Play On!
by Bob Brooking
CHAPTER 1: AUTHOR’S PREFACE
“It was a mighty while ago.”
Ben Johnson: Every Man in his Humour, 1598
I joined the Club in 1947 but was a member for only twelve months. Then the Law claimed my attention and it was thirty years later that I returned and was promptly lured onto the Committee by Tino Fulgenzi. Back in 1947 the Club lived in the Athenaeum building in Collins Street, next to the Town Hall. Its home was one narrow, overcrowded, smoke-filled room, which I always crept into with trepidation. There is probably no other surviving member of the Club who can remember our quarters there. We were evicted in 1950.
Having rejoined the Club in 1977, I spent the next seventeen years on the Committee, twelve of them continuous as President, thus achieving a sentimental ambition to become the longest serving Club President. In 2009 the Committee asked me to take up the story where Care for a Game left off. And so now, Play On!
CHAPTER 2: MISSING MINUTES
“Methinks it was a happy life …
To see the minutes how they run.”
Shakespeare: Henry VI, Part III
Happy the club historian who has minutes to work with. Down to 1979 our minutes are in the custody of the Andersson Collection; the Club has copies of some of the earliest. The fine leather-bound book before me as I write contains such minutes as have been taken and survive from 1979 to the present. There are many gaps. The minutes of meetings between February 1982 and May 1984 were kept in a red “Collins” book which has disappeared without trace. No minutes can be found after December, 1994 until January 1999 and none can be found for the year 2008. There are many lesser gaps. It is essential that minutes be taken and put into proper written form and then preserved in a proper minute book.
CHAPTER 3: NEWSLETTERS
“Now, what news on the Rialto?”
Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice
The earliest newsletter that has come down to us dates from 1977, when the Club was at 483 Elizabeth Street. Its format differed from time to time, and it seems to have been published every two or three months, its length varying from eighteen to two pages. The longer issues contained such things as Letters to the Editor, reports from office-bearers, highlights from the Club’s early history, games (with diagrams), Cryptic Chesswords and a column styled “From my Divan … by Simpson” and containing comic verses about grandmasters; advertisements also appeared. The years 1979 to 1981 were the Golden Age of the newsletter. But by the mid-1980’s publication seems to have ceased. The newsletter re-appeared for two issues in 1999. January 2001 saw the publication of one issue of a single page. The newsletter was revived again in January 2003 with what proved to be the first and last issue under a striking new format. The newsletter returned as the Club Bulletin in February 2009. A Club web-page was created in the late 1990’s and, as in the outside world, electronic communication has since become more popular.
Simpson’s Divan was an early home of Chess in London. It still exists. Masquerading as Simpson, Brooking published poems from fictitious contributors, for example:
From My Divan … by Simpson
This month Simpson announces the prizewinners in the Nimzowich Memorial Limerick Competition. A copy of “Die Blockade” goes to the author of the following lines, who uses the pseudonym “Backward Pawn” of Waverley:-
“Grandmaster Nimzowich of Riga
On the seizing of files was most eager.
A passed pawn escapade
He would foil with blockade
Saying “Your queening prospects are meagre.”
CHAPTER 4 CHESS TAKES TO THE STREETS
“We shall fight … in the streets.”
Winston Churchill
In many countries, and especially on the Continent, Street Chess is commonplace. But Melbourne had to wait until 1993 before play in the open air became possible, with giant boards and pieces. This innovation is one of many debts owed by the Club to Dr. Albert Cymons. It was launched at lunch-time on Wednesday 8 September 1993, in what was then “Swanston Walk” at the corner of Swanston and Little Collins Streets, with a 16-board simul given by I.M. Guy West, in the course of which the Lord Mayor, Cr. Allan Watson, and the Member for Melbourne Province, the Hon. Barry Pullen M.L.C. (a keen chess-player), declared Street Chess to be up and running. This was followed by a blindfold simul on four boards given by Darryl Johanssen, two boards being taken by the Lord Mayor and Barry Pullen. The Lord Mayor played in consultation with the Club’s Secretary, the hard-working Patricia Collins, and an early draw was agreed. Rain fell, a harbinger of future difficulties.
