Dear Members of the Club and Members of the UCLA Family,
This is my last letter as I finish my term as Chair of the Board of Directors of the UCLA University Club. I will miss the responsibility for the success of the Club, but I will have the chance to continue to participate in its growth. I have been appointed to the ex officio seat on the board as the representative of the UCLA Emeriti Association. I leave with no qualms as I turn over the Chair to Kyle McJunkin, from the School of Public Health. Kyle is an visionary leader, full of energy and ideas, some of which I will share with you in a moment.
As I have written previously, each of us can share in the success of having stabilized the Club and assuring its continuation into the future. We will finish the year with little or no operating deficit, and we are free from the risk of closure in these fraught financial times. This success has come at a price. That price has been the curtailment of some money losing perks that we previously enjoyed. We have had to forego hot luncheon service this summer (to be discussed in a separate communication), we have no a la carte service on the patio in the Coral Grill, and no dinner service. We are taking steps to restore and enhance our member benefits, and Kyle will share this information with you soon.
I want to use the remainder of this communication to share with you the steps required to restore the Club to the full-service organization that we want. The short answer is money, the longer one requires a discussion of how we get there.
WE NEED MORE MEMBERS! Membership dues provide a base of support that is independent of usage. If we want a Club to be there when we want it, whether it is a university club, a social club, or a club associated with a religious institution, we have to assume some responsibility for its existence. This responsibility cannot be measured solely by the return that we get from our investment. Our membership numbers suffered greatly from the forced closure due to Covid and the desperately needed extensive renovations that took the following year. We are now at 60% of our pre-Covid membership levels. For those members who never returned when we reopened, we need you back. For those who are using the club with a departmental card, we need the larger contribution of full membership. Membership dues support some of the Club activities that have been curtailed. We need more members to provide more services.
Second, we need more events. It is these events that provide the economic health and cushion of the enterprise. Most of these events will come from the outside, but each of you can help by reminding your departments and your family and friends of the special meaning and atmosphere of the UCLA University Club. It is and should be more than an economic decision.
Finally, we need to continue to seek major philanthropic support for further capital improvements to the facility. The University stepped in with $10 million for major structural improvements, but we are responsible for improvements to the interior. We have spent, or will soon spend about $2 million on major improvements to the kitchen, the servery, the bathrooms, and others thanks to the generosity of the Morrisons, the Miller/McMahons, and the Steeles. We need still more upgrades, like the carpet in the main dining room and we need to meet emergencies which will continue to arise in our 60-year-old facility.
I want to appeal especially to the generosity of my generation, recruited to UCLA in the 60s, 70s and 80s of the last century, who often through little effort of our own, may have accumulated resources sufficient to consider major philanthropic gifts. If you are in that position, consider the UCLA University Club as a beneficiary. Your gift can have an immediate, visible impact on something very close to home and your heart. If you are interested you can contact me (scederbaum@mednet.ucla.edu), or the incoming chair, Kyle McJunkin (kmcjunkin@ph.ucla.edu).
I thank you again for having given me the privilege of having served as the Chair of the Club board for this past year.
Steve Cederbaum
Chair, Board of Directors
UCLA University Club
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It might be noted that back in the day, this blog helped save the Faculty Club from total demolition by rallying support. (The original plan was to build a version of what is now the Luskin Hotel and Conference Center on the site of the Club. You can get a sense of what went on by typing "Faculty Club" into the search option for this blog and going back to 2010 and 2011.)
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