TAC Membership “Assessment Vote” Meeting Report

TAC Meeting Summary-

In the 7 June meeting, there was an attendance of about 150 (need to verify) members as well as the Board of Governors.  The BOG’s intension was apparently to announce the result for the vote and the new membership types.  The members made it very clear that they needed more information and more transparency to help the club.  The large turn-out seemed to reinforce that.  Some points of interest were-

1. The majority of the membership would like to see the operations of the club bid out to multiple hospitality vendors.  These areas would include food & beverage, IT, operations, maintenance, and any other area were more cost efficiency and higher service levels could be attained.
2. Many questioned the interest rates at which the club borrowed money.  These rates were reported at 4.5%.  Many feel that with the size of the loan and the location in Japan, this should be renegotiated and closer to 1%.  Some finance experts volunteered to help.
3. One member stated that they left the board mid-term because Board of Governors exercised no leadership or power over club management saying, “We leave those decisions of running the club to the management as they are the professionals.”
4. Due to the location and venue, many agreed that the club was not acceptable or convenient for entertaining clients.
5. There was a comment that the club pricing was too high and not competitive with plethora of great restaurants around Tokyo and we needed to be competitive.
6. It was suggested that members should be engaged more directly for their core-competencies.  Finance for loans, HR for dealing with salaries and right sizing of employees.
7. One member calculated that the top management of the club makes 14-15 million yen salaries annually.
8. There was a suggestion that the General Manager be replaced ASAP as he has not managed TAC resources well.  Many voiced agreement for this.
9. There was a request for a financial report on the club to be drafted in a clear and concise fashion to share with all members of the club.
10. A request for a full-disclosure of manager salaries and benefits was made again as was requested at the Townhall meetings.
11. It was exposed that when the TAC clubhouse was demolished, so was it’s status as a non-profit organization.
12. One member suggested that the TAC do more things to embed itself better into the community.  She related how YCAC had many activities and did not charge extra for every little thing as TAC does.
13. It was revealed that the Club is losing about $7-8M USD annually.
14. For the new club, members volunteered to donate equipment, web services, financial advice, HR consulting, marketing advice, IT outsourcing insights,
15. There was a request to explain how the governance of the club was executed.  The president described the committee and board of governor system.
16. There was a clear overall displeasure with the General Manager and suggestions that he be replaced.
17. In the closing minutes someone said that with the heavy debt burden the club could no longer be run like a non-profit but had to be run like a business.

The additional “assessment” was rejected by the membership by a margin of about 30 votes.

Although this has been reviewed, please let us know if we missed any points from the meeting in the comment section below.