Advisory Council Report from New Orleans NABC

By Tomi Storey D16 Advisory Council Representative

My hometown proved once again to be a fabulous location for a National. Spacious playing areas, excellent lighting, comfortable rooms, and the food! You couldn’t walk into a restaurant anywhere in the city without running into bridge players. Fortunately, New Orleans has a lot to offer, so your appetite for bridge and food was always filled. The Advisory Council (AC) meeting agenda was full as well. The highlights:

• The major challenges facing the ACBL are stabilizing the membership, getting players back into live play and improving the technology. The total net assets dropped over $1.8M in 2022. Revenue was down 12.4% over 2021, but tournaments are now showing growth over 25%. Membership continues to drop – down 6.7%, but new membership is up more than 18% – hence the need to keep our existing members as well as bringing in new ones. The guest membership program has had more than 4300 join since the start, and almost half have converted to full membership. It is very encouraging for our clubs that F2F bridge is up strongly. In the span of November 22-January 23, clubs games are up more than 42%! Of course, this comes at the expense of online games. BBO continues to be the dominant online presence with 65% of the tables in play.

• Information technology is still a major issue. I won’t go into all the many details discussed, but there is a phased rollout of a new masterpoint engine on the way as well as continued web functionality improvements to MyACBL. There is Marketplace, a new initiative to connect prospects with teachers and assist beginning players to easily find in-person and online classes, as well as newcomer games.

• The ACBL Intro to Bridge – Online is discontinued but is now F2F. There are pilot programs scheduled for Florida, California, and Texas, with two series for a total of 18, 2-hour classes. The goal is to get prospects to newcomer games at local clubs. This is free to ACBL Best Practices, Online Teacher Certification, and ABTA teachers. Experienced teachers may apply for free access while others must pay a licensing fee (<$100). This program was scheduled to start sometime in April 2023.

• We’re very aware that cheating, particularly online, is a constant topic of discussion among players and it is of utmost importance to the ACBL as well. The National Recorder received 91 complaints that lead to charge letters. Of these, 39 negotiated resolutions, 25 led to OEOC (Online Ethical Oversight Committee) hearings, and five resigned to avoid discipline. All recorder forms are now processed within 24-48 hours, and the time frame from memo-to-charges has been reduced to 10 days. EDGAR, the new technology developed to spot suspicious plays and calls, is being used as an investigation tool.

I hope this information helps to understand the workings of the ACBL. It is the Advisory Council that serves as a liaison between the ACBL Board and the membership. If I can answer any questions for you, please contact me via email at: Skeeter303@ yahoo.com or call at 214-244-8333.

Your other AC representatives are President Betty Starzec, Past Present Nancy Strohmer, and former ACBL president Ken Monzingo.