MANAGEMENT REPORT FOR APRIL 2004

 

 

To:                   ACBL Board of Directors

 

cc:                    Don Mamula

Peter Rank

 

From:               Jay Baum, CEO

                        ACBL

           

Date:                April 2004

 

 

1.            MEMBERSHIP:

 

Membership statistics for the month of April reveal 150,103 dues-paying members, or 705 members (0.5%) more than the 149,398 members shown in April 2003.  Total membership of 167,663, which includes 17,560 unpaid LifeMasters, was 1,384 members (0.8%) higher than last year. (Exhibit 1)

 

 

2.            HUMAN RESOURCES:

 

Two in-house seminars with the Telephone Doctor have been scheduled for May 26^th and 27^th.  The seminar will include training on the Six Cardinal Rules of Customer Service, How to Handle Irate Callers, Avoid “Emotional Leakage”, The Five Forbidden Phrases (what you can say instead), etc.  They will also demonstrate how to answer a business call effectively and identify how to set the stage for positive interaction by using “welcoming phrases”.

 

 

3.            MARKETING: 

 

April marked our first venture to a regional Senior Expo – this one in Jacksonville, FL.  We debuted a new exhibit display and a new brochure called Bridge in Your Neighborhood.  A brochure template will be available online for local areas to add information about clubs and teachers for public distribution.  The brochure was very well received in Florida.

 

The e-newsletter for the New York NABC was distributed to all clubs, teachers, and a number of unit and district representatives, in addition to all members in districts 3, 24 and 25.  In addition, the New York posters were distributed to all clubs.

 

The tournament division, internet services and the marketing department worked together during the transition of ACBL Online to the new Play Online site, which features all online clubs offering masterpoints.

The Bridge Bulletin staff is working on the new – and we believe improved – newcomer section for the magazine.  If will feature new columns by such authors and teachers as Val Covalciuc, Pat Harrington, Harry Lampert and Jerry Helms – along with features such as “Conventional Wisdom,” highlighting conventions, players profiles, reviews and numerous anecdotes and tips.  Because we are no longer committed to a 12 pages for this section, we also will have room for more features in the bulk of the magazine.

 

Marketing has worked closely with Aileen Osofsky to prepare for the 50^th anniversary of the Goodwill Committee in 2005.  A letter is being sent to all district presidents to suggest that they name a district Goodwill Committee and to encourage other programming.  We also are encouraging clubs to celebrate the Goodwill Days held during the NABCs.

 

 

4.            CUSTOMER SERVICE:

 

Summary Customer Service Mail Box Routed E-Mails March, 2004

 

No. Business days in the month:    23

754            incoming e-mails

479            junk e-mails deleted

275             e-mails routed

         

CATEGORY RANKING – HIGHEST to LOWEST

 

 

Summary Customer service line Routed calls tracking March 2004

 

No. Business days in the month:            23

946            incoming calls

           -331     hang-ups

615             calls routed

 

CATEGORY RANKING – HIGHEST TO LOWEST

 

 

5.              BRIDGE ADMINISTRATION:

 

The Reno experience was a challenging one for the professional staff.  Tables per director approached that which we would see at a smallish regional tournament, not one we expect at an NABC.  Add to this the several mornings of training sessions we conducted and our staff was stretched pretty thin.  Despite this I believe we did an admirable job.  Nancy, Jeff and crew enjoyed a fine working relationship with the hotel management and support staff; the local volunteer organization; and our own extended support staff.  Chris and John continued as our lead pair of NABC DiCs.  TD's garnered plenty of nice comments from players throughout the tournament.  Those few complaints we received were addressed with immediacy by Chris and John. 

 

Appeals generated at this tournament were below that which would be expected for its size.  Only 24 NABC+ appeals, with 1/3 coming on the last weekend, and 12 regional appeals with 1/2 coming on the last weekend.  Still, 36 cases for 15,000 tables is a nice job.  Throw out those that were considered without merit and those nearly without merit and we believe our staff is showing solid skills.  We continue to believe that our table rulings AND the way in which we present those rulings is creating for our players more comfort and confidence in the floor staff.

