There are no individual members of ABF - the clubs are the members. Thus, the terms Home or Alternate members (usually abbreviated to Alt), refer to the members of the various clubs, affiliated with the ABF through their respective home clubs.
i) Home Members
Players may belong to any number of clubs, but they must nominate one club as their home club. The home club is responsible for paying all fees due to the ABF and to their respective State Association. Home members are automatically included on their home club's reports and printouts and cannot be removed from these except upon death or upon transferring their home club membership elsewhere (after which the player becomes an "alt" member and can be removed from the club listings).
ii) Alt Members
It is important that the term "alt" (i.e. alternate) member is understood. It simply refers to a player who, whilst having his or her home club registration elsewhere, has been included in a club's reports and printouts, at the request of that club - the player concerned need not even be a member of the club.
Conversely, just because a player joins a club (other than their home club), it does not necessarily make that player an alt member and the player will not automatically be included in the reports for that club.
Such players only become alt members following the club's request to have them included on their reports. Once registered as alt members, these players will be automatically included on all the reports for that club, regardless of whether or not they have recently earned masterpoints there.
Please note that the alt club is not responsible to the ABF in any way for that player, and may request the Centre to remove that player from its reports at any time. The relationship between a club and its non-home club members is of no concern to the ABF.
iii) Other Players
Non-home club and non-alt members will appear on a club report only when they have earned masterpoints at that club during the past quarter. They will not appear on any other of the club’s reports or printouts.
There are three different ways to register a player .
i) Using Manual Forms
A supply of the green Player Details forms should be requested from the Centre (or downloaded from our website at www.masterpoints.org.au). The forms should be completed and mailed to the Centre's address printed on the forms, or else faxed to the Centre.
Note: This method is slow and cumbersome and should only be used if a club has no email access.
ii) Using NAT4WIN (or NAT4DOS) and email the resulting text file
After downloading NATIONAL.EXE from the Centre's site, and then installing it (see Appendix F) you will be able to do the following :
Repeat the process for other players and, when finished ,
A small text file titled PLAYER.TXT has now been created in the current directory. This file contains the data you have entered and is the file that you should attach to your email. (The file may be opened and viewed in your NOTEPAD program). You will receive confirmation as soon as your file has been processed .
WARNING: While you may enter as many player changes as you wish during one session (even using different functions), once you close the program you must either send the PLAYER.TXT file to the Centre before opening another session, or else rename the PLAYER.TXT file to something else (e.g. PLAYER1.TXT). The reason for this is that every time you open a new session the old PLAYER.TXT file will be overwritten, rather than added to.
iii) Using the Interactive Web-Form
Whilst on the Internet, go to the Centre's main page, and then:
You will receive confirmation as soon as your form has been processed. This method does not give you an immediate copy of the details that you have submitted, however you will receive a copy with the confirmation.
This process applies only to players who have never been previously issued with an ABF number - players who have been previously registered should instead be activated. Please include all details requested on the forms, apart from the year of birth (which is optional). Once a player has been issued with a number, that number stays with the player until death, even if the player becomes inactive.
This function is used when a player previously issued with a masterpoint number wishes to rejoin after a period of inactivity (i.e. the players' membership have, at some stage, been cancelled by their home club). You only need to include the player name and ABF number on the form (unless other details have also changed).
Note (i) You cannot "transfer" or "add" inactive players - they must first be registered.
Note(ii): Players who already have a home club, cannot be "activated". The choice here is between a transfer or adding the player to your reports as an alternate member (see 4. below and 5. below).
This is used to change the details of one of your current home members. Details recorded on the forms are automatically checked against our computer records and updated accordingly. If you request a player transfer or activation, then there is no need to tick the "change details" box as well
This facility is used when a player registered elsewhere wants to make your club their home club. The player must be registered for the transfer to occur.
A player signature is required if a form is posted, however the masterpoint secretary's "say so" is sufficient for email requests. You need only include the player ABF number and name on the form, unless other details have also changed.
This is for the circumstance when your club wants a player whose registered home club is elsewhere to be included in your club's reports. New home club members are added automatically
If a player is not a home club member of your club, then you can use this option to exclude the player from your reports .
This function may only be used on the death of a player. In other words, you cannot use it for the purpose of "cancelling", "deleting" or "removing" a player from your schedule of home club players (see 8. below). Deleted player records are automatically removed from all reports and printouts.
Cancellations of home club memberships can only be done
at one time each year, using the special Membership Declaration forms issued in
mid-February. These forms are used to cancel those players who do not wish to
renew their memberships.
Alternatively, the cancellations may be submitted
electronically. There are two methods available:
1.Use the NATWIN program to
generate a list of players to be cancelled. The resulting "xxxxCNCL.TXT"
file can then be attached to an email message and forwarded to the Centre.
2.
Use the electronic Membership Declaration forms available on the main page of
the website. The form details should be completed as per the screen instructions,
entries recorded and checked, and then forwarded to the Centre by clicking on
the Submit button.
Player records for which the cancellation has not been
advised to the Centre by the advertised deadline will be renewed and must stay
active for the rest of the year.
No cancellations will be accepted after the
advertised deadline, which is usually the last working day of March.