Notice Board

January 23^rd, 2012 The St. George’s Club Update

We are in the midst of cleaning and renovating and we will be publishing a Newsletter next week updating all of the items we have done and including these on the MARS system.

We also wished to advise everyone that the final installment of the loan was paid last week ahead of the time we outlined. We have several other positive announcements that we hope to share with the members in the near future that are quite exciting for the continued development of The St. George’s Club. [Watch this Space].

January 3^rd, 2012 The St. George’s Club (Copy of E-Mail to All Members).

As we go into the New Year, 2012 we wish all our Members and their families a healthy and prosperous one.

The Club like all hospitality business in the world has faced some challenges in the past eighteen (18) months but we do appear to be working our way out of them with an increased occupancy, better use of the restaurant facilities and also keeping our cost down as far as we can.  Our Q3 results for 2011 are good and we expect to make a small profit when the year is fully tallied next month. The Royal Gazette makes interesting reading with respect to the development plans for the island and how most of them are stalled based on lack of bank lending. A recent announcement by the Fairmont Hamilton Princess’ owners (GHI) that they are going to invest a substantial amount of money into building on to the property and also adding a marina is really good news for the island as they do have the funds available and the understanding of the island to make it a success. They clearly see the island as an opportunity as do the Cox family who have just announced plans to build a small resort on Hawkins Island in Hamilton Harbour. Again they have the funds to do this and it will proceed. We are hopeful that this year will mark a positive change in Tourism for Bermuda.

From a business standpoint we have had several new insurance companies set up this quarter and with that, comes other investment in terms of capital. Some recent movement in the insurance market will also improve premiums being injected into the local economy. 2012 looks hopeful as a turning point for Bermuda and with an election in the near future (next twelve months) we are hopeful of a Tourism Authority being setup to control marketing for the island and positioning it again for a sophisticated few who understand our high cost of living but the incredible beauty of Bermuda as destination of choice. That said we (the industry) need to deliver the level of service that goes along with that market and we realise this and are committed to doing so (understanding that we have not done so in the recent past). The St. George’s Club has already embarked on this improvement as can be seen by our actions over the past two years with the changes we have made in the Food and Beverage, Maintenance and Housekeeping areas.

Our recent successes in Tripadvisor and in regaining the RCI Gold Crown award is but a small part on our plans to improve the value proposition and our service at The Club. Look out for new curtains, duvets and bed linens in 2012 that will enhance each of the cottages (we plan on two phases with the Two-Bedroom being our first task).

Chris Smith’s illness was definitely a challenge for us but much much more so for him as he is on the heart transplant list in Scotland awaiting news. We are in contact with him through his father and he is in our prayers for a full recovery as soon as possible. We will try and post a status report occasionally on the Noticeboard. Changes in the restaurants were somewhat thwarted by this illness but they are now full speed ahead to catch up. New chefs, new menus and new service are already being pursued for the start of the New Year on February 3^rd, 2012. We will keep you apprised of these again via the web site but some of the new options are listed on www.Table.bm under Griffin’s Bistro and Bar. Look out for more!

We want and need you input on what you perceived when you were on property and what you saw as working or not and to that end we have compiled our 2012 Membership Survey to gather your very important feedback at http://members2012.surveyconsole.com. We need this input and welcome it both positive and otherwise as your perception is objective. We need to make sure that we collate all the issues and this is the best way to do so. It guides our actions for the future and obviously we select the most popular requests to action. e.g. a small number of people have requested we install TV’s in the bedrooms but not enough for us to action whereas a more significant number of people have asked us to improve the internet access and we have started a project to do so for Q1 2012.

The MARS system is used for individual cottage repairs and renovation and it is nearly up to date with respect to our past maintenance weeks in November and December showing only outstanding jobs in each unit. Please take the time to review it going forward. There is also a section on MARS that can be used for internal cottage exchanges. Already some people have listed some weeks that they cannot use but are interested in coming at a different time of year. If you are in that situation it is worth looking at.

We would also like to announce the result of our Membership Survey “Why Bermuda and why The St. George’s Club?” draw. The winner drawn randomly from our survey participants of the RCI Week anywhere in the world is Mr. Michael Brywka (ID#4885).

His responses were:

Why Bermuda?

