President's Message

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.

Dear members

I write shortly after our Extraordinary General Membership Meeting at the end of January, when we welcomed new board member Khaldon Azhari and passed changes to our dues structure to further stabilize our financial foundations. I thank you for your participation in the election, and for actually attending the meeting.

Dear members,

On behalf of everyone at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, I would like to wish you and your families a very happy new year. We had a historic anniversary last year, and I hope that 2026 will bring even more prosperity and greater FCCJ experiences. Stay tuned for more, including a long-form A+E video on the Club’s 80th.

Dear members,

September was a hot and hectic month at the club, with the announcement of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s intention to resign, followed by the start of the campaign to succeed him as president of the Liberal Democratic Party. We hosted a number of political speakers in the runup to the vote on October 4, as well as several panel discussions, including one on the future of journalism education in Japan.

Dear members,

It was a somewhat quiet August with events to commemorate the end of War II, but there were PAC events with Rep. Taro Kono as well as the latest from Gaza, and a sneak preview of A Pale View of Hills. Your new Board of Directors and Committee chairs are working on an ambitious agenda for the following year, which will be a special one for the Club. Allow me to share some early details.