THE JAPAN SOCIETY (THE "COMPANY")NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETINGNOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of the Company will be heldon 15 June 2011 at 6.00pm at the Embassy of Japan, 101-104 Piccadilly, London W1J 7JT.
The business of the meeting shall be to record thanks to Sponsors and Benefactors and to
consider, and if thought fit, pass the following resolutions:1.

To receive and adopt the audited annual accounts of the Company for thefinancial year ended 31 December 2010 and the Trustees' Report.

2.

To reappoint Richard Place Dobson as auditors and to authorise the Board to
approve their remuneration as thought fit.

3.

To elect and re-elect Ordinary Trustees of the Company to fill certain
vacancies arising.

BY ORDER OF THE BOARD_____________________________H C POTTER
Chief Executive
Dated

31 May 2011

Registered office: Swire House, 59 Buckingham Gate, London SW1E 6AJ

NOTES
1

A summary of the annual accounts is enclosed with this Notice. The full accounts may be seenon the Company's website (www.japansociety.org.uk) or may be requested in hard copy fromthe registered office.

2

The Appendix to this Notice explains the election or re-election of Ordinary Trustees pursuant
to resolution 3 and sets out a list of candidates for election, together with their biographicaldetails.

3

A member of the Company is entitled to appoint a proxy to exercise all or any of his rights toattend, speak and vote at the meeting. A form of proxy is enclosed with this Notice. The proxymust be a member of the Company or, in the case of a corporate member, its authorised
representative.

4

To be effective, the instrument appointing a proxy and any authority under which it isexecuted (or a certified copy of such authority) must be deposited at the registered office of
the Company not less than 48 hours before the time for holding the meeting. Completion andreturn of the form of proxy will not preclude members from attending and voting in person at
the meeting. If you have appointed a proxy and attend the meeting in person, your proxyappointment will automatically be terminated.

5

To comply with security policy at the Embassy of Japan, members are asked to notify theCompany in advance of their intention to attend the AGM. Please bring a copy of this Notice,
together with some form of photographic ID with you.

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Appendix
Election of Ordinary Trustees
The Board of the Company consists of a Chairman, two Vice-Chairmen, up to four appointed
Officers (Solicitor, Treasurer, Librarian and Editor), two ex officio Trustees (one additional ViceChairman, the deputy head of mission at the Japanese Embassy, and one Ordinary Trustee, amember of the Japanese Embassy) and up to 14 Ordinary Trustees. The total number of Trustees
should be not more than twenty. The number of Ordinary Trustees should be no fewer than four.
One-third of the Ordinary Trustees is required to retire by rotation each year. Those who haveretired by rotation may stand for re-election but no one may serve for longer than six consecutive
years as a member of the Board.
The Board has appointed a nominations committee comprising Christopher Purvis (Chairman), Paul
Dimond (Vice-Chairman), Ken Okaniwa (ex-officio Trustee) and Heidi Potter (Chief Executive). This
committee reviews the skills that are required on the Board from time to time and the succession
policy; and it makes recommendations to the Board on possible future appointments.
This year it is expected that, as a result of the requirement to retire by rotation, the requirementthat no one may serve as a Trustee for longer than six consecutive years and some resignations,
there will be five vacancies for Ordinary Trustees which may be filled at the annual general
meeting (the "AGM"). Sean Curtin, an Ordinary Trustee who will retire by rotation, has indicatedthat he is willing to stand for re-election. Sean is active as Chairman of the Publications Committee
and as editor of the Japan Society Review; the Board proposes his re-election
There are four people standing for election to the Board as Ordinary Trustees for the first time.
Andrew Cahn, Lydia Gomersall, Hiroshi Hattori and Akihiro Tsuchiya; all have much interest in
supporting the continuing development of strong Japan-UK links and their wealth of experience andexpertise will be of great benefit to the Company as it looks to the future. The Board proposes eachcandidate's election. Biographical details of all five Ordinary Trustee candidates are set out in thisAppendix.
There are five candidates for election to fill a possible five Ordinary Trustee vacancies on the Board.
Members are therefore asked at the AGM to cast their votes "For" or "Against" each candidate.
Members may also select the "vote withheld" option if they do not wish to vote for or against any
particular candidate, although a vote withheld in this way is not a "vote" by law and will not becounted in the calculation of the proportion of votes "For" and "Against" a candidate.
We are always looking for new people to be involved with the Company in different capacities,
including as committee members and as Trustees. We encourage members to let us know at any
time during the year if they would like to be more involved. Suggestions of names of people to beconsidered for committees or for the Board should be made to any member of the nominationscommittee or indeed any member of the Board.
Members may vote, as normal, in person at the AGM on 15 June 2011 or by proxy. A proxy form is
enclosed in this booklet for this purpose.

