Category: Suggestions

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Every December Club Members Are Stranded Outside the Gym The Last Two Weeks Of The Month

Dear Tokyo American Club Management,

Every year members are stranded outside the club on the cold December mornings before the new year.  A quick review of the club website showed no clear schedule of when the gym was actually opening before the hour changes.

Would you PLEASE do a better job of communicating the hours of the gym?  Frankly, opening 1 hour later is a pain for growing majority of us who are still working through the remain business days in the calendar!Thank you for your efforts to make your year-end hours clearer and reconsidering shutting down the prime time many of us use the club during our week.-MABT

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Closing The Club For Employee Appreciation Day- Is It Really Necessary?

If you talk to Tokyo American Club Employees you would think that they would be excited about Employee Appreciation Day.  However, that is not the case from most that we talked to.  There is pressure to attend an event that many have said they do not want to attend.  So what’s the point of closing down the club so that members can’t use it during the week?

Today, we members celebrate Tokyo American Club Appreciation Day.  What is there to celebrate?  Actually, not much.  We don’t have access to the gym in the morning, lunch at noon, or that customer dinner in the evening.

Tokyo American Club managers and Board of Governors needs to seriously reconsider silly things like the Employee Appreciation Day as well as taking additional fees for bonuses that go to what we hear is less than half of the employees.  We were not able to confirm with other clubs in the US or around Asia that have these practices.  Time for a change!

If you are a member of TAC, tell us what do you think?

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People Love The Tokyo American Club!

Great to see everyone coming to the website.  We’re looking for more constructive comments!

Yesterday we had 142 visitors visit www.abetteramericanclub.com.  Not the top day, but a good showing.

Please give ideas on

1) How to better govern the club and keep our board engaged with members requests

2) Have a meaningful committee system or maybe throw that out all together and do something new

3) Better service our membership

If you have a good idea, post it as a comment below here and we’ll make the comment into a post so others can see it.

We’re also working on adding some survey features to the website.  All the work being done by a number of your fellow members.  What’s the cost to the club?  NOTHING!

We are investing in having not only a great building, but a great club which isn’t the building, it’s the people!

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New TAC Service Fee For Paying Cash?

Member Comment-

I have just received notification of the 3% “handling charge” for monthly bills paid in cash and other means other than direct debit, effective 1/11.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have never been charged a handling fee for paying by cash. On the contrary, cash is free, credit cards sometimes x% plus.
I wonder if this is related to the President’s pre-TH meeting email to members telling us basically that there was nothing to worry about, all was well and good, and we could all relax because our Board had found ingenious ways to solve all financial problems?
What else is coming down the pike to squeeze us by the proverbials? 100 yen for butter we have already had, next perhaps a cover charge in Traders?
I wonder why this decision was not raised by those responsible for it at the meeting last week. This secretive, dictatorial approach is repeated time and again by the so-called leaders of the Club.
I recommend that this topic – both the surcharge itself and the manner in which it has been introduced – be on the list of questions for candidates at the upcoming TH meeting with BOG candidates (as promised by the President last week).

Quoted from P.Cove

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What Needs To Be Discussed At Wednesday’s Townhall

“So what are the issues we need to discuss at the Town Hall this week? Strangely enough, it’s a little more complex than it first appears.

1. What progress, if any, has been made since the last Town Hall meeting? Judging by the announcement, “management and leadership” seem like they think they have everything under control. Strange that TWG2 seems to have been left out. That’s scary: these are the people that got us into this mess in the first place, and it’s highly unlikely that they possess the wherewithal to get us out. We need to make sure that they understand the deep concern that many members have about the future of the Club, and the best way to make sure that happens is that you come along and make your feelings known.
2. What has happened to TWG2? We have all heard here and there about the recommendations they have made so far, but the consensus around the Club is that – at best – they’re being sidelined, and at worst ignored. That’s not a comment on the individuals involved, but rather a reflection on the way that the status quo makes every possible effort to protect itself. The Town Hall should offer us the chance to hear what they have to say, without censorship and self-serving obfuscation by BoG and management.
3. What’s happening with management? Rumors abound that some contracts are being renewed, and others thrown out the window through inaction. By any stretch of even the most fevered imagination, 10 executives on high salaries with no accountability for results means we’re paying too much for way too little. At the very least, the BoG should use the Town Hall to present a series of options for a way forward. Otherwise we’ll have to make our opinions known via the upcoming elections! We should also be asking for a complete review of staffing (how about showing an org chart?) and an objective look at outsourcing.
4. Talking about outsourcing, where are we at with proposals to outsource certain functions like IT, Engineering, F&B etc? The Traders Bar Tattletale says that management reckons they’ve “looked at this before, and it doesn’t make sense”. Sure it doesn’t, if you’re trying to protect your job! But the market realities say something completely different, and many of our companies have already done BPO and Service outsourcing succussfully. If you have some experience in this area, why don’t you come along and share your view on how to do it right!
5. What’s the story on Governance? The gossip mill is running hot that the BoG is working on a new governance set-up … it beggars belief that it chooses (1) to do this behind closed doors, and (2) doesn’t take advantage of technology to make sure that it interacts with the membership to get consensus rather than act by fiat. The Town Hall represents your chance to tell people that you are interested in the results of these discussions, that you’re “mad as hell”, and that you demand a more contemporary way of making decisions at our Club.

