2018/19 was no ordinary year for the Metro Chess Club. Metro's 60th anniversary celebrates the end of the 6th decade of continuous operation as the club officially started in 1959.

This Club identifies the Best Player in each of those decades and thanks them through recognition on the club's website. The winner of the best player for the past 10 years was awarded to Ihsan Ferozkohi.

Unfortunately, along with some highpoints come some very sad points. One of our founding members, Bob Pilgrim passed away on 16 May 2019. His effort and dedication to chess in WA was recognised across our borders. In 1991 he was presented with the Garry Koshnitsky Medal for services to Australian Chess Administration. He was also awarded an Australian Sports Medal in 2000. Furthermore, he was a Life Member of the CAWA and this Club. On the local scene Bob coached school children at a number of schools for many years and the Lathlain Junior Chess Club. He introduced many quality juniors to this Club including Yita Choong, Leon and Natalie Taylor and Zhengbo Wang. A display of Bob's memorabilia was set up in the front room at the AGM. In recognition of the outstanding contribution Bob has done for this Club, the Committee have now renamed the Metro Open to the Robert (Bob) Pilgrim Open.

This year has seen the introduction of 2 new events - the Rapid/Allegro Swiss at the beginning of the year and another 7 round rated Swiss competition. Some Club members asked the Committee to recognise special members of our Club through naming tournaments after them, as we have for Allan Respini and Arved Wasser. The new tournament will be named after a Life Member of our Club who has also been a winner of two Player of the Decade titles. The tournament is to be known as the Richard (Dick) Lilly Swiss.