The City Council provided the board inlaid in the footpath (and still to be seen) and a grant of $3,000 towards the cost of equipment in return for a promise to run Street Chess every Sunday afternoon for at least six months from Sunday 12 September. And so Street Chess became a popular feature of the Melbourne scene. The Florentino and Parkroyal restaurants each donated as prizes two dinners per week for the first four weeks. Club “Street Chess” skivvies and T-shirts were bought and both sold to players and used as minor prizes. Each Sunday there was both the Allegro and a simul, with entry fees and prizes. The simuls were more popular than the Allegro. At times rain washed out play, there being no protection against the elements. On Sunday 7 November 1993 the Street Chess Blitz Championship took place. In 1994 Moomba Street Chess in the City Square was highly successful.
On Sunday 6 April 1997 sponsorship enabled the Club to stage the R.M.I.T. Melbourne Street Chess Open Championship in Swanston Street, an Allegro tournament including a Junior Championship and a Junior Novice Championship. Street Chess had collapsed during 1994 but had been revived in September of that year further up Swanston Street, at the market run by the Council at Little Bourke Street. Street Chess began at Southbank near the end of the 1990’s and was staged irregularly. It was played there throughout the summer which began in December 1998, and trophies were awarded to juniors. In November 2001 we recommenced Street Chess on the corner of Little Collins and Swanston Streets as a harbinger of the Melbourne Festival of Chess. That Festival began in December, featuring the Australian Championships, and Street Chess was played daily in Swanston Street. Elie Beranjia was prominent among the helpers.
Living Chess, where human beings masquerade as chessmen, has long been known on the Continent for its colourful display. It was brought to Melbourne by the Club in October 1988, as part of the Lygon Arts Festival. The Victorian College of the Arts provided the players and the Club the chess know-how. A replayed master game was followed by impromptu ones. It would be good to see Living Chess revived one day in this city. But this is probably too much to hope for.
CHAPTER 5: SPREADING THE GOSPEL
“I did send for thee to tutor thee in stratagems of war.”
Shakespeare: Henry VI, Part I
Over the years the Club has tried to spread knowledge of the art of war on the chess board, although perhaps not always as much as one would wish. It has often been hard to find members willing to sit down with weaker players, especially beginners. But a good deal has been done. Simuls have always been a means of trying conclusions with a stronger opponent and many of these have been held at the club-rooms. Back in 1979 the Club was arranging ten-week courses at three levels. Private tuition has always been available, at least for the last thirty years or so. Recent years have seen classes for juniors on Saturday mornings. From time to time lectures, open to both members and non-members, could be heard on Candidates or World Championship games. In 1984 Emmanuel Basta was holding Adult Education classes on chess and encouraging class members to join the Club. Could this be done again now? In 1994 junior chess clinics were held and the patients responded well. Since the Renaissance of 2009 much has been done to attract and encourage beginners and introduce them to tournament play.
CHAPTER 6: OUR OWN BUILDING
“Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world.”
Abraham Lincoln: Message to Congress
Between 1966 and 1982 the Club rented the second floor of 483 Elizabeth Street. The Victorian Chess Association (now “Chess Victoria”) shared the premises, at first for nothing, but later paying a fee. In the 1970’s the Club established a fund to buy a building. It made a detailed proposal to the V.C.A. that each body should try to save $15,000 by 1982, with a view to using the resulting $30,000 as a down payment on a building to be owned by them both. Nothing came of this suggestion and, as Care for a Game records, in 1977, after a long search for something suitable within its means, the Club used its building fund of $20,000 plus gifts and interest-free loans to buy 110 Peel Street, North Melbourne, just up from the Victoria Market, for $77,500 subject to a $30,000 mortgage. The Club offered the V.C.A. a tenancy of the ground floor, which was refused, and so it let the ground floor to another tenant and used the first floor as its club-rooms.
