding. The EGCC are keen to work with the sponsors to improve the Tour. Youth - Oleg Gavrilov will be looking for helpers at the EYGC Constitution - some changes need investigating before Jan 2006. Format of EGC - Anyone interested in investigating whether the Congress should be shortened or changed? Appeals - Martin Stiassny will be looking at this Promotion - is anyone interested in looking a promotion of Go, finding corporate sponsors and so on? We are investigating if there is a need for other commissions at present including Internet and Finance Commissions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think that's all for the present. May I wish you great Go in the rest of 2005. Very best Go Wishes AJAx