• Short airplane trip from the east coast

Why The St. George’s Club?

• Unique resort on the island overlooking the old town of St. George’s
• Affordable in comparison with coming to a hotel every year
• Additional benefits of being a complete cottage unit
• Staff are very friendly and courteous
• Recent changes and upgrades have made a difference

And we thank him for putting it in his own words in summary.

• Ideal location. People are friendly and want to please the guests at every opportunity.

Mr. Brywka, congratulations we will be in contact to send you the certificate in the near future.

Please allow us to thank everyone that participated as it gave us significant insight into why you bought and continue to support The Club. We are going to share the results with the Bermuda Department of Tourism and the Bermuda Hotel Association as it is very relevant for the new marketing campaign the island is embarking on. We will use some of your comments in our own marketing drive in the near future so again thank you. Please note we are as always happy to take e-mails directly and respond to them as we can but the survey is a key element to our planning process and we ask again that you take a few moments of your time to respond to our questions.

Regards from us all at The St. George’s Club and we hope to see you again soon.

December 23^rd, 2011 The St. George’s Club

The staff of The St. George’s Club would like to wish all our Members and their families a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous and Happy New Year for 2012. The weather here is a little cool at 70^oF and we have little chance of a white Christmas. Our occupancy is a little over 50% (higher than normal) and as we come up to Christmas it increases a little more. After a larger than normal number of office parties in December we have plans for a Christmas Buffet in Griffin’s Bistro and our current bookings are very good. We are also hosting a New Year’s Eve party overlooking the festivities in the old town of St. George’s including the now famous “onion” to see in 2012. Details of events are posted on the website under The Club and Restaurant Tab and at www.Table.bm.

We have been busy in November/December repairing and reviewing cottages for updates and renovations. We have placed orders for curtains and covers for the two-bedroom units already and hope to have these installed sometime in February depending on shipping. We are also updating The Club internet as more and more people see it as a necessity when on vacation to stay in contact with the family and the office. The goal is to improve the reception, put in some redundancy and also increase the bandwidth for all cottages over the next year.

We are also continuing with our efforts to be more energy efficient and we are piloting some new heat pumps to heat cottage hot water. These are calculated to pay for themselves within a short period of time and as the Bermuda Electric Light Co. Ltd. have just applied for an increase we need to make every effort to reduce where we can.

We will be asking you to fill in our annual survey again early in the New Year to get your input and we would ask that you participate so we can collate the results and tackle things that the majority wish us to. We were disappointed by the response last year with only around 300 members participating and we ask that you take a few moments to do so. The Club needs your input so that we improve and make The St. George’s Club the best it can be for all of the members.

Again we wish you Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

December 5^th, 2011 The St. George’s Club Q3 Financials Revision

Please note that we have revised The Club financials interim Q3 results upwards as we noticed after posting that there were a couple of posting dates that were incorrect. The corrections raise the profitability of The Club for this period. These are in the usual place on the Web Site under Membership. Sorry for the error it was human and not a computer malfunction.

November 21^st, 2011 The St. George’s Club Update

As we are nearing the end of our season we are preparing to work on the updates to the property and put together the plan for refurbishment and updates going forward. Our occupancy continues to be reasonably high for November which is great news for The Club and we have attracted for the first time a large number of Wedding and Christmas events to Griffin’s Bistro and Bar, thanks to the hard work of the F&B staff.

This has not stopped us in the maintenance department and we have already attacked a number of MARS issues and updated about six (6) cottages to date.

One of our biggest costs after salaries are utilities and it is our intention to review replacing the hot water storage heaters with instant heaters to determine whether this will work in our environment. We will be piloting a unit in the near future in a single two-bedroom cottage and also a new Heat Pump for the one-bedroom cottages. The new appliances have brought the number of electricity units (KWh) used down but we need to do more as electricity cost may be going up. We are also removing the rest of the older A/C units and replacing them with more efficient units that we have in stock.

After reviewing each of the units we believe that it is time to replace the curtains (drapes). These have taken a lot of wear and sun. We are also moving to duvets and matching bed line to refresh the look of all the units and modernise it a little more. We are still working on costs but we will do as a minimum of the Two-Bedroom cottages.

We also need to do some major repairs on the pool liners when we are closed in January to fix a couple of cracks that have developed throughout the year and bring them back to service.