The building was bought by trustees for the Club (Edwin Malitis, Carl Nater, Bob Seaman and Bob Brooking), who also guaranteed the $30,000 mortgage debt. The club-rooms were long and narrow (about 22 metres by 5), with steps up to the roof, where there was a small store-room. In refusing the offer of a tenancy the V.C.A. had already, unbeknown to the Club, taken a lease of the Club’s former home at 483 Elizabeth Street. It ran its own chess centre there until its lease expired in 1990. The resulting costs exsanguinated the V.C.A., fulfilling the Club’s prophecy that the chess centre was doomed to financial failure. For a few months in 1990 the V.C.A. used the Peel Street club-rooms for its events, paying the Club a fee.
The gift by will of Arnolds Rudzitis enabled the Club, in a second bold move, to break out of its cramped position in North Melbourne. Again after a long search, in June 1990 it bought its present home at 66 Leicester Street, Fitzroy, giving the Club the much needed luft (three times the size of the Peel Street club-rooms). The price was $340,000 and the purchase was subject to our getting a planning permit. This was obtained, and Peel Street was sold for $181,000 in August 1990. The purchasers of the Fitzroy building were Malitis, Nater and Brooking as trustees for the Club. It was able to raise just enough in gifts and interest-free loans to do without a mortgage. The Club took possession in December and after prolonged negotiations the V.C.A. began holding its events at Leicester Street. The V.C.A. experienced difficulties as time went by and 1998 was the last year in which it paid a fee for using the club-rooms.
The opening of the new club-rooms in Fitzroy was marked by a simul given by G.M. Tony Miles on 38 boards.
CHAPTER 7: NOT FOR SALE
“The idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.”
Jerome K. Jerome: Three Men in a Boat
By the end of 2002 the Club was in financial difficulties. It was living beyond its means: for the last three years expenditure had exceeded income. In February 2003 the Committee, expressing concern about “the long-term viability” of the Club, appointed three members (Bob Brooking, Bob Krstic and Jim Wright) as a committee to consider and report on the future of the Club and especially its building. Some members had suggested that the building be sold and one proposal had been that we use the proceeds to buy smaller premises with a strata title in an old two-storey building being redeveloped at the corner of Gore and Argyle Streets, Fitzroy.
In a long written report presented by Krstic the committee strongly recommended retention of the existing club-rooms. It made numerous other recommendations, some in colourful terms (“the club-rooms should not be used as a doss-house”), aimed at improving standards of behaviour. In May 2003 a general meeting in substance adopted the report’s recommendations. At the same time the small but enthusiastic Committee, aided by two or three dedicated members, had revived the newsletter and renovated the club-rooms.
CHAPTER 8: PROTECTING THE BUILDING
“In the multitude of Counsellors there is safety”
Proverbs, 11, 14
More than once, covetous eyes have been cast on our building. At one stage the impudent suggestion was made by outsiders that we should use it to fund a new chess centre for them.
In October 1999 at Brooking’s suggestion the Club altered its Constitution in a number of ways: most importantly, to provide for the appointment of Honorary Trustees with power to veto resolutions of the Committee for the sale or mortgaging of the building. Unfortunately these alterations were not lodged with the Registrar of Incorporated Associations within the time allowed and so they never became effective, although the Club acted on the assumption that they were effective, and invalidly appointed Honorary Trustees.
Finally, in December 2005, Bob Brooking achieved his long-held aim of writing into the Constitution a safeguard against attempts to dispose of the building unwisely or even in bad faith. This was to be done by requiring special majorities and a multitude of consents (from former Presidents) intended to be difficult to achieve. The AGM adopted this amendment to our Constitution.
CHAPTER 9: BUILDING FUNDING
“By any means make money.”
