Regional Director's Update

By Paul Cuneo District 15, 16 Regional Director

TheChicago Sheraton Riverfront was a wonderful venue for the Summer NABC. There were plenty of restaurants within walking distance and the area around the hotel was beautiful. The final table count at 8343 was about 900 tables better than 2022 Providence.

Bronia Jenkins is off to a very good start as ACBL Executive Director. She is learning quickly and trying new ideas to grow membership and improve retention. Expect to see these in the next couple of months. ACBL shows a positive net income from operations at $189,000 – an increase in investments of $355,000 through midyear. I am optimistic that the rest of the year will be even better.

Currently there is a campaign to bring back “lapsed” members. If they rejoin for $49 they receive $20 in free plays at their face-to-face clubs. Please reach out to lapsed members you know and encourage them to come back and play! The league has decided to continue to produce the “old style” convention cards which will continue to be legal for club and tournament games. The Conventions and Competitions Committee will make a few changes to the card before printing begins – primarily to update colors to conform to the current alert chart.

Key Board Actions

• The second reading of the proposed bylaws change to designate the Institute for Bridge Arbitration as the venue for ethical violation hearings and appeals from other disciplinary bodies passed unanimously. It was ratified by the Advisory Council at their July 25 meeting.

• Passed a motion to require that all candidates such as Honorary Member, Hall of Fame inductee, etc. to be honored by ACBL have their league disciplinary records reviewed prior to their nomination becoming public. This does not apply to honors bestowed by districts or units.

Information Technology Updates

• Security – During late April thru mid-May, ACBL suffered security breaches where a hacker was able to use ACBL’s email system to send millions of spam emails. None were sent as ACBL communications. This led to an overall assessment of services hosted by Amazon Web Services and significant changes have been made to prevent further intrusions. Complete implementation is expected by the end of summer, but no further intrusions have occurred.

• Masterpoint Engine V2 is nearing completion and will update all club games. ACBL is working on a solution for tournaments that will be tested soon. If successful, Strength of Field will be added to the parameters for awarding masterpoints in tournament pairs games, Swiss and Round Robin/ Bracketed Teams. It has been in place for Knockouts for more than five years.

• The AS400 migration project has been underway since the beginning of this year. The first process studied was membership dues and that is being implemented. The next step is membership which includes masterpoints and the interface used by ACBL’s Club and Member Services Department. I expect significant progress in the second half of 2023.