Annual Report of the Chair, Board of Governors And the General and Special Committees 2024
THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS
MR. RAIGHNE ‘RENNY’ C. DELANEY, CHAIR I sit here in July 2024 writing this report. The Army Navy Swim and Dive Team just won Champs yesterday: a tremendous achievement for our juniors and coaches, as I believe our last victory was in 1980. The weather is hot, but the drinks at the Club have never been colder. I am pleased to report that the Club is in excellent condition. I will write a short report this year and leave you to the other reports circulated by Club leaders that you can find in this booklet. The year began with our acquisition of the apartment building on Edgewood St. This is the Club’s first acquisition of real property since 1998, though I suspect it won’t be the last. As previously reported, this acquisition has kept its promise. For this year, we did not raise dues by approximately $12 due to the savings provided by the acquisition. Thank you for voting for it. Our President Matt Bravo, the House & Entertainment Chair Tamara Ashford and Membership Chair, David Skiles, led a top to bottom review of the rules of attire. Certainly, the attire of some probably went too far in a casual direction since COVID. We look forward to your continuing feedback on this issue. Our Club Secretary, D’Anne Spence, led a review of Club capacity issues and the Board accepted her committee’s recommendation to hold the line at 2,400 resident members. This decision also comports with our membership survey results. While I am in full agreement with this policy change, it will necessarily lead to reduced initiation fees over time. We depend on initiation fees to keep the two campuses in good repair. As initiation fee revenue falls, we are going to start to have problems. Thus, sooner or later, the Board will need to take steps to ameliorate this future problem. In the past, when we needed members to join, we had to make compromises with respect to many membership categories. Now that we are at full capacity, we can and should on-board new members in a manner that ensures that we can continue to keep the Club in good repair. These steps will necessarily include charging fairer initiation fees to all incoming members, so that the current Membership does not have to bear the full cost. Unfortunately, we learned that our grille renovation contractor walked off with our deposit. Our Treasurer, John Ladd, is leading the effort to recoup the funds. An internal review led by former Board Chairman John Tuck, former Vice President Steve Bryant and former Finance Chair Jim Schroeder did not find any wrongdoing by any members or staff but made some suggestions as to how to improve our procedures moving forward. Their recommendations are under review as of this moment. We expect renovation will be complete around Labor Day, so it may be finished by the time you read this message. We expect to complete the Strategic Planning effort, led by our Planning Chair Joe Mahan, in October 2025. Similarly, I know the Fairfax Task Force, led by Chair Jake Jacobson and Co-Chair Eric Schnabel is hard at work. They will provide a brief overview at the Annual Meeting and finalize their report in 2025. I look forward to seeing their report.
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