August 2005 - 9

The American Contract
Bridge League
President
Roger Smith
Chair, Board
of Directors
Bruce Reeve
Chief Executive Officer
Jay A. Baum
ACBL Counsel
Peter Rank
Chair, Board
of Governors
Linda Mamula
Board of Directors
District 1 * George Retek
District 2 * Jonathan Steinberg
District 3 * Joan Levy Gerard
District 4 * Craig Robinson
District 5 * Sharon Fairchild
District 6 * Nadine K. Wood
District 7 * Bruce Reeve
District 8 * Georgia Heth
District 9 * Shirley Seals
District 10 * Bill Cook Jr.
District 11 * Jim Reiman
District 12 * William Arlinghaus
District 13 * Harriette Buckman
District 14 * Sue Himel
District 15 * Phyllis Harlan
District 16 * Dan E. Morse
District 17 * Jerry Fleming
District 18 * Richard G. Anderson
District 19 * Barbara Nist
District 20 * Jeffrey Taylor
District 21 * Roger L. Smith
District 22 * Jim Kirkham
District 23 * Alan LeBendig
District 24 * Alvin Levy
District 25 * Richard De Martino
To contact your district director,
address your e-mail to
district"*"director@acbl.org
(Enter the district number
where you see "*".)

August 2005
2005
August

From
the CEO
Listening
As we go about the day-to-day business of
serving our members, we are always looking for
ways to do that better. I've learned over the years
that our best chance of succeeding in this area involves a simple task: ask.
When a membership organization solicits opinions from members, everyone
benefits. You recognize that we care, and we find out what will make you
happy. That's why we have commissioned the surveys you have read about in
recent months.
The latest was conducted by Equation Research using a random sample of
the ACBL database. A comment from one member who participated showed
how important this is: "I think you are positively heading in the right direction simply by asking us our opinions."
Most of the questions we asked were the same ones we posed last year, but
we did add a few new ones. Here is some of what we learned:
More members are satisfied with the ACBL web site - 93% as compared
with 91% in 2004. Satisfaction with our marketing efforts has also increased,
from 82% to 86.3%.
We didn't have the My ACBL portal last year, but 91% of you like what
we are doing in that area.
The survey showed that 97% of you are happy with the Bridge Bulletin (25%
somewhat satisfied plus 71.7% very satisfied) compared to 95% last year.
When asked about your experiences with ACBL representatives, the
numbers are also up from the previous survey. Taking the "somewhat" and
"very satisfied" categories together, the survey showed satisfaction increasing in every area between this year and the previous survey: Headquarters,
94.4%, up from 90.3%; tournament directors, 95.2%, up from 94.1%; club
directors, 93.4%, up from 90.9%.
In the 2005 survey, we added a response category: "I do not have contact
with these representatives." It's interesting to note that 52% of our members
have never had contact with Memphis, 40% have not had contact with unit
officials.
For the first time, we asked members how they would like to renew their
memberships. Here's what you said: 52.7% would like an e-mail reminder to
renew online; 37.7% would like a mail reminder to renew by mail, and 9.6%
would like a mail reminder to renew online. Asked about the actual renewal,
54% said they would prefer to do it online, 33.5% said they preferred mail
and 12.5% had no preference.
As expected, the 2005 survey continued to paint an upscale demographic
picture of the ACBL membership: 76% have at least a four-year college degree,
and 68.6% earn at least $50,000 a year. Of interest is that only 11.3% did not
answer the income question, compared to 25.1% in the previous survey.
As you can imagine, there is a tremendous amount of data to absorb and
interpret. We value what we learn from these surveys because it helps us with
our primary function: serving you.
Of course, you don't have to wait for a survey to
make your opinions known. We are always happy
to hear from our members.
Jay Baum, CEO
9

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of August 2005