BGA Newsletter 315 June 2024

FROM THE EDITOR

This issue, and previous newsletters, are available in the Newsletter Archive in the Members' Area.

Contributions are always welcome, both from our members and others. We ask that they be Go-related and "newsy". The place for debate and general discussion is the BGA open mailing list Gotalk. However, an introduction to a new topic is fine in the Newsletter. A brief introduction to Gotalk, with a link for joining, is on the BGA page Go on the Internet.

Instructions for Contributors: Please use plain text not file-attachments. Keep it fairly brief, and give web-links and contact details. It's good to include pictures. If they are on the internet, send me the URL, otherwise attach the picture files to your email. Send your contribution to newsletter@britgo.org to arrive by the first day of the month.

Jil Segerman

NEWS

The full set of recent news items, including further details of some of the items shown here, are on our News Pages.

Pandanet: Match Against South Africa

Our team in the Pandanet Go European Team Championship played second-placed South Africa on 21 May. With the UK already promoted they just had to turn up and avoid a match point penalty. Unfortunately Scott Cobbold tried to arrange his game against Victor Chow on the Sunday before, but failed to make the game and the team occurred a two board point penalty. The others did show up with a win for Des Cann and close losses for Jon Diamond and Alison Bexfield, allowing second placed South Africa a three-one win to finish just one match point behind the UK and earn the play-off place. So the final C-League ordering was UK, South Africa, Spain, Slovakia, Kyrgyzstan, Denmark, Slovenia and Norway.

Pandanet Youth Go European Team Championships

The team played Croatia in round five of the European Youth Go Team Championship on 8 May. The team was missing two of its strongest team members and so were starting the match outgraded on three boards. Michael Mitcham-Harding Zoe Walters and Blake Shamoon were unable to beat their stronger ranked opponents. On board 2 Ryan Zhang played a very competent game to take a win by resignation while our board 1, Scott Cobbold, fought hard but ultimately lost by 8.5 points. This meant Croatia won the match 4-1.

The UK youth team played Romania in the final round. This match was unfortunately timetabled in half term week and we were missing some of our top players; as a result the UK team were out ranked on three of the five boards so it would have been a tough match to win. In the end, the team of Scott, Michael, Derek, Lea and Emily all lost their games. This left the UK third overall in the competition behind Ukraine and Romania.

Our thanks go to Alison Bexfield who acted as team manager.

ADMIN

British Go Journal 207

The Spring 2024 issue of the British Go Journal is now available as a pdf in the Members' Area on the BGA website. You will need to log-in as a Member here. Then go to the Members' Area and click on the link below the cover picture. The link for sgf files, including the problems, for this edition is here.

CONTENTS
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Toby Manning
YOUTH NEWS Tony Atkins
GO-PLAYING ROBOT David Wildgoose
ADVICE FOR DOING TSUMEGO – PART FOURTEEN Richard Hunter
PROMOTING GO IN THE UK Paul Smith
UK NEWS Tony Atkins
BRITISH CHAMPIONSHIP 2023: GAME 3 Artem Kachanovskyi
ASSOCIATION CONTACT INFORMATION
43RD WORLD AMATEUR GO CHAMPIONSHIPS Tim Hunt
TOURNAMENT HISTORIES XX: OXFORD Tony Atkins
PHOTO COMPETITION Andrew Ambrose-Thurman
WORLD NEWS Tony Atkins
SOLUTIONS TO THE JOURNAL PROBLEMS

Printed copies should have arrived in mid-May.

The copydate for the next edition is 1 July.

Huge Turnout for 2024 AGM

On Thursday 23 May over 60 members either attended the video conference for the SGM and AGM, or were represented by a proxy vote. For the first time in many years there was a contested election for president, alongside the elections for other officers, directors and dispute panel members. Minutes of the SGM and AGM, together with the voting results, can be found in the Members' Area.

Consultation on the BGA Financial Reserves

At the AGM the Board announced the start of a consultation exercise with members over what, if anything, should be done with the BGA’s financial reserves. A number of options were raised at the meeting, which have been captured as part of the feedback. All members are encouraged to come forwards with suggestions as to how we should manage our reserves, through either maintaining their current level or using them in a specific manner. All suggestions can be sent to any Board member, such as president@britgo.org or treasurer@britgo.org. Anonymity will be respected if requested. The consultation is expected to last several months, and will be advertised through various channels. Once members' inputs have been gathered the Board will discuss the findings and put in place an appropriate plan of action. The results will of course be reported back to the members.

The current financial position can be seen in our annual accounts for 2023 in the Members' Area.

BGA Photography Competition

Message from Andrew Ambrose-Thurman:
There are many Go players who are also talented photographers and artists. But something that we hear from clubs and people running events is that there aren't all that many Go related images available on the internet that are available for them to use - if you want to put a picture on a poster for an event, you'll often need to take your own. Go pictures can also be a good way to advertise the game to people who haven't come across it before: Go events can look fun and exciting, and Go sets can be beautiful and intriguing - when people see games being played they'll often stop to ask about it.

To help with this, the BGA are running a photo competition - to spread the word, and give the BGA and other Go groups more resources for Go events.

This isn't just for photographs - if you're an artist and want to enter with your Go related drawings, they would also fit the competition. There's a full set of rules here with instructions for where to send your photos. But if you've got any questions that haven't been covered do get in touch. Whether you're a photographer or an artist, I hope you'll take part!

The Youth Go Trust Receives Charitable Status

From Sue Paterson:
In April of this year the Youth Go Trust was awarded charitable status by HMRC. This means that the Trust is able to claim the Gift Aid on donations from those individuals who pay UK income tax, thus boosting the donation by 25%.

The Youth Go Trust was created in 2022 from the Castledine-Barnes Trust which had supported young players for more than twenty years. The Trust received a generous donation from the T Mark Hall Foundation last year and is in a healthy position to support young Go players. We are also grateful to clubs and individual players who have financially supported the work of Trust in the past and continue to do so. To find out more about the Trust – including how to donate – please visit our website

We are keen to support initiatives which encourage young people to play Go and we also welcome applications for support from individual young people or their carers. So far this year we have paid out over £850 for equipment for schools and grants to individuals enabling them to attend Go events. To make a request for financial support please complete the website application form and email trustees@youthgotrust.org.uk

EVENTS COMING SOON

This Month: Tonbridge, Welsh Open (Barmouth)
July European Go Congress (Toulouse, France)
August Youth Camp (Caythorpe), Mind Sports Olympiad (London)
September Nottingham, Swindon, Edinburgh
October Sheffield, British Small Board / UK Go Challenge Finals (Cambridge), Wessex