The complete list of what is being done will be in MARS and in our Newsletter for the New Year. For those of you who have not yet paid the 2012 Annual Assessment please be advised that it is due on January 1^st, 2012 and on time payment helps us plan our cash flow and also refurbish the cottages prior to your arrival. We again appreciate everyone who has paid early as it does help us plan better.

We will again be publishing our Membership survey shortly to get your view of The St. George’s Club and determine what you want done to improve it but there is also a little confusion over our refurbishment program and we wish to clarify it.

It is important that everyone understand that a portion of the fees collected every year from both the Members and the Developer (minimum of 10%) are by law allocated to this program. In fact in 2011 more was allocated which is why the loan is still pending final payment. By using these funds when they were available from a cash flow perspective allowed us to complete all of the work we wanted to do to both make The Club more efficient in terms of energy use and also on-going maintenance. Any change needs to be planned and organised when the property is available in terms of major projects or when cottages are empty for internal issues. We have encountered members requesting we don’t do anything to the unit when they are in it for quite understandable reasons but it does make it difficult to organise. The fact that a vast majority of the members seem to be pleased with our approach to this is what continues to guide us to continue what we are doing. The fact that we have restored the RCI Gold Crown also signifies that we are moving in the right direction.

Clearly some members do not understand the approach nor our management but we accept that we cannot please everyone. Times are tough on the island as well as all round the world and our approach needs to consider the majority and the overall business. We all want it to survive and to improve and give better value for money. That is the goal of the GM and the St. George’s Club staff and the Managing Agent (and the over twenty (20) staff of Seasons/Gateway Systems Limited, who work on behalf of The St. George’s Club throughout the year) and one we have had since taking over the management. Everyone has agreed that The Club is much better since 2006 and we aim to keep making the improvements.

On a completely different note the Chamber of Commerce have managed to re-open the golf course but the greens still pose a slight challenge but that is being addressed. The intent has always to open it to municipal standard and it currently is at that level. Please be aware what that means to us. The grass is kept down and the rough is rough. The greens are not the same as Riddell’s Bay or Tucker’s but the idea is to allow you enjoy a good walk and social game of golf. While they are working on it they have decided to reduce the greens fees by 50%. We believe it is far better to have the course open for play in its current state rather than closed and abused. We hope you agree.

Keep watching this page for updated information.

October 20^th, 2011 The St. George’s Club RCI Gold Crown regained 2012

We are pleased to announce that as of 2012 The Club will be restored to RCI gold Crown status. This was lost prior to 2006 when the previous Managing Agent had failed to update or maintain the resort for several years and had never implemented any form of staff training or standards manual for Housekeeping. The current Club Management have done this and we are now on our next layer of renovation plans for the next season. We do still have issues and we are slowly working through them and we will keep all members informed to the best of our ability as we move forward. We are doing more with less as the island goes through some difficult times.

Please check back regularly to get our updates. There is also a new E-Newsletter sent to all members for the annual MAC/Members AGM published also under this tab.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support. We understand that we all need to work together to make The St. George’s Club a success. The Developer and Club Operations need to be partners and not adversaries in the process.

October 6^th, 2011 Congratulations to the Winners of our Annual Draw

Those members that paid the Annual Assessments for 2012 in advance were entered into a draw to get their Assessment Fee back. This has been done and the winners notified by e-mail. We wish to thank everyone that participated as it does assist us to improve our cash flow and organise refurbishment in advance.

For those that are interested the winners are:

We will be announcing our refurbishment plans shortly so stay tuned.

September 21^st, 2011 Update from The St. George’s Club

The weather continues to be warm and what we thought was the end of a short summer a couple of weeks ago has gone and we are back with beautiful balmy evenings and calm waters. We want to thank everyone who has sent in their Assessment Fees by the draw deadline, this will assist us plan our refurbishment for the next year and place orders prior to the end of the year so it is available for January when we are closed and can perform some of the major tasks. Thank you also to those that have communicated your support for this closure and understand the need for it, and the fact that it assists both Club Operations and the Developer to reduce operating costs by saving utilities, staff costs and overheads at a time of year that is not popular on the island as the weather is not predictable. This is the reason that most of the other hotels close down and many restaurants do as well. This is another reason we in fact close. The town is somewhat hibernating in January as everyone takes vacation. We received many comments from members and guests over the years that there was nothing to do in January in Bermuda!

