In the 7 June 2010 vote, it was clear to the membership that the resources of the Tokyo American Club have not been managed well. Instead of dealing with the high costs at our feet, the membership was presented with a vote to increase dues. From all that was presented, the membership was not pleased with the explanations of why we needed to pay more to get less.
This is your section to give ideas on how you can reduce costs. Please feel free to be candid and direct in the comments below.
Ms Ohara
With the greatest of respect, if you think the hurdle the club faces now as similar to the pool roof saga, I am afraid you are sorely mistaken. Now it is not about whether we have a roof or not but about whether we have club or not.
The front line staff are the innocent victims in all this. The sad fact however is that the 3,000 plus members have voted with their wallets. F&B spend per member at the club has halved in the past 15 years. The club is simply not competitive. This has to change.
As to attending AGM’s and Town Hall’s, I think you will find that most of the people who have bothered to post on this site did attend.
The Club has USD 110 million of debt and an annual debt service requirement of USD 7 million. A new club that cost USD 300 million in total. Salaries at Takanawa were not reduced by USD 6m as promised.
Only drastic surgery can save the place…roof on the pool or no roof on the pool.
This state of affairs is a fact all members have to come to terms with. It is too late to start dishing out the blame, although there is plenty to go around for everyone.
I disagree with Ohyama san, I think the food and service at TAC is well above most places in greater Tokyo. I know the staff is well aware of the problems we face, they show me every day by the way they serve me.
This hurdle we face now is not so different from the debacle of the pool roof we fought and lost a few years ago. Some members of the Board were opposed to the way the roof was settled without considering informing membership. Management’s hands were tied. I know this well as I was Co chair of Swim. So, where were all of you who are so vehment at this time? Most of you could not have care one whit because you did not attend the Town Hall or the AGM.
The present vindictive, destructive behavior towards other members and staff, most of it falsely justified, will not bring us back from the brink.
Thanks Ohyama-san.
Your comments are great, and you have my complete commitment to make sure that the BoG get this message.
I feel confident that we will see some big changes over the next few months in the areas you address in your comment.
I firmly believe the Club will survive if we continue to have support from passionate members like yourself.
Hello Making A Better TAC (MABT),
I would like to make my comments below.
1. The reason to a “Yes” vote on increasing costs to TAC members are;
-I want TAC to survive, however, with reasonable increasing, JPY10,000 max per month.
2. On other hand, should review and achieve the followings.
-reduction of crazy salary for the top 10 managers at TAC in 2009 was 27.7 million yen to normal regular companies.
3. -Making efforts to motivate TAC members to visit and use the restaurants or facilities more often.
I do not feel up going to TAC now because bad service/food and price.
4. The employees do consider TAC is seriously facing to difficult finance indeed? I do not think so because of employees attitude.
We should change TAC!
Thank you
Kazu Ohyama
The Tokyo American Club should issue a Request for Proposal from hotel or club management companies, such as Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott that would cover managing the entire operations of our club. Our day to day operations are similar to that of a first class hotel, outside of room management. Restaurants, sports facilities, bars, concierge etc., are all similar to that found in hotels. By doing so, we should expect the following benefits to occur:
a) Better purchasing power as the groups have multiple operations in Japan
b) Lower operating costs as we have the ability to leverage centralized management that these chains would offer
b) Confirmation that our club is being managed at competitive international standard prices
c) Knowledge that TAC is keeping with international trends
Naturally if our current club managements cost are competitive, we do not need to go beyond soliciting bids. Whereas it may be disruptive to existing staff to do this type of RFP, it should not be a major concern if TAC is being run as efficiently as possible. Also if any management company were to replace our existing management, they would need to keep the vast majority of staff in any event. I would suggest that this RFP be done every several years to confirm that TAC is getting the best value from providers, and that it provides members with transparency over the club operation. To my knowledge, most major hotel contracts run between 5 and 20 years.
I am also aware that there has been concern that management salaries are above the industry norm. I do not believe it is appropriate to have complete transparency over salaries, but would suggest that we hire a firm such as McLagan Associates that specialize in compensation. They should be in a position to advise if our compensation packages are competitive with those in similar positions/industries.
I am and have been very satisfied with TAC over the years. But the times ahead are likely to be difficult ones, and we should ensure that we are always getting the best value we can for our members. It is not the time to raise fees until all avenues have been exhausted.
Sincerely,
Rike Wootten
Member since 1995
It concerns me that we are using big name consultants to tell us things that we just want to hear. I think this no vote has shown us that it is time to change our way of doing things.
I would like to see our club do a better job of using the expertise of our members to run the business. We should have our bankers helping get us the best rates, we should have our hospitality guys advising us on the operations, we should have our media guys helping us to better brand ourselves… the list goes on.
Of course, we need to make sure that we are getting advice/products/services that are competitive, cost-effective running costs, and something that enhances the members experience at the club.