Roy Kietzman, former chairman of the Bahrain Scrabble League, becomes the Wespa chairman-designate succeeding Allan Simmons (Britain).
Wespa general secretary S. H. Cheah (Singapore) said that Simmons would formally step down on December 1 when Kietzman would becoming acting chairman until the election of a new policymaking management committee at its biennial general meeting at the end of next year.
Kietzman called attention to Simmons as the "inaugural chairman" who played a key role in setting up Wespa and getting its infrastructure in place, devoting much time and energy to the leadership of the nascent association.
"Together with Darryl Francis (Britain), Allan's contribution was singularly important, too, in getting the dictionary right after the publisher put out a defective tome."
Simmons, a four-time British Scrabble champion, felt that other matters were taking too much of his time and that it was better to step down as chairman though remaining on the 11-member committee and the dictionary subcommittee.
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He was appointed president in 1995 as president of the governmental Bahrain Scrabble Committee of the General Organisation for Youth and Sports and has chaired Wespa's communications subcommittee since 2005.
An American, Kietzman has lived the past 44 years outside the US, having been resident in Austria, Germany, Kuwait, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey before taking up residence in Bahrain in 1987. He is fluent in French and German.
In the past weeks, Kietzman has already worked to confirm the 11-member management committee and Wespa officers, subsequently activating the association's subcommittees dealing with communications, dictionary matters, ratings, rules, tournaments and youth activities. The term of the current committee runs until November 2009.
"Wespa is dedicated to working in the interests of Scrabble players, both recreational and competitive, around the globe," he underlined.
"It's their association, and we hope that more national groups will join Wespa in promoting the game internationally."
Wespa is recognised as the regulatory authority for Scrabble in English. Out of hundreds of millions of Scrabble players in English around the world, 25,000-30,000 are considered competitive exponents taking part in hundreds of tournaments annually in over 40 countries.
There are also French and Spanish world federations though Scrabble can be played in nearly 30 other languages.
Wespa and the two federations, possibly including an Italian association, are in talks leading to a global Scrabble organisation.
The game is celebrating this year its 60th anniversary of going on the market and is a registered trademark of Hasbro in North America and Mattel Ltd. in the rest of the world.
