Club News Fresh focus for year ahead

After a hugely successful 2022, we are looking forward to a year of equal success with a full staff team, relieved of a significant portion of the debt burden necessarily taken on two years ago and with the Club membership back over 5000 after an understandable dip during the pandemic, writes Club Secretary & Chief Executive Andrei Spence

It has been a bright opening to the first quarter of this year, with members utilising the Club increasingly frequently and an almost full staff team to welcome you all.

I am genuinely looking forward to an exciting year and a year in which there will be a few changes to key personnel, but perceptively no change in the standards and ethos of this great Club.

Whilst there are still many challenges to face with the backdrop of a stagnant economy, high inflation and high interest rates, we remain confident that what we are offering meets the needs and expectations of our members by creating an imaginative and evolving programme of events, whilst keeping

March is always an important month in the life of the Club, as the F&GP committee get to grips with the draft audited accounts for 2022. The accounts make very good reading and the F&GP unanimously voted to propose the accounts to the General Committee.The Accounts, Annual Reportand Agenda for the 2023 AGM accompany this Journal.

our pricing as competitive as it can be in the face of some startling commodity/service increases.

In January we welcomed new Club Chairman, Meurig Raymond, supported by his wife Hilary, to meet the staff team and visit all those unusual, eerie and little-visited places in the labyrinth that is Whitehall Court. Very well known to almost all members, Meurig has been a leading figure in the agricultural sector for many years and we are delighted to have Meurig as our Chairman. Debates are likely to have a ‘political’ flavour!

We also welcomed four new full members to the General Committee: Sophie Dwerryhouse, John Wilson, Lindsay Hargreaves and Mark Riches, along with two co-opted members Nick Green FCCT Chairman and Andrew Court Vice Chairman Under 35s.

My thanks also go to those who left the Committee for their commitment, time and energy: Kevin Beaty, Karen Mercer and Fiona Fell.

I look forward to seeing you all here soon!

The Club Trustees have conducted their six-monthly Financial Review with our portfolio managers to update them on market and economic conditions affecting the Lease Company share portfolio.

The Farmers Club Charitable Trust held their general meeting in mid-March, followed by the selection process for its next set of educator/Leadership awards for 2023, which will be reported on in the next Journal.

A new key card door lock security system, which also links into our property management system, has been introduced across the Club, including bedrooms (see p22 for more details). This is a modest CAPEX project, which will address significant issues around lost and broken keys, security for members, security for Club property, and knowing who is in the Club at any one time, for safety reasons and in case of emergency.

After 13 years editing the Farmers Club Journal, serving 14 different Club Chairmen, current Editor Charles Abel is stepping down to pursue other projects at the end of April. He was also Editor of a most interesting and informative book The Farmers Club 1842-2017 – a brief history of a fascinating Club, copies of which are available at Reception.

As many of you will know, recruitment and retention of personnel has been and remains a significant challenge. When I look back to the beginning of 2020 the entirety of the Reception team has changed, there are only four members of the Food and Beverage team who remain (Jelle, Geraint, Vera and Sophia) and the Bar has a completely new line-up.

In the Office team there are three new people and we have a new maintenance assistant and numerous changes to the Housekeeping team. This is the nature of the jobs market at present and the changing expectations many have in relation to the kind of work they want to do, and the terms on which they conduct it.

We have, through dint of hard work (Virginia and Xanthe in particular) created an almost new ‘front of house team’ and as their experience and knowledge of the Club has increased, so have the service levels. Please get to know your new team, they are a great bunch and very engaging.