Secretary's SoapboxChris Geggus We hope to have found a good new venue for our Autumn Con this year. Please see the separate ad for the Duke's Head Hotel in Wallington. What has made this booking more hopeful is that I have been able to speak directly to the manageress who can actually make decisions and can negotiate over cost, facilities, dates etc. As such we have obtained a good price for the bedrooms, on the date that we want and all in exchange for a very reasonable room hire charge of £200. This is half of what we paid the Palm's Hotel last year. Murray has already visited the Duke's Head to sample their wine list and has given it a big thumbs up (facilities as well as the wine!). If the convention goes well then we could look to book for next year as well. I did promise that we would put a lot of money over the bar (it's a Young's pub), so I will need to rely on those of you who attend to do your very best! Andy Watts recently copied me in on some correspondence that he had with Andy Johnson in the States regarding the AHIKS Rating Table. Now I know that a lot of you play solely for fun and totally abhor any form of rating or scoring, but the system is in place for any of you who wish to enjoy the somewhat dubious pleasures of moving up and down a league table. I have to admit that I always enjoy this extra competitive edge as another element of pleasure during and after a game. All I would suggest is that for those of you who wish to become or remain rated then why not ask your next opponent if he would like to be included as well. If you don't want to report directly to Andy, just send the result to me and I'll send it on (Andy is an old friend, so I'm more than happy to do that). For those of you who are interested, Terry Zuber is the present leader of the European Order of Merit. |