Who counts as a player on a booking

Players are the people who will be bowling alongside the member who made the booking. Any of them may be another member of the club, or a guest brought along for the day — the field does not care which, and both belong in it.

The member who booked is one of the players, so a rink booked for four means them and three others.

Why the names are worth filling in

• The Duty Steward knows who to expect, and the rink sheet by the door reads properly.
• A name picked from the member list joins that booking to that member: it then appears in their app, they get the reminder, and their visit counts in the club’s attendance figures. A name simply typed does none of that.
• Guests brought along are counted against the booker’s guest allowance and appear on the steward’s guest fee list.

Names are optional. A booking with a headcount and no names still holds the rink — it just tells the club less.

Common questions

Do I include myself?

Yes. The number of players is everybody on the rink including the person booking it, and the first name box is theirs.

One of them is a guest, not a member.

Type their name rather than picking from the list. They are then treated as a guest: counted against your guest allowance, and shown to the Duty Steward with the fee due.

Should I pick the name or type it?

Pick it whenever the person is a member — that is the only thing that links the booking to them. Type it only for somebody who genuinely has no membership.

A member says they cannot book this morning's session.

Correct, unless you have given them permission to. A session that has finished cannot usefully be booked — it fills in a rink nobody can now use and puts a name on the Duty Steward’s sheet for something that is over. Stewards and administrators can, so a walk-up can still be written up after the event, and the permission sits in the matrix under Rink Bookings → Book a slot that has passed if you want to give it to somebody else. A session part way through can still be joined by anybody — it is judged on when the slot ends, not when it began.

Can we insist that everybody is named?

Yes — Settings → Booking Rules → Player names. Off by default, so a booking saves with one name or none and simply holds the rink. Switched on, a booking for four needs four names before it will save, whichever screen it is made from.

I chose six players but there were only four boxes.

Fixed in 9.99.252. The boxes now follow the number chosen, up to eight.