[SBU Board] ACBL BoD Material

Fri Feb 28 11:33:40 PST 2020

Thanks JC.  My sense is this committee is starting a journey and may have begun with data that is most readily available.  I'm sure well-reasoned comments and suggestions are welcome and we will get yours into the system.

I’m cc’ing Julie on my note here, so as Committee Vice Chair and our D19 Director she, too, can see your comments below.  This particular committee meets Tuesday, March 17, my first day in Columbus after traveling on March 16 following chairing the GNTs on March 14 & 15.  I will plan to bring your comments forward to the Committee.  From past coordination on other matters, I have a good idea that David Rodney is the committee's point person on data and analysis.

Julie, would you advise I bring these comments into the committee at its meeting, or might it perhaps be more effective to instead (or additionally) send them to David Rodney ahead of the meeting?

Tim

> On Feb 28, 2020, at 10:43 AM, JC Chupack <jc.chupack at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Adding Tim. 
> 
> On Fri, Feb 28, 2020 at 10:42 AM JC Chupack <jc.chupack at gmail.com <mailto:jc.chupack at gmail.com>> wrote:
> First, Tim, thanks for sharing.  Always great to know what's going on "above".
> 
> The data and assumptions in this presentation raise some flags for me. The presentation overindexes on aging membership as a root cause and yet shows no data that supports that it is specifically a loss of members aged 70+ contributing to the decline.  Slide 4 asks several good questions, but the presentation focuses on the last bullet (age) only. 
> 
> Further, there's nationwide data that strongly contradicts the "older people travel less" hypothesis, so if that is a trend, it may be limited to the ACBL (which calls more into question the choices of locations or overall interest in bridge rather than being a behavior of the segment). Here's one example found with a quick Google: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-aging-changes-the-way-we-travel-2017-03-10 <https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-aging-changes-the-way-we-travel-2017-03-10>, but the AARP and AAA have both published studies showing that travel as well as activity generally is up among retirees, not declining. The age of diminished activity is increasing as well. (Caveat: health care is a big factor...and if the US health care system continues to decline in availability and continues to increase in costs, that will be an impact on seniors most of all.)
> 
> Slide 6 is deceptive in a vacuum as well. We know from Slide 6's data only that age is correlated with lower regional attendance. We don't know that age is the cause vs. factors like distance to regional, availability of alternative entertainment, etc.  It also doesn't show whether this has changed over time or was always the case.  If this distribution has always been true vs. being a recent change in behavior, then it is less likely to be the reason for the decline.  (And again, if it *is* a change in behavior, it's likely unique to the ACBL vs. being a common behavior of individuals 70+.)
> 
> I'd like to see this committee provide data specifically on segmentation of the members that play once and don't return by gender, age, masterpoint level, and years of ACBL membership.  Who are the players that arrive and don't return?  Do those players continue to be active at the club level?  Has the committee reached out to a sampling of the "didn't return" segment to ask why they came once and not again?  Even just having a phone call or email with 20-30 randomly selected "tournament abandoners" would likely yield valuable insight. 
> 
> I'll also note, IIRC, Seattle's unit has one of the lowest average ages in the ACBL (SFBay/Mountain View beats us, maybe a couple others). Yet, we are still seeing declines. If the same is true of other "low avg age" areas, that further supports that age is not the (sole) limiting factor. 
> 
> Has the committee looked into the number of tournaments and count of days of tournaments being offered in the decline period?  I believe there was some data pulled by the ACBL that showed that the number of days of tournaments offered in the past 5 years has increased sharply. That is, it's entirely possible that people simply have more tournament days to go to and thus a fixed size market is being spread more thinly across many days of play.  While no region may like it, it may benefit the financials of all tournaments if we simply offered fewer and/or shorter tournaments.
> 
> tl;dr - If this is a starting point rather than an ending one, that's great..but if it was intended as a conclusion, I think it's missing the mark.
> 
> --JC
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 27, 2020 at 1:03 PM Tim White <trkwhite at gmail.com <mailto:trkwhite at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Colleagues,
> 
> I will be filling in for Julie Smith as D19 representative to ACBL Board of Directors and various committee meetings in Columbus.  I have begun to participate in preparatory teleconferences and have begun to receive various pre-coordination materials.  Where I come cross something I feel might be of interest or value to U446 board members, I will send it your way.
> 
> One of the committees Julie works on (as vice chair) is the Strategic Tournament Task Force.  I am attaching a .ppt file I recently received reporting on developments with this committee.
> 
>  I understand Julie plans to share this file with the D19 board.
> 
> Thanks,
> Tim
> 
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> 
> -- 
> JC Chupack
> * Seattle ACBL Unit 446 <http://www.bridgeinseattle.org/> President, Web/Email Admin, & Publicity Chair
> * Lead Technical Product Manager, Zulily <http://www.zulily.com/>, Inc.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> JC Chupack
> * Seattle ACBL Unit 446 <http://www.bridgeinseattle.org/> President, Web/Email Admin, & Publicity Chair
> * Lead Technical Product Manager, Zulily <http://www.zulily.com/>, Inc.
> 

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