6. What about that loan? If you’ve ever gotten a loan in Japan, you would wonder why the club is borrowing money at 4+% interest rates from a foreign lender.  Japan is the land of 1% loans.  We need to see action on renegotiating this loan for the new club immediately.  We hear that after 20 years TAC will still have not paid down the principle of the loan.  Put aside the tommyrot and let’s get this fixed.
7. Finally, what’s happening on branding, and marketing the Club to new members? Those in the know say that this effort has been deliberately railroaded as well, and pushed off to a committee (sigh!) that has met a grand total of … one time. Let’s face it, competition for recreation dollars is pretty tough in Tokyo and it needs a real professional effort if we’re going to attract new members and customers for the banqueting facilities. Your voice is absolutely necessary if we are going to be successful in convincing management and BoG that enough is enough!

Get along to the meeting and make your opinions known. You don’t necessarily need to stand up and make an eloquent speech – often applause or the lack of it is enough to let people know what you think. And with elections coming up, that might just be enough to scare some people into taking action.

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Ecstasy and Agony By Terry White

I think it’s fair to say that many of us on TWG2 have found the experience both fascinating and – at the same time- frustrating. While almost everyone — Board, member and management included — individually recognize that we need to change the way the way we operate, there seems to be great difficulty actually doing it. Ironically, transformation is dependent on those dysfunctional mechanisms we seek to reform. It will be important going forward for all members to stay actively involved and to keep up the pressure for reform. The potential for backsliding once the short term financial pain is deferred remains a clear possibility.

We recently spoke to the Board about the twin missions driving TWG2 – the need for short-term measures to address the DSCR concerns, and longer-term actions to address the root causes of the Club’s tightened circumstances.

Short-Term Measures: We explained that we believe that it is possible to remove considerable expense from the Club’s operations without impacting services to members. Working closely with the Finance Committee, we are confident that we can recommend a budget that meets the current situation realistically and head-on. We have also recommended some changes to the management structure that help deliver on the four strategic issues below.
Strategic Issues: At the same time, we’ve pointed out that there are four key issues that need to be addressed to effect the transformation that will ensure our long-term success:

1. First, we believe there is a fundamental problem with the governance of the Club. Mostly, that’s our fault as members … but we have to put in place an effective and active governance structure that determines the strategic objectives of the Club and helps oversee management in the delivery of those objectives. It’s great to see that the BoG agrees with this perspective and has launched a Governance Committee charged with making changes.
2. Second, and a necessary consequence of the first, is the need to develop a strategic plan that gives clear direction on what’s important to the club as a corporate entity and the aspirations and expectations of its members. 3. The third plank follows the second – a need for a clear understanding of the Club’s brandand the mechanisms to market that brand among the existing and prospective membership. The Membership Committee is potentially going to take this challenge on board with pro bono help from members who are professionals in this area.
4. The final element is transparency and accountability mechanisms, reviewed regularly by the board andreported to the members. A performance dashboard comes to mind, and we’ve made some suggestions about what this might look like.

These four challenges make for much more difficult conversations: many people have opinions on each of these issues and the unfortunate result can be that the status quo emerges as a compromise. That’s the frustrating part.

To be sure, measurable progress has been made to date. Not least, management has been given more and tighter guidance by the board in the budgeting process. Budgeting to lose a major portion of our remaining equity and basking in self-satisfaction when we lose a lesser amount is now, hopefully, a thing of the past. Executive compensation is in the cross-hairs and governance per-se is finally attracting a measure of attention.

I’d love to get feedback and comments … all reasonable opinions sought and welcomed!

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New Blog On Tokyo American Club Website

There is a new blog on the Tokyo American Club website.  It has the name of “The Heard”.  Although there is no need to hire a brand consultant, we wonder where they got this name?

Our biggest concern with doing those posts there is that things will filtered and we’re back to the same lack of transparency that got the management of the club and the board of governors into trouble in the first place.

We’ll put up the first post shortly here so you can comment.

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MABT Update Sept 5

It’s certainly been a lively time for the TWG2 team during the summer holidays. We’ve been digging into a wide variety of topics that include root cause analysis, the Club’s revenue and expenditure projections for the next few years, F&B, strategy and governance issues, outsourcing opportunities, and benchmarks for compensation. We’ve also made a pretty significant contribution to the Traders’ Bar balance sheet!

