Page 5 - July_August 2019 Kwasind

Neil Rooney, CCM CCE
General Manager and Chief Operating Officer neil.rooney@rcyc.ca
Thank you to all the Members that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting so far and the very warm welcome received. I am privileged to be your GM/COO and look forward to working with Staff, Management, Board, Committees, all volunteers and Members towards a common purpose of progressing RCYC forward. The following is a brief overview of what I’ll be working on in the coming months:
Service Service Service:
Member experience at the Club is paramount. You need to feel pride as an owner and experience value for your Annual Fees. If we are not delivering top notch service, we will fail. In order to determine service levels that currently meet or exceed your expectations and service levels that might need improvement, we need to hear from a large portion of the Membership through a survey. The survey should be conducted annually and compared year over year for progress and improvement. This will give Management clear direction on where to focus.
In addition to an annual survey, we will reach out through regular pulse surveys to garner a sense of progress and to gauge events or programming. Comment Cards will continue to be made available and we will look at a simple ‘Feedback’ option through the website. We need to make it easy for you to provide ongoing input. We do have to be careful though to not over do it. We all get way too many surveys and I’m tired of being asked to give ten out of ten every time I get an oil change.
Governance:
Our Governance model sets the rules of the road and clearly defines roles and responsibilities between Board, Management and Committees. We will need to review this to ensure we all understand who is responsible for what.
Ideally, the Board is accountable for the success of the Club but delegates responsibility for the day-to-day operation of the Club to Management. In doing so, the Board clarifies accountability. This puts the Board in a position to hold myself and the Management team accountable for results. When everyone is involved in everything, nobody is accountable for anything.
Strategic Planning:
The current Strategic Plan runs from 2016 to 2020 so we
now should revisit it, review what was accomplished, determine what is outstanding and go through the process again to create a new plan - not a completely new plan but a complementary plan to the existing – the next phase, in essence.
The importance of having a current active plan that is created with your input is paramount. It should be your plan and the Board will implement it. Having a clear five-year road map will allow Management to create an annual business plan for presentation to the Board. This business plan will outline how we achieve year one of the Strategic Plan and so on. The Board again can hold Management accountable to the business plan. I can then work with all the department Managers to create specific annual objectives for us to focus on and these will support the business plan.
Communication:
Communication is an ongoing challenge for most organizations and clubs are no different. There is much to get out there but not everybody consumes their information the same way, so different methods need to be utilized. We will review all the current channels to see if and where improvements can be made.
Summary:
This is a season of evaluation for me. I need to:
Observe the Operation
Learn the Operation
Learn the Culture of RCYC
Build Rapport & Relationships Understand Member Expectations Receive Member Feedback
A season of observation and learning will allow me to be in an informed position to evaluate what we need to do in order to effectively move forward. That shouldn’t be interpreted as a season of inaction!
I am really looking forward to working with your incoming Board, Management Team and Staff.
I hope to see you on the Island or in the City and look forward to meeting you if I haven’t already. To contact me please drop by; call (office direct 416.934.4401, cell 416.881.5972) or email Neil.Rooney@RCYC.ca
KWASIND • JULY/AUGUST 2019 5
GM & COO MESSAGE