How does the EBU count "members".

Once a year, for shareholders at the AGM, the EBU publishes its membership numbers. They give three figures:

• The number of EBU members who have played at least twelve times in the measured year (aka UM2);
   
• the number of EBU members who have played between once and eleven times in the measured year (aka UM1);
   
• and the number of EBU members (players registered with affiliated clubs, who have not played in sessions submitted to the EBU in the measured year (UM0);
   
• The EBU also has the records of players who are not playing, no longer members of an affiliated club, and not directly affiliated to the EBU. ("UM Historic") 

Twelve or more times a year (UM2) is the minimum activity for a player to be recognised by the World Bridge Federation as a National Bridge Organisation. Today (6th Feb) the WBF recognises 18,614 members of the EBU. France has over 54,000 and the Netherlands has nearly 65,,000.

When UM was introduced, the vast majority of members stopped paying an individual subscription, and instead, were known to the EBU through the UM subscriptions paid by affiliated clubs.

Clubs often have members listed in the club's EBU account who have not played in the last twelve months. Those players may have died, may be learners not playing in affiliated sessions yet, moved away, or be temporarily not playing. Sometimes players in the UM0 return to bridge and reappear in the UM1 or UM2 lists. Some players reappear from UM Historic.

Sometimes the EBU is informed that a player has died, otherwise the EBU may not know. 

Bridge clubs can be entirely independent, and in England, more than half are.

OR

Bridge clubs can choose to be affiliated to a National Bridge Organisation(NBO).

In England that would be the English Bridge Union (EBU)