Horace: Epistles, 20 B.C.
In the last forty-odd years the Club has renovated rented premises at 483 Elizabeth Street, bought and renovated 110 Peel Street, North Melbourne and bought and more than once renovated its present Fitzroy home. Many and varied are the means used over the years to get money into a building or renovation fund: raffles; the sale of food and drink; the sale of chess books and equipment from the club-rooms shop; hiring out clocks for a Scrabble tournament; jumble sales of donated goods; sponsorships (the Golden Fleece of the Chessonaut, so often pursued by Albert Cymons); Street Chess; the sale of life memberships; donations, including interest-free loans, from members and other chessplayers, especially the vital gift of Arnolds Rudzitis. In his report for 1989 the President acknowledged a gift of cash by will and a gift of books from a living member and “urged members, if not to leave their fortunes to the Club, at least to ensure that it received their chess books and equipment once they had lost the Ultimate Game”. This suggestion will bear repeating now.
CHAPTER 10: THE LATVIAN LEGACY
“Come, my friends,
“Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Ulysses
After the Second World War Australia received many migrants from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and so chess in Melbourne enjoyed an infusion of Baltic talent. The Latvian contribution was very strong and resulted in the formation of a chess club named Venta, which counted among its members several powerful players who would become prominent in the history of Melbourne Chess Club. These included Kon Raipalis, a mainstay of our Club for many years, Olgerts Bergmanis, who served it as honorary auditor, Edwin Malitis, its Treasurer and long-term mainstay, and Karlis Ozols, joint Australian Champion in 1957 and nine-time Victorian Champion in 18 years, who defeated G.M. Kotov in the Invitation Tournament played at the club-rooms in 1963. Another strong Latvian player was Arnolds Rudzitis, who would win the Club Championship three times. He died in 1988, leaving his house and most of his other property to the Club. But where was the missing title to the house?
CHAPTER 11: THE CLUB INCORPORATES
“In sooth a goodly company.”
Reverend R.H. Barham: The Jackdaw of Rheims
From 1866 until 1997 the Club was what the law calls a voluntary association – a collection of individuals having no separate existence from its members. When the Club acquired first one building and then another, that property had to be bought and held by office-bearers as trustees for the Club. In 1997 the Club was incorporated under the Associations Incorporation Act. In due course title to the building was transferred to the new legal entity, Melbourne Chess Club Incorporated (Melbourne Chess Club Inc., for short). The title is held for safe custody by the Club’s solicitors, BMR Lawyers of 760 Riversdale Road, Camberwell, whose receipt is at page 309 of the Minute Book.
CHAPTER 12: OF NIGHT-OWLS AND OTHER BIRDS
“What hath night to do with sleep?”
John Milton: Comus
Night-owls have always been a problem. Some twenty years ago Vice-President Emmanuel Basta suggested a 1:00 a.m. curfew. Not long after this the Club moved to Fitzroy, where the planning permit allowed it to operate only between 8:00 am and midnight. But the night-owls could not be eliminated: they played lightning until daybreak, with the gas-heaters blazing away, and when the club-rooms were opened by Committee members at lunchtime next day they found the building agreeably but expensively warm. The Club’s by-law outlawing the practice was ignored.
Sometimes a night-owl was caught roosting in the building. Late-night patrols organized by Edwin Malitis drove the offenders into the outer air. But they kept coming back. In 2003 a special committee reporting on the future of the building protested that it “should not be used as a doss-house”. Finally, in 2009 the Committee succeeded in ridding the building of nocturnal occupants.
Over the years other birds of prey have at times made themselves at home in the club-rooms. These,, when no watchful eye was present, would swoop down on anything that could be stolen: cake, confectionery, soft drinks, coffee, telephone calls, chessmen. One tournament player thoughtfully assembled his own home chess-set by filching a man or two each night. The honesty box for phone calls was repeatedly ignored. In 1985 the Club had to ask Telecom to bar the making of overseas and Australian trunk calls. A check made in 1990 showed that four out of five local calls were being stolen. Another check five years later showed that sales of food and drink yielded not the expected profit but a loss.