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Biographical details of the Ordinary Trustee Candidates 2011
Sir Andrew Cahn

Sean Curtin

Sir Andrew Cahn has spent most of his careerin public service dealing with international
economic issues. He has worked in the
CabinetOffice,theForeignandCommonwealth Office and the Ministry ofAgriculture, Fisheries and Food. He also
worked in the European Commission, as partof the team which helped to create theEuropean Single Market and as chef decabinet to Neil Kinnock when he wasreforming the Commission.

Sean Curtin is currently editor of Japan
Society Review, chairman of the Publications
Committee, a highly active Council member
and has also served on several othercommittees. In 2005 he founded Japan
Society Review which is now a popular bimonthly publication featuring articles onbooks, movies, DVDs and plays.
If re-elected he will continue to energeticallypursue all his current commitments as well as
vigorously engage in new projects such as theJapan Matsuri 2011. He is currently a Japan
Society representative on the new bodyestablished to organize the highly successful
Japan Matsuri event. This year he has also relaunched the Japan Discussion Group at
Chatham House. He is an enthusiastic
supporter of the Japan Society andcommitted to promoting Japan-UK ties.

Sir Andrew spent five years as Chief Executive
Officer of UK Trade and Investment, thegovernment department responsible forhelping British exporters worldwide and also
for attracting foreign direct investment into
the country. He sat on the Boards of theForeign Office and the Department for
Business.
On leaving public service in 2011, he became
Vice President (Public Policy) at Nomura
International, joined the Board of Lloyd’s andbecame Chairman of the Advisory Board of
Huawei (UK).

Sean Curtin spent most of his professional
career as an academic, clocking up over a
decade teaching at Japanese universities.
During this time Professor Curtin wrote andresearched about Japanese social trends andpolitics as well as penning many newspaper
articles and making frequent media
appearances.

He has been a Trustee of the Gatsby
Charitable Foundation for fifteen years; is afounding Governor of the Institute forGovernment and sits on the Advisory Boardsof BritishAmerican Business and the School ofOriental and African Studies.

He returned to the UK in 2003 to take up a
post at Westminster University. Since
relocating to the UK his interests havediversified and besides his academic interests
he now also holds some commercial
directorships while continuing to write andcomment on Japan. He is married with twoenergetic boys and enjoys hiking and trying tokeep up with his children.

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Lydia Gomersall

Hiroshi Hattori

Lydia Gomersall first went to Japan in 1970
to work at the Osaka Expo, while still astudent of Japanese studies at Sheffield
University. After graduating and a period
working for the director of JETRO in London
she returned to Japan in 1973 to help open
the British Export Marketing Centre in Tokyo.
There she met her British diplomat husband
and over the next three decades spent a totalof 14 years in Japan, the final of their three
postings being as British Ambassador. Apartfrom their Japanese postings
they also
served in Washington DC in the 1980s and at
the United Nations in New York in the 1990s.

Hiroshi Hattori is Managing Corporate Officerof Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) and President
and Chief Executive Officer of NYK Group
Europe Ltd.
He joined NYK in 1976 after graduating from
Keio University, where he studied Economics.
Hiroshi has considerable overseas experience
with the company including in the USA,
Germany, The Netherlands, Australia andChina. Before assuming his present position in
London in April 2010, he has served as
Director and Managing Corporate Officer of
NYK overseeing Logistics and Harbour related
businesses. He was also appointed to C.I.O.

Whenever possible Lydia has worked inmedia, communications and public relations.
She was Press Coordinator for the Japan
Festival 1991, working with the media in the
UK and on facility trips to Japan andsubsequently established, and was Executive
Director of, the Japan Festival Fund, whichgrew out of the 1991 Festival. During thattime she also edited the Proceedings of theJapan Society. For most of her four years in
New York she was Director of Promotion andPublications at The Japan Society of New
York, a highlight of her time there being
conceiving and staging the first Japan Society
Matsuri on East 47th Street.

In addition to holding a directorship in theInternational Chamber of Shipping, Hiroshi
Hattori is a vice chairman of the Nippon Cluband a vice president of the JapaneseChamber of Commerce and Industry. He is
also a board member of The Japanese Schoolin London and trustee of Rikkyo School in
England, as well as being a board member ofthe Buckinghamshire Golf Club.
NYK is a Corporate Patron of the Japan
Society and has particularly supported theschools education and outreach programme.

More recently her professional interests havebroadened to include humanitarian aid anddevelopment issues, and from 2004-2008 she
was Media and Communications Officer at theInternational Rescue Committee UK.
Lydia is on the boards of The Royal Hospitalfor Neurodisability, The Hattori Foundation
and The Young Person’s Concert Foundationand is a member of the University College
London (UCL) Research Ethics Committee.

