Page 33 - ABF Newsletter August 2025

Click on Print ABF Registration Card.
That brings up the option to search for a player by name or ABF number:
Key in details, select the player you need and click Download Card.
The Download Card function will produce a file looking like this:
You can save that as a pdf document or you can print it should you want a hard copy.
What we are doing now
Two main things:
1. Masterpoints. At the moment we are holding a series of internal workshops to work through the detail of what we are going to do to bring the ABF Masterpoint Centre into My ABF. The plan isn’t to just blindly copy what we already have – as I mentioned in the last edition we are taking the opportunity to look at the manual processes we currently have with a view to trying to automate more of them so fewer people have to waste time pressing buttons to send masterpoint files around and have them processed.
2. Other enhancements. We have reviewed all the items we have logged (almost 200 things ranging from small little bugs to quite major functionality enhancements). It’s obviously impossible to do all of these instantly (and some will probably never be done as they are now out of date or contradict other requests!) but we are planning an ongoing series of smaller releases to address the ones considered the most valuable. We’re also seeking to engage more with our on-the-ground product champions to get their feedback as to where our limited development efforts would be best deployed.
CLUBS – Are you really managing your memberships in MyABF?
One of the newest options for clubs is to manage their members fully within My ABF. The option to turn this on is under Settings – General:
What that lets them do is:
• Track when members are paid up to and maintain their membership status
• Issue annual renewal notices for members
• Collect payment for membership via bridge credits
The first of these points is important – the system will automatically maintain the member’s status with the club based on the dates of the membership pe- riods, the renewals issued and whether they have paid. There are processes that run automatically every night to do these updates.
So clubs should only turn this option on if they are actually going to use it! If that option is selected you are telling the system that you want it to manage the membership status of your members. If you then don’t use it, at the end of whatever membership period is currently in the system, it will treat your members as having lapsed their membership. When that happens they no longer appear in the main member listing (although don’t be alarmed - they are still in the system!) and that also means they are no longer treated as current members for the purposes of calculating session table money or for sending member emails.
What seems to have happened is several clubs have ticked that box, but have not in fact issued any member renewals through My ABF. As a result they have exp- erienced a load of their members lapsing which can, at first glance, be quite alarming. Whilst that can all be fixed, it requires you to export members, edit dates, and re-import (Contact Support for help).
The solution is very simple. If you don’t want My ABF to manage the status of your members then don’t tick the “Use full club membership manage- ment” box! This way you can just have a simple list of your members (which will be fine for the purpos- es of member communications or calculating table money or entry fees) but they won’t automatically lapse and you won’t run into these problems.
Julian Foster, My ABF Manager julian.foster@abf.com.au
Australian Bridge Federation Ltd. Newsletter: August 2025
Page: 33