Another form of dishonesty that has always plagued the Club is the failure, and often the deliberate and brazen refusal, to pay visitor’s fees. A number of persons have been banned from setting foot in the club-rooms because of misbehaviour of one kind or another, often as serial offenders. Regrettably, some strong players seem to claim a divine right to free entry.
CHAPTER 13: MORE MISDEEDS
“Let us eat and drink”
Isaiah 22:13
Food and drink have their proper place in a chess club. A long-standing tradition at Melbourne is the provision by the Committee of wine and cheese before the AGM. (Unfortunately some sluggards greedily devour what is offered and then ignore the meeting.) But the Club has had to battle against food and drink taken on other occasions. For example, a by-law of 1986 decreed “that alcoholic beverages may not be consumed or stored in the club-rooms except with the consent of the Committee” and a later resolution said that members should not store food in the Club refrigerator. When the Club moved to Fitzroy it made and publicized a by-law prohibiting the consumption of alcohol in the club-rooms. Despite this, nocturnal drinking became a problem which Edwin Malitis did his best to stamp out by midnight raids. In January 1999 a member complained that he was disillusioned, saying that the Club was being treated “like a pub”. When the Club moved to Fitzroy it banned the eating of meals outside the kitchen, so that rice and other foodstuffs from take-away meals would no longer be ground into the carpet. In 2003 the Krstic committee recommended that rules about food and drink should be laid down and that food should not be eaten outside the kitchen. Since 2009 the new regime has got rid of the drinking problem.
Smokers used to be another problem. In 1866 the Committee prohibited smoking in the club-rooms, but a fortnight later it repealed the prohibition. After another one hundred and twenty years the debate was still going on. At Peel Street the Club occupied a long, narrow area made up of three rooms. In the early days there the back room was made a non-smoking area on tournament nights, a motion banning smoking during tournaments having been lost. The following year the central room was reserved for non-smokers during tournaments and non-smokers were empowered to insist on playing in the two non-smoking rooms unless they were full. When the Club moved to Fitzroy one room was set aside for smokers. Later, smoking was banned outright.
CHAPTER 14: CLOCKS
“Time goes on crutches ….”
Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing
The Club began with hour-glasses but has been using clocks for the past 120 years. For much of that time it has been abusing them. Theft was the worst offence: in 1985 a lockable cabinet was made by Carl Nater to safeguard clocks as well as trophies. The unfailing popularity of lightning chess during the last 60 years has meant that we have suffered from the Battered Clock Syndrome. Some players (even in leisurely games) think that giving the poor clock a good slap signifies, not boorishness, but brilliance. Many sensible players have thought that no clock is safe in anything below five-minute chess.
Time and again the Committee has come to the defence of its clocks. In 1987 it prohibited the use of clocks for one-minute chess and introduced a fine of One Dollar for clock abuse in lightning tournaments; repeated abuse was to result in an outright ban on using Club clocks. On the move to Fitzroy in 1990 the Committee made a by-law against the use of clocks for anything less than five-minute chess and empowered any of its members to fine for clock mistreatment, and the AGM discussed “the eternal problem of damage to clocks through misuse”. Two years later the Committee re-affirmed the rule that clocks were not to be used for under five-minute chess. By 2004 the Club was discussing the relative merits of digital and analogue clocks, while 120 years before the choice had been between hour-glasses and the new-fangled chess clock. Technology had made its strides, but not human behaviour. For the 2004 debate centred around clock mortality and lightning chess.
CHAPTER 15: DARK DAYS
“They did fall into the Slough of Despond.”