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Akihiro Tsuchiya
Akihiro Tsuchiya has spent much of his
personal and professional life outside Japan,
while still having strong roots in his
homeland. He is Founder and Managing
Director of Five Cool, a Euro-Japaneseinternet TV venture, working with companies
such as NHK.
After gaining a BSC in Microbiology from
Imperial College, London, Aki moved to Tokyo
where he was a Launch Member andController at MTV Japan. He later worked asa researcher at Nomura Research Institute,
before returning to the UK where he gained
an MSC in Media and Communication Industry
Regulation from the London School of
Economics.
Still working at the cutting edge of internet
services and delivery, Aki was Business
Development and Project Manager at Joost, a
global internet TV platform founded by thecreators of Skype. In this role he was involved
in developing the Chinese and Japanesemarket. He left Joost in 2009 to create Five
Cool.
Akihiro Tsuchiya has been a member of theJapan Society since he was a student and is acommitted supporter of the organization andits aim to involve young and old in thefurtherance of strong UK-Japan relations.

-6-please detach here and return to the Japan Society

THE JAPAN SOCIETY
PROXY FORM for the ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2011
I/We, being a member of The Japan Society, hereby appoint the Chairman of the meeting (see note
3)/………………………………………………. as my/our proxy to vote for me/us at the Annual General Meetingof The Japan Society to be held on Wednesday, 15 June 2011 and at every adjournment thereof.

Name (please print) _______________________________________________________________Class of member

Individual

Name of corporate member (if applicable)

Signature

FamilyCorporate_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dated ____________________________________ 2011

Instructions to Proxy
Please indicate with an "X" in the boxes below and overleaf how you wish the proxy to vote. The
Proxy will vote or withhold their vote, at his/her discretion, on (a) any resolution listed below if noinstruction is given regarding that resolution and (b) on any other business transacted at themeeting.
For

1

Receiving the Accounts and the Trustees' Report2

Re-appointment of the Auditors

3

Election/Re-election of Ordinary Trustees

AgainstVote
withheld

Please indicate overleaf how
you wish the proxy to vote

Notes
1
2
3

4

5

6

A member of The Japan Society is entitled to appoint a proxy to exercise all or any of his rights to attend, speak andvote at a general meeting of The Japan Society.
Appointment of a proxy does not preclude you from attending the meeting and voting in person. If you have appointed
a proxy and attend the meeting in person, your proxy appointment will automatically be terminated.
If you wish, you may delete the words "the Chairman of the meeting" and insert the name of a proxy of your choice.
The proxy must be a member of The Japan Society or, in the case of a member which is a corporation, its authorised
representative. Please initial any alteration. A proxy must attend the meeting to represent you.
The completed and signed proxy form (and, if relevant, the power of attorney or other authority under which it issigned, or a certified copy of that power or authority) must be received at Swire House, 59 Buckingham Gate, London
SW1E 6AJ not less than 48 hours before the meeting or the adjourned meeting or, in the case of a poll, not less than
24 hours before the time appointed for taking the poll.
To direct your proxy how to vote on the resolutions mark the appropriate box with an 'X'. If no voting indication is
given, your proxy will vote or withhold their vote at his or her discretion. Your proxy will vote (or withhold a vote) as
he or she thinks fit in relation to any other matter which is put before the meeting.
The vote withheld option is provided to enable you to instruct the proxy not to vote on any particular resolution.
However, it should be noted that a vote withheld in this way is not a "vote" by law and will not be counted in thecalculation of the proportion of votes "For" and "Against" a resolution.

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Election of Ordinary Trustees
There is a maximum of five vacancies amongst Ordinary Trustees and five candidates to fill thosevacancies. The voting will be conducted at the meeting on a poll.
The names of the candidates are listed below (in alphabetical order). Please indicate, by placingan "X" against the names of the relevant candidates, how you wish the proxy to vote on the poll.
Please note:•

You have a maximum of five votes and may vote only once for any particular
candidate. You may cast a vote in relation to all or some only of the candidates.

•

The vote will be conducted by counting the number of votes cast "For" and "Against"
each candidate.

•

The "Vote withheld" option is provided to enable you to instruct the proxy not tovote for any particular candidate. However, it should be noted that a vote withheld
in this way is not a "vote" by law and will not be counted in the calculation of the
proportion of votes "For" and "Against" a candidate.

•

If you cast a vote for fewer than five candidates and you do not wish
the proxy to have discretion to cast the remainder of your votes inrelation to the remaining candidates, please place an "X" in this box.

CANDIDATES
For

1Andrew Cahn

2

Sean Curtin

3

Lydia Gomersall

4

Hiroshi Hattori

5

Akihiro Tsuchiya-8-

AgainstVote
witheld

please detach here and return to the Japan Society

7. Any power of attorney or any other authority under which this proxy form is signed (or a duly certified copy of such
power or authority) must be included with the proxy form.
8. If you submit more than one valid proxy appointment, the appointment received last before the latest time for thereceipt of proxies will take precedence.