 

Eighteen TDs participated in structured training while in Reno.  Other designed mentoring opportunities involved another eight individuals.

 

We are doing the Reno appeals cases in-house.  We did have some trouble getting the last couple of NABC+ cases, three were heard late Sunday night, but we will be ready to send all out for comments later this week.  We had hopes of having this case book ready for NYC.  This is still possible, though unlikely given the delays we had to deal with. 

 

The NABC+ event surveys were tabulated and distributed to committee members within three weeks of Reno's completion thanks mostly to Debbie Vicknair.  The BoD committee is currently establishing its schedule.

 

Rick Beye spent a very productive long week-end working with the regional tournament staff in Lake Geneva, WI.  A relatively junior staff offered opportunities for both mentoring and evaluation.  Ron Johnston was the DiC.  Ron spends more time than many working with less experienced TDs on improving their skills in all areas of our work.  Later he will spend the week with the staff in Cincinnati at another regional tournament. 

 

If you haven't heard yet - Gatlinburg exceeded 8200 tables!  With all of those tables Millard still found time to run 16 TDs through structured training and conduct another club director update course.  As always Millard created a number of well thought out mentoring opportunities also.

 

We have made some progress insofar as automating our entire tournament department process, from sanctioning to staffing and reporting tournaments.  While we expect no miracles we have a general schematic for what is within the technical capabilities of our system as opposed to what would be ideal for us.  I hope to have more for you soon.

 

            Table Count -  (Exhibit 2)

 

 

6.              CANADIAN EXCHANGE RATE:

 

            The current exchange rate is set at $1.31 for the month of May. (Exhibit 3)

 

 

7.         CLUB INSURANCE:

 

ACBL has provided guidance to clubs for their liability insurance for approximately eight years.  Our role in the initial stage was to find a company that would underwrite a policy for all our clubs.  Until this year, all clubs that wanted insurance through this company paid $177 as a premium.  This amount has increased from $120 to $177 during that time.

 

Earlier this year we discovered that the company underwriting the policies was not a rated insurance company and this insurance was not acceptable to their landlord.  After determining that this was in fact the case, we contacted several different vendors, including our own local agent to help find anyone interested in underwriting this line of business.  This proved to be very difficult.  With three weeks left before the current policies expired we were able to get two companies to offer coverage.  One was willing to cover nonprofit, non-premises based clubs that operated less than 160 days for $300.  For any others, another company was offering policies starting at $750.  On April 15th, a notice was sent to the clubs (less than 200) that were written under the old policy.  Over the course of the next week, we learned that coverage in some states was not an option due to either state insurance laws (Florida and Hawaii), or due to high risk factors (California and New York).  The affected clubs in these states were put in a bad position due to the short time they had to react.  We attempted to get everyone some sort of option from the brokers involved and at this point we believe everyone has found some coverage either through help from the suggested brokers or on their own.

 

The analysis on this would suggest the following:

 

1.         The prior program worked with little or no attention for the past eight years.

2.         Less than 6% of our clubs opt to use this benefit.

3.         ACBL staff is not trained in acting as an insurance broker and has neither expertise nor experience in determining insurance solutions.

 

This leaves us with some alternatives:

 

1.         ACBL retains a broker to establish solutions to insurance problems for all clubs on an annual basis.

2.         ACBL notifies the affected clubs that we will no longer offer a recommendation for their liability insurance.

 

I believe this merits some discussion in New York and expect we can come up with a solution.

 

8.             JOURNAL DATES:

 

            The deadline for the New York journal is May 31^st.  If a supplemental journal is needed the deadline will be June 14^th.

 

FOR ALL THAT DESERVE THE RECOGNITION,

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!