All participants and officials stayed at the Club-Hotel Altein in Arosa; one of the hotels of Association Vacances Post/ Swisscom. The rooms were very comfortable and the food was excellent.

The matches were also held in the same place. The combat area was spacious enough and the players were provided with coffee, tea and soft drinks during the matches. Some teams came with their own minibus; others were collected at the airport of Zürich also by minibus. As far as I have heard no serious problems have been caused concerning the transport. Maybe one remark should be made that such a minibus doesn't have enough space for all the suitcases.

The opening ceremony was held just before the start of the competition in the same place as where the matches would be held. Some speeches were spoken by Myriam Keller of Arosa Tourismus, Gerhard Meyer on behalf of the management of Swisscom, Beat Stalder of Verband Sport + Kultur Post/Swisscom and Peter Brändli, Director of Club-Hotel Altein. The Union SCIPT delegate, Peter van Soest, opened the championships.

Unfortunately the number of participants, compared to four years ago in Hungary, has decreased from 14 to 8 teams. Since 1987 this Championship has always been of high standard on an average of 14 members/teams participating. What can be done to change this again? Although Portugal P, Luxemburg P/T and Norway P had to withdraw at the last moment due to several reasons, the competition was of a very high level. The first evening the Arbitration Committee was chosen: Ernst Koch (referee), Bojan Bajželj (Slovenia Telekom) and Peter van Soest (delegate). At the same time the draw for the matches was made. The second day gave some discussions about the way of the draw and with all the teams present it was done in a different, more fair, way. The Arbitration Committee had to come together only one time, but unfortunately it ended in a tough discussion. After consulting the FIDE-regulations and after another team captains meeting the problem was solved. The referee made excuses for not interpreting the rules in the right way.

On Thursday an excursion was planned in the afternoon. With horse and coach all participants and officials were transported to the cable railway. Everybody went up the highest mountain around and enjoyed the beautiful view on the Swiss Alps. Before the dinner we had some drinks, sausages and cheese the region. The dinner, of course, was cheese fondue!!! Most of the participants went down by cable car; some made the walk downhill and enjoyed the beautiful nature.

The last evening were the prize giving and closing ceremony. Some speeches again by Mr Rügg of Verband Sport + Kultur Post/Swisscom; Pál Kustra of Matav (Hungary) spoke some words on behalf of the participants and Peter van Soest closed the Championships. In the evening the dinner was extra festive; a Swiss folkloristic group played and sang (yodel) music from the mountains. Thanks to Etienne Martin, referee Ernst Koch and the extra help of Frans Surie everything was organised in a perfect way.

One remark: Organising a championship (even if it's chess) nearly on your own is a very hard job. A good thing is that Etienne Martin is a very strong and ambitious man, but from time to time it was hard to see he didn't really have a back up.

/ taken from Union SCPIT annual bulletin 2003 /