New Club President Emily Wilkins plans to emphasize community in 2024
The National Press Club’s new leader is planning multiple efforts in 2024 to use the Club as a hub to bring the journalism community together. “We're stronger when we're together; we're better when we're together; and I think that is really true of what everyone brings to the Club as an individual and ourselves as a collective,” Emily Wilkins, the Club's 117th president, said at the Annual Membership Meeting on Jan. 19. The event featured the Club's presidential transition, as the 116th president, Eileen O'Reilly, passed the Club gavel to Wilkins. Wilkins, a CNBC Washington correspondent, has her inaugural dinner scheduled for Feb. 9. Purchase tickets online.
Wilkins has three main goals for her one-year term. One of her priorities is to continue the Club's work in press freedom by advocating for journalists who are unjustly jailed, such as Austin Tice and Evan Gershkovich. A new press freedom effort at the Club for 2024, led by Press Freedom Team Chair Rachel Oswald, will support exiled reporters who can no longer perform their work in their home countries. The Club can fill a role here, Wilkins said, by providing space, resources and a community. “They need all the things that the National Press Club already has,” Wilkins said. “I think this is a place where we can be a huge value-add.” Wilkins also wants to help members take better advantage of the Club's benefits by more widely publicizing the Club's events and guests and opportunities for members to get involved with the Club's various teams. Another of Wilkins’ goals is to help the Club more effectively tap into the larger journalism and communicator community, both in the metro Washington region and nationally. She wants the Club to partner with other journalism and communicator groups to find ways for the journalism community to be stronger together in an era of industry upheaval.
Club shows steady membership, strong finances
The annual membership meeting included updates on the Club's financial and membership levels. The Club finished 2023 with as many members as it had at the end of 2022, approximately 2,600. October was a record month of revenue, and the Club exceeded budgeted revenue expectations for the last three months of 2023. The Club's revenue was more than expected in 2023 and it exceeded its revenue from 2022, but last year's revenue was lower than in 2019. The Club is budgeting an increase in revenue for 2024 and is expecting a modestly profitable year. The Club turned a profit in 2023 that was nearly three-times as much as expected.
Complimentary breakfast set to return
Executive Director Didier Saugy is planning a full slate of dinner events and improvements in the Reliable Source for 2024. The Club is scheduling a special dinner for almost every month of the year as well as a new menu and wine list. Saugy also indicated cooking classes will be offered to members. The complimentary breakfast will return to the restaurant either in February or March. A new hot breakfast option also will become available. The Reliable Source is now open until at least 10 p.m. each week night. Members are encouraged to visit the restaurant to help improve its business.
Saugy is considering bringing a trainer into the Club's gym twice per week. He is also working on improvements to the 14th floor work area with changes possibly implemented over the next six months.
A snow storm that hit the Washington area Thursday night and Friday morning tapered in the afternoon prior to the membership meeting, which drew 46 in-person attendees.