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| Oct 19, 2008 |
| The Legends' members irked |
| By Gracia Chiang |
| IT BEGAN as a gripe that The Legends Fort Canning Park's colonial-style club building was to be converted into a hotel. Members would be moved to a new glass building, one-quarter the size of the original clubhouse. After a blog was started by a member, another grouse surfaced: that the management did not properly tell members that the club will be closed for six months. Now, some members have signed a petition against the temporary closure, protesting that they have been left out in the cold. The closure, from Oct 16 this year to April 1 next year, is for a $70 million renovation project to turn around the ailing club, which has a membership of 1,200 - just 10 per cent of its target. Members like regional manager Joe Nguyen, 37, protested that they were given short notice about the closure. He said: 'We feel like we're being kicked out. We were never consulted.' The club said it had sent out a letter to members on Sept 25, informing them about the closure date and inviting them to a presentation briefing on Oct 6. Its public relations director, Ms Amy Cheong, acknowledged that while the 1,200 members were not given 'exact details', they had been told as early as January in their newsletters that they should expect upcoming renovations. She explained that the club had been waiting for plans to be approved by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) before releasing details to members. Mr Nguyen was among some 250 members who attended the Oct 6 briefing. He set up a blog the same day, giving members a platform to air their concerns. Some 40 members have since visited the website and left their contact details. They also aired other gripes. 'When we bought our membership, we really liked the colonial-style architecture,' said Mr Nguyen. On the hotel project, club CEO Oh Chee Eng explained that unless members were willing to pay a substantially higher monthly subscription, the club needed the new business model to stay viable. He stressed that as a proprietary club, it had every right to make changes to the club's facilities. During the briefing, the club's management also cited a survey it conducted two years ago, in which members said they would like to have guest rooms. But member Jerry Barisano, 55, chairman of a media company, was not convinced. 'Guest rooms are very different from turning the building into a hotel,' he said. Some members also took issue with the fact that hotel guests would have access to facilities in the members' new glass building. This was disclosed to them at the briefing. When contacted, Mr Oh called this 'a mistake' and said the management had since come to an agreement on Thursday that all facilities in the new members' block would be exclusive to members and their guests. Separately, the URA also met five club members earlier last week. They had wanted to seek clarifications on its consideration of the proposed renovation work. The URA told The Sunday Times it was able to support the management's proposal to partially convert the club for hotel use as it proposed to keep the predominant floor area of the development for sports and recreation use for the club members. During the renovation period, monthly subscriptions will be suspended except for golf members who will pay a reduced fee for the continued use of facilities at The Legends Golf & Country Resort in Malaysia. Golfing members, who currently pay a monthly fee of $125 for families and $105 for individuals, will now pay $80 and $60 respectively. Social members have been paying $105 for families and $85 for individuals. Mr Barisano is resigned to the fact that the hotel conversion will go ahead, but he hopes the petition will persuade the URA to advise the club to carry out its renovation work in phases. He added that there are now some 100 signatures to the petition and he intends to submit it to the URA this week. Not all club members are so vexed. Ms Julinn Siah, a 32-year-old manager, felt that the issue has been blown out of proportion. She said: 'My main worry is that these unhappy people will push the owner too far. If this goes on, the owner might just say since people are so against it, let's just close the club. All of us will suffer then.' |
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