John Bunyan: The Pilgrim’s Progress, Part I
From the mid-1990’s until its recent Renaissance the Club was in difficulties - at times, even in mortal danger. Membership declined; the bookshop faltered; the club-rooms became grubby and unattractive; malodourous cats gained admittance through the roof; rats were attracted by accumulated rubbish; doubts arose about the future of the building; it was very hard to get members to join the Committee. In short, the habitual selfishness of chess-players was in the ascendant. Attempts to make the Club more attractive by providing television, a pool table and card and other games backfired. Somnolent members drifted off on couches watching television, and Chess did not take kindly to its rival but much inferior games. (In 1879 the Club had decided to permit whist, cribbage, euchre and piquet, but by 1902 its Constitution firmly decreed: “No game but chess shall be played in the Club-room.”) In the Dark Days which began in the mid-1990’s some few members slept on the premises and kept there a strange hoard of treasures. In 2001 the Committee announced that all these bits and pieces would be thrown out unless the owners promptly removed them. Some blithe spirits suggested that the Club’s financial problems could be solved by borrowing, but they had no idea where the money to repay the loan would come from. Borrowing like this, warned Edwin Malitis sternly, could ultimately lead to the loss of the building.
But there were ups as well as downs: from time to time the Club’s sickness was treated by determined individuals, and responded to the treatment. Some of these individuals are mentioned in Roll of Honour.
CHAPTER 16: THE CLUB GOES TO LAW
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field.”
Shakespeare: Othello
As Care for a Game relates, the Club has only once been taken to court – in 1950, when the Athenaeum trustees wanted possession of its home in their building. In 2005 the Club for the first time entered the lists as plaintiff, following serious damage by rain-water which had flooded the club-rooms. The builder doing work next door had blocked up the gutter of the club-rooms roof. Evidence in support of our claim was collected by Greg Gatto and John Davenport, and the defendant ultimately paid up without the need for a hearing. Photos exist of Gatto precariously balanced on the roof, searching for evidence.
CHAPTER 17: RENAISSANCE
“It is pleasant to recall past troubles.”
Cicero: De Finibus, 45 B.C.
On 14 December 2008 what was supposed to be the AGM was held. But some members had received inadequate notice of the meeting and many had received none. The meeting purported to re-elect the President and elect a Secretary. Even if the meeting had been properly convened, this Committee of two could never have functioned, since the Constitution required a majority for a quorum at Committee meetings and two persons cannot produce a majority.
A group of members energetically led by Grant Szuveges, with his Short Term Business Plan, decided it was time to resuscitate a club that had only with difficulty been kept alive. And so a fresh AGM was held on 1 February 2009, which declared the earlier meeting null and void and elected a new Committee –
President: Grant Szuveges
Vice President: Carl Gorka
Treasurer: Pano Skiotis
Secretary: Malcolm Pyke
Registrar: Stephen Wertheim
Ordinary Members of the Committee:
Slobodan Krstic and Alex Kaplan
Under the new Committee the Club has been vigorously resuscitated, with the revival of old and introduction of new activities, and renovation of the club-rooms. It can now look forward to its Sesquicentenary in 2016.
CHAPTER 18: ROLL OF HONOUR
“Well, honour is the subject of my story.”
Shakespeare: Julius Caesar
J.L. Bairstow, who died in 1984, was for many years an office-bearer and a great benefactor of the Club.
Emmanuel (“Emmo”) Basta, a very strong but always amiable player, thrice Victorian and twice Club Champion, served on the Committee for many years, most of them as Vice-President. He died in office in 1992. He helped popularise chess through his Adult Education classes and contributed a chess column to the now defunct Weekly Times.
Olgerts Bergmanis, one of the many strong Latvian players, has been the Club’s Honorary Auditor for many years.