Some of our members have been active participants in discussions with the Club’s committees, including Finance, Compensation, F&B, Membership, House and others. Special thanks to the Committee chairs and BoG for their cooperation in this process. And similarly, thanks to those of you who have taken the trouble to give us your ideas and opinions these last few months. TWG2 sees the membership as its constituency, and we’re focused on delivering outcomes that ensure the Club meets and exceeds your expectations.

We’d also like to recognize the effort put in by the management and staff in backing us up – we’ve been asking some pretty difficult questions and sticking our noses into every aspect of the Club’s operations, and it’s gratifying to see the positive way in which people are responding to the need for change.

It’s interesting to note that we’re not the only private members club facing these sort of challenges right now. That makes our work, and your support, even more important as we deal with a much more competitive environment going forward. Our goal is to make sure that TAC is well-placed to thrive over the next three to five years, by delivering on a unique lifestyle and community proposition that just can’t be beat!

We’d like the chance to report back to members and get feedback before submitting our final report, and are planning a town hall meeting later in the month for that specific purpose. Please support us – and your Club – by coming along and letting us know what you think.

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Bonus Dues at TAC

Date: Wednesday, July 28, 2010, 8:04 AM

Hi Bryan,   I heard that you mentioned to a member that the TWG2 is planning to recommend that the two months bonus dues be folded into the 12 monthly dues. If this is so, and it may just a rumor, you should be aware of the following:

This has been discussed for many years and nothing has come of it as the current bonus dues which are billed twice a year is an “assessment” which was passed as fiat by the BOG many years ago to get around the requirement that dues can only be raised by a vote of the members. Thus you must have members vote on any dues change. The “assessment” of 2 months dues (euphemistically called bonus dues) was just a sneaky way of getting around the vote and effectively raising the dues.  As you know the Full Time staff get 5.5 months salary each year, making their pay 17.5 months. Regards   greg

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All Members Email

—– Original Message —–
From: “Better TAC Team” <editors@wordpress-644826-2102161.cloudwaysapps.com>
To: “Tac_members” <tac_members@wordpress-644826-2102161.cloudwaysapps.com>
Sent: Monday, June 21, 2010 7:19:51 PM GMT +09:00 Japan
Subject:  Making A Better TAC (MABT)- Need Your Feedback
Dear Fellow TAC Members,
With the push for a “Yes” vote on increasing costs to TAC members by the current leadership, the vast majority of the TAC membership has risen up in alarm. This was evident in the three town hall meetings and materialized in the vote result.
Although not organized at the time, a number of us were able to get an email out to demonstrate how a “Yes” vote was the wrong decision (posted on the website). If you were one of the members in the packed room on 7 June, you will know that people were very concerned about what is going on with the Board of Governors (BOG) and especially with the management of the club.
We have amazing people in retail, IT, operations, hospitality, entertainment, finance, marketing, and many other areas that can help the club keep the glow that it has had and blossom as it goes back into these amazing new facilities in a few months time.
Our goal is to better involve our membership as we have found out few things about TAC that concern us.
  • -TAC does the majority of work house and outsources little to keep costs competitive
  • -The average salary for the top 10 managers at TAC in 2009 was XX million yen according to the website. Quick marketing checks would have this as 40% above market rates in Japan.
  • -Apparent over-staffing in certain areas of the Club
  • -There seems to be no check or balance on the management we employ
Democracy has spoken and the Board of Governors is listening after your “No” vote. The group of members that has been working towards fixing and helping the club has become known as Making A Better TAC (MABT). We have a website with close to 100 visitors each day since we set it up earlier this month. Clearly all members that want accountability and transparency are a part of MABT.
Five of initial MABT membership will begin work with the BOG shortly to help better represent the membership on the whole. The rest of our growing group will be monitoring the status. We will use the website to collaborate with each other.
We will remain a voice of the membership and independent from both the management and the BOG. Let’s all stand together to continue our momentum. The site can use more ideas from you of how
  1. To Reduce Cost
  2. Generate More Revenue
  3. Improve the Tokyo American Club overall
Please check out the site and comment in the appropriate section so that we can open the lines of communication and make everything clear.
We are looking forward to working together to make an even better TAC.
Sincerely,
Making A Better TAC (MABT)
www.abetteramericanclub.com
PS. Please feel free to change, remove or add your email to this list by following the links below. We apologize that this email address is not monitored, but encourage everyone to communicate via the website. (There is a link on the top page of the website for the mailing list as well).
_______________________________________________
Tac_members mailing list
https://abetteramericanclub.com/mailman/listinfo/tac_members_abetteramericanclub.com