President's Message

Dear Membership:

The FCCJ election was concluded in mid-July. We are now in the process of finalizing our committee chair structure as well as board director liaisons, which we hope to share shortly. The committees generally meet monthly and range from Professional Activities to Food & Beverage, Publications and Freedom of the Press, from House & Property to Library and Workroom, Film, and Scholarship. I encourage all to consider offering your skills for the Club’s betterment as a committee member - it will be time well spent. 
 

Dear Membership:

We concluded the 2026-2027 Board election last night (July 16), and I would like to share the vote outcome, as well as the officers elected for the coming year:

We held elections and shared with the Membership in June the outcome, which continues into July, to select two Associate Director positions. For the meeting, a quorum was achieved with 174 votes cast. Two resolutions passed - a vote to approve the Balance Sheet, Revenue & Expenditures Statement and Registry of Assets for FY 2025 and to repurpose a 20-million-yen relocation reserve for current operations, capital expenditure and retirement payments, and to dissolve the relocation reserve and 60-million-yen relocation liability.

The current FCCJ Board of Directors is winding down its tenure with elections scheduled for all offices at the end of this month; I sincerely hope if you are not running that you will consider joining or leading one of our many committees, whose work I always try to highlight. All members are welcome to join our General Membership Meeting at month's end when the election results will be announced and key Club developments will be shared.

I hope you are enjoying a relaxing Golden Week ahead of an eventual return to work and the rain and humidity of the months ahead. The Club will come out of the holidays with a variety of activities for all tastes, including a special exhibition-reception on May 8, when H.I.H. Princess Takamado will attend and a chorus comprising ambassadors and their wives will perform. On May 14, we will host a sneak preview of the film Never After Dark attended by the actor Kento Kaku.

The Finance Committee, Board of Directors, and General Manager offer our deep thanks for your overwhelming approval of our next budget at the March 25 General Membership Meeting, as well as unifying the consecutive term limits of directors. We don’t meet that frequently, but I regret to say that the GMM was disrupted, so a deeper BoD dialogue with the membership was impossible. Nonetheless, we aim to rectify that at our next meeting in June, as well as ensure an orderly process following all rules and proper decorum.