We also must advise you that Chris Smith is no longer with us. His illness became quite serious as we said and he had to go off-island for surgery to the US and then back to Scotland to recuperate. We have not heard from him for some time and we have had to make some alternative arrangements going forward with Perry Robinson staying on with us into next year. He is making the needed changes in both restaurants and we are already looking at staffing for next season.

We will keep you informed going forward.

September 14^th, 2011 Golf Course Update

The Chamber of Commerce seems to have hit a little bit of a roadblock with respect to the cutting of the main fairways and typically when we were suffering only a month ago from no rain and no grass we now have too much rain and long grass. We are trying to sort the problem out but it has developed for several reasons which we will have to fix one by one. We will keep you informed as we can. The better news is that the greens are nearly back to a good standard.

September 9^th, 2011 Club Update

Hurricanes to the right of us and hurricanes to the left but fortunately we have not had a close one as yet. The weather has been hot and humid and looks as though it will continue to be so for a little while. Tropical Storm, Maria is being watched closely as it approaches from the south (still over 700 miles away) and a few of the current models show it may come close. Looks like we may have some hurricane parties to look forward to in the next week!

We promised that we would post the latest news on the new development in St. George’s and for those of you that do not follow the Royal Gazette the planning approval was given this week with certain stipulations. The latest news is that it will take about nine (9) months to redraw the plans and resubmit them and then the first step will be to build the hundred (100) room hotel. The estimate is that this will take two (2) years to complete. Then development will continue with the wholly owned villas, the condominiums and then the fractional ownership. The golf course redevelopment has not in fact gone to planning at this point as we understand it but will do so shortly. Any change will therefore take a bit longer and there is a little bit of scepticism from the locals as to when they will see a new resort in the east end. This comes from the knowledge that with hotel properties not performing well, fractional properties not performing well and sales of condominiums not doing well, why would anyone invest in building at this time? We must all wait and see.

With Chris Smith’s return now in doubt as he needs to be very careful because of a heart issue and coming back to the island where there is little primary heart care, is not a wise idea, we have recruited Perry Robinson to act as our Food and Beverage Manager as a consultant. We have known Perry for some time both as a friend and customer when he worked as General Manager at Stonington Beach Hotel and most recently at The Reef’s. He has a very good knowledge of the business having worked both in Bermuda and the U.S. for many many years. His calm and measured approach is already paying dividends and while he sees the challenges he also sees solutions to the issues. Blackbeard’s Hideout continues to work reasonably and while our revenue is down on previous years it is not as bad as other restaurants. We are focusing the majority of our efforts for the balance of this year and next on Griffin’s Bistro. As the recent visitor to the island Emeril Lagasse used to say we are “kicking it up a notch”! While we are not starting from scratch we are looking at all options to make Griffin’s Bistro and Bar a place that the Member’s wish to use. We also wish to attract locals and also other visitors to the island. The current exit survey shows that a little over 65% would recommend that someone visiting the island should eat at Griffin’s Bistro. This needs to be higher. The obvious ultimate aim is to eventually remove the minimum from Members and Guests staying at the resort.

We will as always keep you informed of our progress.

Our refurbishment plans are being developed now and we will post these on MARS before the end of the year so everyone can see what is being done on their cottage and give input. We will try and also update MARS more frequently as work is done. This proved to be a challenge in its first year of operation.

July 21^st, 2011 The Club Update

The Membership Office wishes to apologise to everyone that has as yet not received their additional week certificate given with the payment of the Supplementary Assessment by the Developer. We are delighted at the response to this and Lorrie is working through the list as we speak. Please be patient as she deals with the workload. Please also note that they should be returned to The Club and not elsewhere. If you are on property please contact Lorrie and she will do it before you leave.

Apologies for the lack of update for some time we have been very busy due to some unforeseen issues including Chris Smith our Food and Beverage Manager taking very ill. He was in the local hospital for some time before being flown off the island to Boston for further care. We are not certain when he will return at this stage and we are coping in his absence only because our other Griffin’s staff are all helping and making sure things are done. We are in fact all involved because we are currently at maximum occupancy and just before he left Chris, organised with Norberto and Griffin’s staff a new menu that has generated some new interest in Griffin’s Bistro! Our new quiz night is also becoming very popular. It is not every Tuesday but the dates are listed on Griffin's Bistro link and under the Club Tab under Restaurants as well as the new menus for your perusal and to whet your appetite.