Dr. Albert Cymons has already been mentioned as the founder of Street Chess. He served on the Committee in various capacities over a number of years, including terms as Vice-President and President. A Doctor of Laws, he was a successful businessman and prominent member of the Swiss Club of Victoria. His enthusiasm, savoir faire, connections and genius for attracting sponsors to chess were of great value. A generous supporter of the building fund, he donated the cup for the Rudzitis Memorial and the plaque honouring the “four pillars” of the Club. In 2001 he was mainly responsible for the Melbourne Festival of Chess, sponsored by the City of Melbourne and the Swanston Hotel and featuring the Australian Championships. He was still playing shortly before his death in 2009, in his ninety-first year.
Greg Gatto, a member for many years, was a good friend of the Club in its prosperous days. While most of us studiously ignore new members and visitors, he was once thanked by the President “for his tireless work in welcoming all and sundry”. His long-standing contributions to the Club were capped by his three-year Presidency (2004-06) during the Dark Days he did so much to lighten by his complete devotion to the Club’s interests, his generous gifts and his hyper-activity as a renovator. He was renovating when we were at Peel Street but reached new heights (both literally and metaphorically) at Fitzroy. He is an important figure in the history of the Club.
Francis Kocur, Life Member, is another of those prominent during the Dark Days, making a great contribution to much-needed renovations and using other skills when, in 2009, the meeting marking the Renaissance was convened. He has always been keenly interested in the Club’s affairs.
John Lavery, Life Member, served on the Committee in different roles over many years. His goodwill towards the Club, his assistance to it as a man of many parts and his friendly personality have made him popular ever since.
Edwin (“Eddie”) Malitis, Life Member, was another strong Latvian player who won the Club Championship. He was President in 1972 and 1973. A firm but friendly and modest man, he is remembered for his tireless work as Treasurer for 47 years, a record that will certainly never be broken. He insisted on proper financial management. He stayed with the Club in good times and in bad and is more than any other person responsible for its survival. An International Arbiter, he directed play in innumerable tournaments. He interested himself in literally all aspects of our activities. A plaque put up in 1992 names him as one of the four pillars of the Club, but he might better be described as the keystone of its arch. He was awarded the Koshnitzky Medal. He died in 2007, and many of us gathered at his funeral. As was said of a very famous man centuries ago, If you seek his monument, look around you.
Richard McCart, a member since 1987, and always interested in the Club’s affairs, played an important role as Secretary in 1998 and as President for the next three years. The Club was going through a difficult time and he acted strenuously and effectively to revive it by various means.
Carl Nater, Life Member, served as Maintenance Officer at 483 Elizabeth Street, Peel Street and Fitzroy. “Maintenance Officer” is a gross understatement: often he designed, obtained permits for, carried out and paid for the work – and then maintained. The two buildings bought by the Club needed extensive alterations which we could not have afforded if done by contractors. (Of course Carl had some assistants, notably Kon Raipalis.) Hand in hand with this work as a jack of all trades went many other kinds of contribution, some of them financial, like donations to the building fund and guarantees of tournament prize funds. He was Secretary for a time. A keen player himself, he often directed play. In his leisure moments he would climb into his four-wheel drive and disappear into the bush, fossicking for gold. At the 1991 AGM it was said of him that “he was and would always remain an important figure in the history of the Club”. In 2009 he came down from New South Wales for the meeting which marked the Club’s Renaissance.
Malcolm Pyke was on the Committee for some ten years until the end of 2007 in various capacities, including Tournament Organiser, Vice-President for two terms and, especially, Secretary. Strangely, he never became President, but he was the driving force for a long time. As well as holding other offices he became the de facto tournament organiser. He also became the Club scribe, reintroducing the taking of minutes and so helping to save part of our history from oblivion. What he did was at the expense of his own chess, which nevertheless saw him take some valuable scalps and become Club Champion in 2008. During these years the Committee was grossly under-populated and the burden on him was always heavy. Although he left the Committee at the end of 2007 he continued to act as tournament organiser, and, fortunately for the Club, at the AGM of 1st February which marked the beginning of the Renaissance he became Secretary again.
