At last night’s Annual General Meeting, several significant changes were made ahead of the new season.
Firstly, David Everington, having served as A Team captain for a long period of time, had announced last summer that he would like to step down after one final season. Jamie Hopkins agreed to take on the responsibility on the condition that B Team captain Dan Lockett would play this season for the A Team (a player short since early last season) on a full time basis.
That created a vacancy for the B Team captaincy, which Matt Best indicated a willingness to take up. This follows on from Best’s promotion from the C team to the B team earlier this summer, but in turn left a vacancy for a fourth regular player in the C team.
Therefore, club president Fred Harris confirmed that he would be prepared to return to playing regular league chess having taken a two-year break if it were to be of assistance running the full three teams for this new season.
On top of a reshuffle of the teams and captaincy, it has been confirmed that the club will shortly move into new premises (on the same site). Directions will shortly be available, and the club understands the new premises are a touch smarter than the current training suites we are using.
The club has also indicated that it is planning to buy some new equipment ahead of the new season, which will hopefully be available for the first game.