Annual review / 2026
What the year produced
An annual review that only lists compliments is marketing. This one lists the work, the gaps, and the things we got wrong.
Status
In progress
The current year is still running. These are the figures we can stand behind today; the full review is published each January.
- peers per Core group
- 10peers per Core group
- locations running programming
- 4locations running programming
- published research threads
- 5published research threads
- months of continuous operation
- 12months of continuous operation
The work
Four things we actually did
Not a list of events attended. A list of things that were different at the end of the year.
- 01
Research re-grounded
Every one of the five published work threads was re-examined this year. Material inherited from the club's original research partnership had been written for an Australian context — different superannuation rules, a different state, different comparators. The argument survived. The geography did not. All five pages now carry United States figures and United States sources.
- 02
The board rebuilt
The board's structure was rewritten around defined mandates rather than a list of names, with open seats published as open. Six of eleven seats are currently open to members, including two elected member directorships.
- 03
The Magnolia
Our signature gathering was reimagined as The Magnolia by Ebony OH — a luxury tea society built on fine tea, elevated conversation, and a deliberately narrow guest list.
- 04
The site rebuilt
The club's web presence was rebuilt from the ground up: a faster, fully static site with a single coherent design system, the old WordPress content preserved and reorganised, and every dead page removed.
The honest part
What did not work
A review that lists only successes is a brochure. So, plainly: the club has been better at building than at converting. The quarterly candidacy dinners have run; applications have not kept pace with the number of seats.
The board has carried more than it should have, which is why six of eleven seats are open and published as open. And the old website made it harder to apply than it needed to be — a form asking for card details in the browser is a form most people abandon.
None of that is a crisis. All of it is fixable, and the fixes are not secret.
With thanks
- The members who show up to a monthly Core group on a week when work is hardest.
- The Core group guides, who do the hardest job in the club for the least recognition.
- Our volunteers, who run the events nobody sees the preparation for.
- Our donors, who fund the subsidised places that would otherwise not exist.
The full review, including the financial section, is circulated to members each January.
If the only thing that changed this year was that we felt better about ourselves, it was not worth writing down.
People / Purpose / Possibility
Help us do better next year
The gaps above are visible because members told us. If you have a view on any of it, we want to hear it.