We are pleased to announce that all the appliances are installed in all the cottages (a new dishwasher is scheduled in the last unit this weekend to be strictly accurate) and everyone so far seems very happy with them. Our renovations are still on-going and our feedback is positive on those as well. There is no rest for us though as we are now in budget time and we are planning this winters updates and projects. Stay tuned for those plans.

For those concerned about the two tropical storms in the Atlantic at the moment, don’t be. Bret is passing by over three hundred miles away and Cindy is also headed to Europe, past its closest point of approach. Bret in fact did help by giving us some badly needed rain both to add to our tanks and also to water the Golf Course and our grounds. It will take a lot more to bring this up to our normal rainfall as we currently have had only half the normal amount. We ask as always that when on property you take shorts showers and make sure you turn off all taps. Also use dishwashers when you fill them and not for small loads if you can avoid it. The toilets uses brackish salt water so you can flush as often as you need. This is in fact why there is a discolouration of the porcelain over time and it is not because they are not clean.

We hope to see you soon at The Club but in the meantime please check back for any updates or please contact us if you want to know anything specific that is not listed here.

June 6^th, 2011 St. George’s Golf Course

We are pleased to announce that the St. George’s golf course is open as of this morning for 8:00 am until 5:00 pm every day. Tee times are available from Front Desk or via www.Tee.bm (N.B. if you have not joined the course you will need to register to join the site). There is no cost for booking via www.Tee.bm but the course may charge a cancelation fee if you do not show up for your Tee Time. Please see the site Terms and Conditions. The course has obviously not been maintained for several years especially the greens and they will take the longest to come back especially as we have little rain at the moment. They have treated them all and we will see some growth over the next two to three weeks. We suggest the “Scottish Rule” of within the leather for the shorts puts. If the ball lies closer to the hole than the distance from the putter head to the bottom of the grip (originally made of leather so “within the leather”) then the next put is good. It is traditionally used when the course greens are waterlogged or in poor shape after a bad winter or sometimes just to speed up the game when the weather is inclement as it frequently is in Scotland!

June 1^st, 2011 Update from The St. George’s Club

As we approach the middle of the year (time has gone very quickly) we are still busy painting, installing appliances and updating each of the cottages as required. All the appliances are on site and we believe they will be in every unit by the end of this month. We have had to delay some installations as the occupants did not want the disruption while they were on holiday. The Air conditioning units are installed in the one bedroom 50’s block as planned with some minor work required to complete this task. The Supplementary Assessment is coming in daily and while this action was forced on us we are putting it to good use with additional work on the resort. It is heartening to see that the vast majority of people having paid the fee want to extend for the additional year on offer and we have had many people acknowledge the improvements we have made and management’s commitment to do more. Our weekly survey sent to people leaving after their visit shows a high level of satisfaction with our direction and the resort, the restaurants and overall. The strategic survey also showed an increased level of satisfaction from previous years. One item that was noted was that while most people knew the high cost of living in Bermuda there was a number of people that wanted more information about why that was the case. We, based on this result asked the MAC to provide us some information on this so that it was done from a member perspective. We hope to have the results of this shortly to share with the membership.

MARS updates. We have also updated the MARS system so it shows what we have NOT done in each unit. As it is addressed to our satisfaction we remove it from the list of things to be done. If you have not gone to the site and looked we do encourage you to do so. We have had very positive response from this and the level of detail we have gone into in each unit. This is an on-going exercise and members add to the list as they identify things the see or would like done.

One other thing that we have identified from last year’s strategic survey was that The Club lacked the ability to do exchanges internally if the need arose based on circumstances making the usual week inconvenient. The MAC and management have discussed how this could be done and kept up to date so people know what was available. We have a couple of options that we are looking at but hope to have something out shortly.

As you can see from this short update, we do post something nearly every month to keep you informed. If there is something specific that you would like to know about prior to your arrival do not hesitate to contact The Club directly and we will endeavour to help.