Dear Chessfriends !

Following the tradition of my predecessors, may I take the opportunity of
sending a message to wish you all a peaceful and blessed season.

Of course, 2005 will remain a specific year in ICCF’s history, with some good and some less
good things having occurred but, hopefully, all our actions can now be oriented to the future.

During the last year, we lost several valuable officers like former President
Josef Mrkvička, World Tournament Director Chris Lüers, Direct Entry
Administrator John Knudsen, Finance Director Grayling Hill and Games
Archivist Wes Green and I just would like to thank them for their great efforts
and say they will all be welcome to rejoin the ICCF team, at any time. 

Most vacant positions were filled by the ICCF Congress in Los Angostura and
I am confident about the abilities of the newly appointed officers.  All will
work very hard to improve ICCF standards and to offer, in coordination
with National Federations, good service to all players.

Significant planning has been started this month to further improve the
facilities of the ICCF Webserver and recently more than 2000 players were
recorded as having used the webserver, which confirms the correctness of the
decisions of my predecessors to invest in this modern technology system.  Playing
new forms of CC is growing permanently but postal players can be assured that
ICCF will continue to serve those who enjoy playing their CC games by post.

With this message, I address an appeal to all National Delegates to encourage
volunteers to join ICCF Commissions.    We need active representation in the
Marketing and Webserver Commissions, including Help Desk, and in Website tasks etc.
as well as in providing regular and interesting articles to Raymond Boger, the editor
of “ICCF AMICI”.   This publication (ICCF’s online magazine) is yours and it
needs to be supported by all National Federations.

One of our major goals for 2006 is to have strong relationships with FIDE and,
for the first time, an ICCF team will be playing in the FIDE Olympiad in Torino (Italy). 
We hope that ICCF will also be able to be represented by a ladies team from 2008,
which would be a great stimulus for promoting women´s correspondence chess
in the future.  We will also start to be more proactive in encouraging juniors
and younger players to take up CC eg by webserver.

All pending issues will be considered actively in the coming months and
far reaching ideas and proposals will be prepared for consideration and
decision at the next ICCF Congress in Dresden (GER) from 14^th to 20^th October 2006. 
We are hoping for a great attendance at the 2006 Congress as Dresden is ideally
situated and very well served in terms of transportation.

As we move towards 2006, it is a time to wish to all members of the
Executive Board and Management Committee, all members of Commissions,
all National Delegates and all CC players and friends a happy New Year with
lots of friendship, health, happiness and success.

AMICI SUMUS.