When the 1st issue of the CCI circulars (or newsletters) appeared in September 2010, CCI had just overcome a crisis. The regular publication of current information should help to make the circumstances in the association more transparent. At that time, the board of directors consisted of five members, who reorganized their tasks and responsibilities.
The exact distribution will be published in the 2nd circular. Furthermore, there are reports on numerous ongoing tournaments and new tournaments to be started: Horst-Bode and Horst-Kellerer memorial tournaments, 9th and 10th CCI championship, 6th SoCU tournament (yes, they existed back then!) as well as commemorative tournaments from our annual meetings in 2006 in Lahntal, 2007 at Ammersee and 2009 in the Alte Land. We also play various theme tournaments as well as cup tournaments. The tournament activity is developing briskly.
The 5th issue in September 2011 reports about the 23rd CCI meeting from August 8th to 14th in Mellenbach/Thuringia. 38 chess friends together with their companions visit the event organized by Reinhard Wolfram with several trips to the nearer surroundings. At the same time we start the Mellenbach tournament. Manfred Möbius takes care of the friendly games, Frank Wittig of the cup games.
7th CCI circular: Werner Löffler wins the 9th CCI Championship with 12 points from 14 games. Bernd Kluge wins the Lahntal tournament with 7 points from 9 games. Siegfried Hoffmann wins the 5th SoCU tournament with 5 points from 6 games.
Another highlight of the club life is reported in the 9th newsletter in September 2012: The 24th annual meeting, organized by Brigitta and Wolfgang Richter, took place with 32 participants from August 6 to 12 in Geislingen. We undertake among other things beautiful trips to Ulm and to the Voralpsee in Austria. At the general meeting it is decided that CCI will participate in the 5th ICCF Champions League with two teams of 4 players. It is the beginning of a series that we keep until today.
The 10th newsletter begins with the announcement of Manfred Möbius for the organization of the 25th CCI meeting in Stadt Wehlen on the Elbe. Hans-Dieter Wassilieff wins the Horst- Bode memorial tournament and. Ludwig Lelgemann wins the 10th CCI Championship. The 2nd European Tournament ends with the shared victory of Dieter Hoch, Wolfgang Richter and Reinhard Wolfram, who each score 7.5 points from 8 games.
12th CCI Newsletter: Unfortunately, the 2013 Annual Meeting has to be cancelled due to heavy rains and a resulting flood that severely damaged the hotel in Wehlen. 2013 a new CCI board is elected. After the retirement of Hans-Dieter Wassilieff and Mario Schubert, Werner Löffler, Siegfried Müller, Reinhard Wolfram and Hans-Peter Toedter lead the fate of the association for the next four years (14th circular). The 15th circular begins with the announcement of the 25th annual meeting in Altenberg-Zinnwald. It is prepared by Gudrun and Bernd Kluge and takes place with 19 participants from August 11 to 16. The 17th newsletter reports on a perfectly organized event with excursions in the beautiful Osterzgebirge.
In the 18th newsletter we find some tournament conclusions: Frank Wittig wins the 3rd Euro Cup with 7.5 points out of 8 games, Werner Löffler wins the 1st CCI Super Cup with 8.5 points out of 10 games and Siegfried Hoffmann wins the 1st Friendship Tournament with 9 points out of 10 games. Dieter Hoch wins the 6th SoCU tournament with 4.5 points from 5 games.
In the 21st newsletter the 26th annual meeting (10.-15.08.) in Oberwiesenthal is reported. As in 2012, Brigitta and Wolfgang Richter have taken over the organization and have set up a nice program for 19 participants with excursions to the surrounding area, e.g. there is a trip to Karlovy Vary (formerly Carlsbad) in the Czech Republic.
25th Newsletter: Reinhard Wolfram organizes the 27.annual meeting in Oberhof from 25. to 31.07.2016. with some interesting excursions. Unfortunately only 17 chess friends incl. company take part. The tendency of dwindling numbers of participants is already foreseeable for some years.
In 2016 we start a cooperation with the newspaper for correspondence chess friends, which is published by Alfred Stummerer in Vienna. As a first step, we start a comparative competition with CiF. Siegfried Müller wins the Walter Heidrich Memorial Tournament, Werner Löffler the Max Bakkers Memorial Tournament.
In the 28th circular (June 2017), we report about the increasing demand for tournaments without computer use. Therefore, from now on CCI starts a new SoCU tournament at the beginning of each year. In addition, the number of new friendship tournaments with five participants each is increasing. For 2017, the election of the board of directors is coming up again. The outcome is a confirmation of all four of the previous board members. Elfriede and Manfred Möbius organize the 28th CCI annual meeting from 31.07. to 6.8.2017 in Neustadt/Saxony. With 16 participants again only a small meeting has come about.
In 2018 Frank Wittig is additionally appointed to the board as main tournament director. Unfortunately, there will be no CCI meeting this year. This year we will start the 1.Nostalgia Championship. This is a tournament form, which reminds of former correspondence chess times. The basic idea is similar to the SoCU tournaments, namely to play games without a computer and to transmit the moves by mail.
The 29th CCI meeting 2019 from September 4 to 8, 2019 is organized by Margret and Hans-Peter Toedter in Bebra/Hesse. Of the 16 registered participants, unfortunately only 10 will travel due to health reasons. It thus forms the low point in participants. Because of the corona pandemic starting in 2020 it will be the last meeting for the time being.
We don’t want to go into all tournaments and tournament winners here, but in the statistics of finished games there are some remarkable numbers. All still active CCI friends have played a total of about 16000 games in the time from the end of 1999 (beginning of the rating list) until the middle of 2022. How many games have been played since the CCI foundation in April 1986 can unfortunately no longer be traced. Estimated it might have been about 10000 games. Especially our frequent players have contributed a lot to the total number, here are our ‘Top Ten’:
Horst Kellerer – about 1.500
Siegfried Müller – 1.332
Manfred Möbius – 1.242
Werner Löffler – 1.053
Walter Heidrich – 1.022
Gottfried Schwertel – 911
Immo Angermann – 868
Hans Schneider – 852
Fritz Hampe – 850
Bernd Kluge – 820
So much for the look back. But what about the future? How can we maintain and develop CCI? Which tournament formats do we want to offer? We would like to receive your suggestions. Please send your suggestions to the CCI board!