SCOTTISH BRIDGE UNION
This document is sent to all SBU club secretaries and District officials.
Member Services are pleased to announce a further major step towards the SBU target of eliminating paper points at the club level.
We hope to achieve this goal by the beginning of next season (2016-17), except where an individual club chooses to continue to purchase books of paper certificates and issue them directly to their club members. There is no intention to withdraw this facility from clubs at this stage and in any event at least three years notice would be given of any complete ban.
A majority of clubs who actively participate in the Master Points scheme already submit electronic files to Member Services, and the number of clubs who continue to print points locally is now fast diminishing. We expect those clubs who score by computer, but then print points locally, to move to file transmission within this season. Districts who run regular competitions may wish to make this move also.
National SBU events and ECATS and other simultaneous events are currently credited directly to SBU members’ records on MEMPAD, and a major remaining group of paper points are those issued for Club/District Congresses and other one-day events where a separate licence is required. These licences are procured through Pat Lennon.
Henceforth the organisers of such separately licenced events are no longer required to calculate points, and therefore will no longer issue master points in ‘card’ form to the winning players.
Where a separate licence is requested from Pat Lennon for any kind of event, in addition to providing a license number, he will provide a set of instructions for your Scorer/TD.
The TD will of course be using one of the Scorebridge, Jeff Smith, or Magic Contest scoring programs; these can already provide us with the information we need. The appropriate results data (no need for club or TD involvement in Master Point calculation or allocation) will need to be sent to a given email address, and thereafter all processing will be done by Member Services. Club and District organisers will no longer have to grapple with complex MP calculations, nor will they have the administration effort of issuing points cards.
Initially all results will be posted to members’ MEMPAD records no later than within eight weeks of receipt of the files, over time we will reduce this elapsed time as we gain in efficiency and experience.
These new arrangements will also apply for situations where licences have already been provided but the event has not yet taken place. The organisers of such events should contact Pat Lennon as soon as possible for the necessary instructions.
May I take this opportunity to remind club officials of some aspects regarding heats for National competitions.
There is an important principle within the SBU MP scheme, which is that points are not awarded twice for the same event. This means that if a local heat for a national event is run (the National Pairs is a good example) in a club then no points can be awarded by the club. In addition, the heat data is collected at the District level. Clubs should NOT send their data directly to Member Services. The scoring results should only be sent to the relevant District MP Sec who will consolidate these and ensure that a complete package is sent to both Member Services and the SBU Convener. This way those who provide a central service can have confidence that the data received is complete. Indeed, in some cases, there are District heats to be held as well, so this is absolutely necessary.
Current District MP Secretaries are shown on the MEMPAD website by following the menu options of “MEMBER DATA”, then “SBU Information”, then “SBU Districts” where all District officials are shown.
NB: North District currently do not have an MP Sec, please send your data to the District Secretary or Chairman.
MEMPAD went live in July 2013, and it has now been in place, whilst gaining in effectiveness, for two full seasons. This third season (2015-16) should enable us to achieve the bulk of our objectives.
Thank you for your support.
Bill Whyte
Member Services
November 2015