It has been five months since I had the pleasure to begin my role as President & CEO of the National Club Association and I want to keep you abreast of the great things happening at your association. I hope you had the chance to read the Q&A article in the fall issue of Club Director, where I laid out my priorities of Growth, Presence, Programs and Advocacy (GPPA) for NCA. I use this acronym because it is like how we were graded in school—on our GPA—and it allows us the opportunity to be graded on our work at NCA. Specifically:
Growth
In order to be a more successful and powerful association and advocate for private clubs in Washington, D.C., we need to grow our membership and corporate partners. Since the beginning of our fiscal year on October 1, 19 clubs have joined NCA—more than joined all of last year. We have also welcomed seven new associate members and are on pace for unprecedented overall membership growth. Look for some additional exciting announcements on membership later this month. We also welcome MembersFirst and Jonas as our newest Legacy Alliance Corporate Partner. As we see technology playing a bigger role in the club industry, this new transformative partnership will benefit members, industry professionals, boards and owners.
Presence
NCA is growing our presence. We have hired Smith Phillips Communications to enhance NCA’s brand inside and outside the private club industry and with member and non-member clubs, and assist in disseminating NCA’s message throughout media outlets nationwide. Recent presence-building include an in-depth interview on Private Club Radio, another interview with WE ARE GOLF and an increase in our social media following—especially our Twitter account which is approaching 1,000 followers.
Like many of you, we just returned from CMAA’s World Conference on Club Management where we hosted more than 100 people for our Member Luncheon, presented two education sessions, and further deepened the new working relationship with CMAA to benefit the industry.
Programs
NCA continues to develop industry leading programs such as the National Club Conference and our webinars. The 2016 National Club Conference, May 19-21 in Chicago, will offer managers and board members unparalleled education and networking sessions highlighted by keynote speaker Rick Wadell, Chairman & CEO of Northern Trust Corporation and President of The Chicago Club. It will also coincide with the National Restaurant Association (NRA) Show, and National Club Conference attendees will receive discounted rates to the NRA Show.
We have also added a new member benefit, the Club Governance Standards white paper series. This new resource features white papers on governance topics tailored to private clubs. The first white paper that members received free of charge is on chief executive succession planning. This series is a living document that you can easily organize as additional papers are released throughout 2016.
We also introduced a series of six webinars on Strategic Planning by Global Golf Advisors (GGA), NCA’s Legacy Alliance Partner and lead sponsor of the Board Leadership Institute. These webinars complement our new publication, Strategic Planning for Private Clubs, due to be released to members this spring.
Advocacy
In order to be the most powerful and effective trade association that we can be for the private club industry, NCA needs to have a stronger voice on the legislative, regulatory and legal issues affecting private clubs. To do this, a greater emphasis has been put on growing our political action committee—ClubPAC. ClubPAC allows us to support the candidates that support private clubs. We have increased the number of clubs eligible to give to ClubPAC by 600 percent and increased ClubPAC’s financial resources by 30 percent. We will host our first-ever ClubPAC reception at the National Club Conference in Chicago.
As you can see, a lot of great things are happening at the National Club Association, and I am excited to say that more good things are on their way. Thank you for your support, and please don’t hesitate to let us know how we can make NCA a better association for you as we are striving for all A’s in our “GPPA.”
