Firstly I would congratulate Diana Mirza for winning the U13 Girls title at the European Youth Chess Championship in Mureck Austria. She is current Irish Women Chess Champion and we all are looking forward to celebrate her results in future. Well done Diana! Our Under 12 team won the 4 Nations Cup in Wales and this was the first title for any Irish junior team in years. I would like to congratulate all players and their coaches David and Pat Fitzsimons.

Our Glorney and Faber Team players and parents visited the Irish President. Many thanks to the organizer (a chess parent).

The Irish Junior Chess Championship was held in Limerick and the organizations were superb. Next year we will try to find best way for registering players prior the event.

For the first time we organized the coaching for our best juniors in Dublin and it will continue next year. The plan is to form a national squad of 40-50 top junior players in all age groups. The coaching will start in January 2014 and finish in June. We would like to organize coaching in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Kilkenny. This year our coaching team was the strongest ever and we will try to continue to provide the best possible coaching for our top juniors. The Coaches were GM Alex Baburin, IM Sam Collins, FM David Fitzsimons, Karl McPhilips and myself. The invited coaches were IM Alex Lopez and IM Mark Quinn and I do hope that they will join the team in season 2014-15. The coaching structure is formed and ICU have 4 Academy and 30 Club Instructors and growing.

We are all happy to see so many new junior clubs in Ireland and I would like to thank all people helping and organizing them. The ICU will try to help the clubs and the plan is to support the new junior clubs with some ICU donations.

I will not write a lot regarding the incident in Cork as the report from the Disciplinary Committee is still pending. Generally we need to learn from all this and set clear rules and procedures for future. We are also waiting for FIDE recommendations on that matter.

The main goal in future is to introduce chess to as many kids possible in their Primary Schools. It is crucial and important to inform parents and teachers regarding the all benefits for chess playing kids.

I have to thank all Committee members, chess parents and the general membership for all their help and support, especially ICU Treasurer Noel Keating, ICU Chairman Jonathan O'Connor, David and Pat Fitzsimons.