MANAGEMENT REPORT FOR MAY 2004

To: ACBL Board of Directors

cc: Don Mamula

Peter Rank

From: Jay Baum, CEO

ACBL

Date: June 2004

1. MEMBERSHIP:

Membership Statistics for the month of May reflect a 573-member increase (0.4%) in paying members to 150,163 from 149,590 last May. Total membership, including unpaid Life Masters, increased 1,268 members (0.8%) to 167,764 from 166,496 in May 2003. (Exhibit 1)

2. FINANCIAL:

The financial results for the first trimester reflect a profit of $187,000 versus a budgeted profit of $139,000. See the enclosed “Results of Operations” included in this week’s mailing.

Canadian Exchange rate for June is $1.37. (Exhibit 2)

Reno financial results: (Exhibit 3)

3. MARKETING:

Lower Prices on ACBL Teacher Manuals - Effective June 1, 2004, the ACBL will offer the ACBL Bridge Series Teacher Manuals for only $10, or for accredited or registered teachers only $9. This presents an opportunity for teachers to update their manuals (Bidding, Play of the Hand, Defense, Commonly Used Conventions and More Commonly Used Conventions) or buy a manual they don’t already have inexpensively. It is in ACBL’s best interest for teachers to use the manuals in order to offer more effective classes.

Web Site: We are extremely pleased by the responses to the new web site and its added features, and more innovative programming is on the way. We hope more of you will take some time to peruse the new pages and give us feedback.

Yahoo Campaign: We are set to launch a new advertising campaign on the Yahoo bridge site. This campaign pushes responders to The Bridge Bulletin subscription (along with ACBL membership) at amazon.com.

Origins Convention: We are looking forward to this new venue in our marketing efforts and have planned a demanding series of events. Columbus representatives have been contacted to help as volunteers. The Game Manufacturers of America is hosting the ACBL, with free exhibit space and hotel rooms. Thus, we will invest in advertising in the local newspaper. Linda Granell, Tawni Fite, Audrey Grant and Ken Van Cleeve will represent the ACBL. I’ve attached our schedule of activities. (Exhibit 4)

NEA: We return from Origins and head to Washington DC for the National Education Association convention. Tawni Fite and Harley Bress will staff this convention for teachers and school administrators with volunteer assistance. We are very enthusiastic about this first venture into the national school community.

ACBL Brochure: Wait until you see the new ACBL brochure! This will replace the existing Prospective Member Packet—always considered temporary—and be used for membership and sponsorship recruitment. Copies will be available in New York.

General Membership Survey: The 2004 General Membership Survey will launch June 15. In addition to several of the “benchmark” questions asked last year, we have added a section for The Bridge Bulletin to determine reader interest in the magazine’s features. Because of the tremendously high percentage return rate from our members, this year’s survey will be distributed to a random 6,000 members—a survey pool that will guarantee validity.

New Bridge Bulletin Section: We have completed content planning for the new “Play Bridge” section of The Bridge Bulletin and are confident we will produce an excellent section for our newer members. A mock-up of the new section will be available later this month.

New Membership Bills – Beginning in the mid-June our members will be receiving the new membership bills. The attached file is an example of one designed for members in the U.S. Canadian members will receive theirs in English and French. (Exhibit 5)

Club Managers Newsletter – The spring edition of the Club Managers newsletter was enclosed in packet mail. The newsletter can also be found on our web site at:

http://www.acbl.org/documentlibrary/clubs/ClubManagerNewsletter/CMN-spring04.pdf

4. TOURNAMENT:

At this report 188 clubs have registered for the World-Wide Bridge Contest. These clubs plan to hold a combined 382 games between Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, June 4 & 5. These numbers reflect a continuing downward trend in participation. This year’s registered clubs reflect a 15% loss in combined games from 2003. A complete history of this event was included in your Reno Special Events report.

Tournament Evaluations Forms continue to be solicited each Monday morning. Monthly response rates run at approximately 30%. A continuing problem is the lack of accurate email addresses entered on the Tournament Sanction Forms.

The Reno appeals cases were assembled, edited and sent out for commentary May 3. Several returns have been received at this time. We hope to have this casebook ready for distribution prior to Labor Day.

The New Orleans appeals casebook went up on the ACBL web site May 26.

Field Supervisors are scheduled to attend a meeting in our Memphis Headquarters August 25-29. Topics will include performance evaluations, TD ratings and rankings, promotions, recruitment and training, rulings and player satisfaction issues.

Bridge Base Online (BBO) has begun holding ACBL sanctioned games. BBO plans to hold two or three masterpoint games each day. While membership at BBO remains free, masterpoint games will incur a per player per session charge.

At two other online playing sites: e-bridge tables remain strong, hosting approximately 11,000 monthly. OKBridge is still considering re-establishing masterpoint games on their site. No date is yet projected for OKB to resume masterpoint games.

Table Count – (Exhibit 6)

5. CUSTOMER SERVICE:

In May 2004, 526 phone calls were routed from the customer service line. This total excludes 188 “hang ups” that were also recorded but deleted.

Last month 185 e-mails were distributed from the customer service mailbox. Early in May we installed several new “rules” criteria for the mailbox which greatly reduced the amount of time the staff had spent previously in deleting obvious junk e-mails or in determining e-mails to be classified as junk after they were opened.

The Customer Services manager created a tour guide for internal use prior to a large California-based tour group’s visit to headquarters on Friday, June 4. The new guide also serves as the basis for another document now in the final preparation stage that we plan to distribute to new employees in the orientation packet prepared by the Human Resources department staff.

Customer Service seminars were attended by 50 employees on May 26 and 27.

6. COMPUTER SERVICES:

On Friday May 21 around noon, the ACBL was hit with a vicious Spam attack. This attack was comprised of virus infected e-mails that were addresses to valid and invalid addresses. The virus protection on the mail server functioned properly and removed the viruses. The mail server then processed and returned mail that was not properly addressed. As you might imagine, the server had problems when we began to receive more than 20,000 e-mails an hour. We received over 50,000 e-mails on Friday.

The problems created by this attack were corrected and mail delivery functionality returned to normal around 9:00 p.m.

You will be please to know that the Spam filters on the mail server have been improved.

7. LONG-RANGE BUSINESS PLAN:

We are beginning work on a long-range business plan to cover the next five years. It will also include a discussion of succession plans for key ACBL employees. We hope to be able to share management’s idea prior to the Fall NABC in Orlando.

8. PERSONAL UPDATE:

Jody Latham had triple by-pass surgery on May 24. The surgery went well. She is staying with her sister and feeling better each day. She is still very weak therefore cannot go home by herself. She has a doctor's appointment next week.

Management is excited to get to New York for the NABC.