Last month, David Lewis stepped down as Treasurer of Hendon Chess Club, having held the post since 2020.
Owing to his other commitments in the chess world (mentioned below) he was keen to relinquish this demanding role once a suitable successor could be found; and happily the committee has been able to recruit Tom Garcia, who will serve as our new Treasurer.
We’d like to thank David Lewis for his service, and Tom Garcia for agreeing to serve, and we wish Tom every success in his new role.
As David steps down from his only remaining committee role, I’d like to take a moment to recognise his long and outstanding service to the Club.
In his Treasurer role from July 2020 to February 2026, David has very significantly improved the Club’s financial health, partly by turning problems into opportunities whenever he could. In concrete terms, he has increased the Club’s average surplus elevenfold, and our end of year bank balance eightfold.
David has also served as Secretary, Committee Administrator, Membership Administrator, Data Protection Officer, and captain of our Middlesex League Formula 4 team.
David wrote the Club’s current Constitution, which was adopted at our 2021 AGM. He has played a key role in ensuring our committee functions effectively, writing job descriptions for all committee roles, as well as countless minutes and other documents. He also ensured we have contracts in place with the excellent venues we have enjoyed during this period, including the Cumberland Club.
I’m pleased that David will continue to serve in a non-committee role as Club Historian, having invested a great deal of time in researching the Club’s history, and will continue to be an active member of the Club.
David currently serves as Deputy President and Treasurer of the Middlesex County Chess Association (MCCA), which runs the Middlesex Chess League and represents our county in the regional and national county championships. He also runs the highly successful North London U3A Chess Club for the retired and semi-retired.