RICHARD ARNOLD - Club Stalwart
Richard Arnold has been a club member for around seven years. Since joining Waitemata Richard has been a stalwart member, supporting club events and doing his stint on the commitee.
He credits chess with significantly improving his mental stamina. Richard remembers when he first came along to the club, he had trouble concentrating for twenty minutes at the time; after a short period he was able to focus much longer and analyse far more easily.
But Richard has many other interests outside the royal game. A Quantity Surveyor by profession, he is also a talented artist, painting mainly landscapes for the past four years. Some of his work has been exhibited at the Royal Easter Show. Richard also plays the piano and looks after two large dogs.
He has two adult children, both of whom live in Auckland. His son is a Computer Analyst, who plays a good social game of chess.
Richard himself learnt the game in his native England around the age of ten, but played only spasmodically over the years because of family and business commitments.
Health problems have currently forced him to cut back his chess playing, but Richard remains as enthusiastic as ever about the game - as evidenced by his seven chess sets, including a chess computer.
"It's a challenge", he says. "When you're playing chess you forget all your worries. You forget everything else."
Bob Smith immediate past club president
Also immediate past- President of the New Zealand Chess Federation, Bob Smith has been involved in chess at the top level - both playing and in administration - for more than three decades. He has represented New Zealand at eleven Olympiads, from Israel in 1976 to 2008 in Germany.
Bob became a NZ Chess Master in 1993 and won the NZ title in 1996, gaining the FIDE Master title in the same year. He is also a NZ Correspondence Chess Master and a former NZ Corrrespondence Champion. Bob shares the record for the most North Island Championship titles, winning the tournament seven times, most recently in 1999. He is currently ranked sixth in New Zealand.
On the local front, Bob is immediate past club President and has served on the committee for more than 30 years. In the club championships he has set a record that is unlikely to ever be broken - thirty-one titles. Bob initiated what has become New Zealand's biggest weekend tournament - the Waitakere Licensing Trust Chess Open - and has been the principal organiser of the event for more than 30 years.
He also organised the 108th NZ Chess Congress, hosted by Waitemata Chess Club. The Congress has been generally acknowledged as one of the best ever held.
Bob started Waitemata's Junior Chess Club fifteen years ago and has been volunteering his time to run the junior sessions and teach children almost every week since then. He has also done a substantial amount of work in promoting chess within local schools.
Bob is married to Viv Smith, who is no mean player herself. Viv has won the NZ Women's championship 10 times, represented New Zealand at 14 Olympiads and is one of Waitemata's top players. She has also put in a lot of work for the club - notably in junior chess - and is currently Events manager. On the national scene, she was a NZ Chess Federation Councillor for seven years, during which she was Convenor of the Junior and Female Chess Committees and NZCF Rating Officer.
Bob and Viv have three children. Outside chess Bob is a freelance television news producer, while Viv works part-time teaching chess in schools.