BuddyPress.org

ok worked it out in the end

need to put in the

global $current_user; get_currentuserinfo();
$current_user = wp_get_current_user();
$current_user_id = $current_user->ID;

and then use

<?php bp_profile_field_data( array('user_id'=>$current_user_id,'field'=>'autojoin' )); ?>

hope that helps anyone who may have a problem as I did

Thanks
David