This summarises the major discussions and actions from the BGA Council meeting 11th March 2012 and preceding discussions:

We won our final match of the season against Denmark 3-1, meaning we will finish in 4th or 5th place, depending on the results of the other games in the final round; better than last year when we finished 7th. Watch http://pandanet-igs.com/communities/euroteamchamps/ for final details.

In round 9 Chong Han won on board 1 against Kasper Hornbæk, getting the better side of the deal in a fighting game of many trades and winning by resignation.

Des Cann beat Thomas Heshe with a nice counter attack in which what Thomas must have thought was one of Des's weak groups, ending up killing one of Thomas'. The game continued for a while but Des defended solidly and won by resignation once it was clear all his groups were safe.

Andrew Simons got off to reasonable start in his moyo game, and although Uffe Rasmussen's invading group broke out he secured a large territory.

Andrew Kay, 4d South London, added a ninth title to his current collection by winning the Bracknell Tournament. Only one other player won all three games and that was Daniel Peace, 12k Oxford. Jil Segerman won the 13x13 with 2/2 and Jim Clare won the problem competition as the only entry. The Black Rabbits won the team prize and Paul Barnard won the caption competition. 26 players took part.

Results

The 33rd World Amateur has ended in Guangzhou in China.

Central London's Florian Borchers (3k) won the Cambridge Bar-Low on tie-break from Roger Daniel (5k Central London) and Juan Leonardo Martinez-Hurtado (5k Cambridge), all on 3 out of 4. The Junior prize went to Melchior Chui (12k) from Cambridge. 11 players took part.

Results

The Candidates' was held over the May Bank Holiday weekend at ISH in London. 22 players took part. The best players were Andrew Kay (6 wins), Felix Wang (5 wins), Desmond Cann, Andrew Simons, David Ward, Alex Selby, Nick Krempel, Chong Han and Francis Roads (4 wins). Most of these will hopefully be playing the Challengers' League on the bank holiday weekend in June since there are eight places available as Matthew Macfadyen is not defending his title.

Results

The rules for 2013 have been revised by the BGA Council in May 2012. They will apply to the 2013 and all subsequent championships (until amended), and supersede all previous versions, although informally the changes are mostly effective for 2012.

The statement regarding the rules changes is as follows:

• Notification for events by letter is no longer required and is now optional for the Organizer (by letter or email to the address on our membership list)
• Announcement for events is to be on the website and in the BGJ (not in the Newsletter)
• Emphasis is now made that it is the responsibility of qualifiers to send in their entries (not the Organizer to ensure that they do)

In March 2013 Council clarified that if the Champion plays in the Candidates, then he/she cedes their automatic place in the Challengers League.

It appears that there has been some serious mis-communications and Matthew Macfadyen, who had been invited to play, turned down the invitation some time ago.

Unfortunately we only discovered this yesterday after seeing the list of players entered.

Francis Roads had been told that he had been nominated as our representative in the event that Matthew wasn't going to play, since he was 2nd in the points list, so we've apologised to him already. However, there is insufficient time before the event (8 days) for Francis to re-arrange his life, get a visa etc, even if he were to be permitted to play, since we've passed the IGF deadline for submission of names (15th March).

The 2012 AGM was held at the University of Durham Students Union on 21st April 2012.

Full minutes will be available in due course, but the main points were:

• Maria Tabor is elected to Council, following Jenny Radcliffe's retirement
• Phil Beck is elected as Auditor to replace Alison Bexfield who retires after 9 years. [Paul Barnard is appointed as Membership Secretary to replace Phil Beck.]
• The accounts for 2010 and 2011 were approved
• New subscriptions rates were approved as follows:
  • Standard £24
  • Family £32
  • Concessions £15
  • European £28
  • Rest of World £32
  The State Retirement Age concession was replaced by one for those receiving the Pension Credit.
• The proposed location for the 2013 British Go Congress is Stevenage

There was a pleasingly high turnout for the 2012 British Go Congress, held again in Durham for the first time since 1996.

On the Friday evening, 30 players gathered in the magnificence of Durham School's dining hall, for the British Lightning. This year held as a five-round handicap Swiss tournament, the last round saw two former Durham players battling it out to win: Andrew Kay (4d, now of South London) was ultimately victorious over Alex Kent (2d, now in Bristol). Results

On Saturday morning 63 players congregated in the more prosaic concrete environment of the Students' Union for the British Open itself. After three rounds of Go, the BGA held its AGM; no doubt reports will be provided by officials, so the important thing to note from the tournament perspective are that the meeting was so unexpectedly short that San Marco's restaurant, booked for a meal for 30 players to follow the AGM, wasn't yet ready when we arrived!