There are no individual members of ABF - the clubs are the members. Thus, the terms Home or Alternate members, 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.
ii) Alternate Members
It is important that the term 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 alternate member and the player will not automatically be included in the reports for that club. Such players only become alternate members following the club's request to have them included on their reports. Once registered as alternate 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 alternate 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.
Finally, players whose home club have been changed will only appear on their original club's schedules if that club has requested alternate member classification for them.
iii) Other Players
Non-home club and non-alternate 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 two ways to register a player.
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.
Cancellations of home club memberships can only be done at one time each year,
using the on-line option Player Cancellations, or by completing the Membership
Declaration forms issued by The Centre at the beginning of the January quarter.
This process is used to cancel those players who do not wish to renew their
memberships.
Players 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.