Marcus Raine, Life Member and former Committee member, became President in 1997. But whether he was in office or not made no difference to his devotion to the Club. An unassuming man, and sensitive to the needs of others, he was once described in a tribute as having been all things to all men in his work for the Club. He ran the bookshop, directed play, organised teams and ratings, was to the fore in Street Chess and working bees and could not be restrained from making frequent generous donations.
Konstantin (“Kon”) Raipalis, Life Member, was born in Latvia. He joined one of the strong chess clubs in Riga as a young man, so beginning a life-long devotion to the game. Shortly after arriving in Australia he settled in Melbourne, joining both Melbourne and the now defunct Latvian chess club “Venta”. He collected many “top scalps” and came equal first with Rudzitis in the M.C.C. Championship, losing the play-off, first in the City of Melbourne, equal first with Hanks and Ozols in the Max Green Memorial and third in the Victorian Championship. He won the Rudzitis Memorial at the age of 82 with a score of 4/5 and at the age of 89 he scored 5½ /11 in the Seniors section at the Australian Championship. Edwin Malitis described him as probably the strongest player of his age in Australia when he died in 1998 at the age of 89. He was a friendly and modest opponent.
To quote Malitis again, “After retirement he became the unsung soul and personality of the M.C.C., doing the unrewarding tasks like cleaning, tidying up, opening and closing the club-rooms, etc.” He preferred not to join the Committee, but was the Club’s custodian for very many years. When much younger men were shirking working bees, Raipalis would sometimes be the only participant, putting his carpentry skills to work. A plaque erected in 1992 records his position as one of the four pillars of the Club. He should never be forgotten.
Arnolds Rudzitis. See The Latvian Legacy.
Grant Szuveges. See The Renaissance.
Angelo Tsagarakis, Life Member, first served on the Committee in 1994. After the death of Edwin Malitis he put his professional skills as an accountant at the Club’s disposal by becoming Treasurer. He lent the Club money for essential renovations and generally to help it get through hard times and was prominent in the movement to resuscitate the Club in 2009.
Hans Werner, Life Member, worked on the Committee for years and made large interest-free loans to help buy both the Club’s first and its second building.
Honorary Life Members – G.M. Ian Rogers, who was elected to honorary life membership in 1985, having resigned that membership in 1993, there appear to be only two living persons who have this honour: Bob Brooking and Doug Hamilton.
Many others, like Roger Beattie, Elie Beranjia, Patricia Collins and I.M. Guy West, to name just a few, might be mentioned for their various important contributions to the Club over the years.
CHAPTER 19: PRESIDENTS OF THE CLUB
1986 MR. JUSTICE BROOKING
1987 MR. JUSTICE BROOKING
1988 MR. JUSTICE BROOKING
1989 MR. JUSTICE BROOKING
1990 MR. JUSTICE BROOKING
1991 MR. JUSTICE BROOKING
1992 MR. JUSTICE BROOKING
1993 MR. JUSTICE BROOKING
1994 C. DE PASQUALE
1995 DR. A. CYMONS
1996 D. JOHANSEN
1997 M. RAINE
1998 D. BEAUMONT
1999 D. BEAUMONT
2000 R. McCART
2001 R. McCART
2002 R. McCART
2003 G. GATTO
2004 G. GATTO
2005 G. GATTO
2006 G. GATTO
2007 W. JORDAN
2008 W. JORDAN
2009 G. SZUVEGES
CHAPTER 20: CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP
1986 C. De Pasquale
1987 G. West
1988 G. West
1989 G. West
1990 G. West
1991 D. Johansen
1992 D. Hamilton
1993 D. Johansen
1994 I. Goldenberg
1995 M. Gluzman
1996 D. Johansen
1997 M. Gluzman
1998 M. Chapman
1999 G. West
2000 D. Johansen
2001 S. Krstic
2002 G. West
2003 I. Bjelobrk
2004 G. West
2005 G. West
2006 S. Chow
2007 M. Rujevic
2008 M. Pyke
2009 G. West