President’s Message

I have been missing spending time at SCC - relaxing, dining, playing sports, and socialising with friends - and I am sure many of my fellow Members feel the same way. As we enter the second month of our Circuit Breaker (CB), we are all hoping that we can expel the unwanted “intruder” soonest. Unfortunate as it is, there is always a silver lining - our “collective efforts” have contributed to an 8% decrease in global emissions in 2020, which is almost 2% above anyone’s expectations. The lands are cleaner, the waters clearer, and the air much fresher. Many have also opened their hearts and continued to give to the many vital causes that aid society; I would like to thank the St. James’s Place Charitable Foundation for very recently donating $50,000 through our Club to SportCares – raising SCC’s total donation so far to $350,000 that will especially help children- and youth-atrisk. Let’s enjoy this break, pause and take stock of our lives and expand our skillsets, and strengthen our bonds with our families; I personally have improved my meditation time to 45 minutes. As a Club, we have also been making good use of this time to re-evaluate our processes and service offerings, and plan new strategies and initiatives for the post-CB months ahead. In every adversity lies opportunities waiting to be seized, and I can assure you that your General Committee (GC) and management are not resting on our laurels.

Each Subcommittee and Department has set themselves goals to achieve this period and in the coming months. The following pages lay things out on greater detail but to summarise, the goals include the following: • Launch of F&B takeaway service from 26 May 2020. • Complete digitization of the back end and elimination of all paper/ cheque/ purchase orders etc. • Go green with elimination of all plastic, paper use and planting of more trees (I am told however that we cannot convert Padang and Dempsey into a forest). • Menu re-engineering. Introduction of vegan and vegetarian dishes, study and maximization of profitability of different beverages and dishes. • Revising the facilities of the Club, creating more touchless entryways, sinks, and toilet flushes. In addition to having a disinfection protocol in place that clearly spells out the locations, timing and frequency of cleaning – which is critical - as well as training cleaning staff on these new procedures. • Effective increases in the sport population of the Club, leveraging our existing resources while maximizing our ground facilities. • Outsourcing jobs, working from home, extending operating hours and working in shifts, especially for the immediate period after the CB. • The management is working on different scenarios, factoring the possibility of extension of the existing CB measures.

Let me also assure you that all staff are safe and healthy and salaries are still being paid in full; we are very grateful for the government’s wage support scheme.

To assist Members, the General Committee (GC) has decided that the entire monthly subscription paid by each Member, which includes the subscription for Family Members, for the months of April and May 2020 shall be returned to Members in the form of F&B Credits. This shall only be given to Members who have been current with their membership payments and to the following Membership categories: Ordinary Transferrable Membership, Ordinary Non-Transferrable Membership, Term Membership, and Sports Membership. Additionally, Members who pay car-parking fees and locker rental fees will receive F&B credits equivalent to the amount paid for April and May. Meanwhile, decisions about Section subscriptions will be left to the discretion of the individual Section Committees, subject still to oversight by the GC. These F&B Credits can be used for in-house dining at all F&B outlets, retail sale, and takeaway options. Valid until 30 November 2020, they will be automatically credited into your member accounts in June 2020.

Members who have expressed their wish to show their support for the Club may choose to opt out of the F&B Credits scheme; please email sccfnbcredits@scc.org.sg with your full name and membership number and advise us as such. The government has repeatedly emphasized, it will not be business-as-usual after the CB is lifted. We know and understand that, and as part of our preparations for the Club’s reopening, we will ensure that a framework that ensures the safety of our people while mitigating any negative impact to our business is set in place. We will explore new opportunities to better serve you while maintaining as much as possible the financial health of the Club. It is fortunate that our cash balances and reserves are healthy, but we forecast an impact on our profitability with reduced revenues and additional costs.

While we wait for the green light to kick the ball on our field and visit our favourite F&B outlets in the Clubhouse, please visit our SCC Facebook and Instagram pages to keep updated on our activities, including online Yoga classes and quiz nights. We also have weekly fitness challenges, exercise videos and cooking videos for everyone to try at home. The SCC Lion has been roaring for 167 years and so long as we continue to stay #SCCUnited, it will roar louder.