Presidents Update: December, 2019

Welcome to the December newsletter. November was certainly a wash-out, without much golf being played at all and this is very frustrating for everyone. Work on the first hole is well underway and a big thank you to all the volunteers who helped remove turf from the fairway over the first three days of the project. I hope all the members who attended the open forum meeting on Thursday 5th December had the opportunity to air their views and learn a bit more about the rationale for making the alterations to the layout of the hole. If any member has any further questions or observations then please email Sara in the office.

The club held a sportsmen's evening in early October to raise money for the club. I am very grateful to all the members and their friends who attended and in particular to Sandy and Faye McKenzie who helped to organise the speaker, comedian and other events throughout the evening. Everyones’efforts helped the club to raise just over three thousand pounds, which is a great achievement.

My first year in office as President has certainly been a busy one. How time passes very quickly – 2019 has been a year in which we have sadly lost 11 members of our golf club.

It has been a steep learning curve and it has given the Executive Committee and myself an opportunity to review the running of the club and its infrastructure with a fresh set of eyes and build upon the solid foundation we already had in place.

The review which we have undertaken has been based upon England Golfs governance guide for golf clubs. Based on the principles of ensuring that a club focuses on putting in place policies, procedures, documents and processes to enable an organisation to run effectively. We have started that process - and it is only a start - it will continue until we are satisfied that that we have the right infrastructure in place to meet legal requirements. At the same time the review will help us to define our own standards as well as driving improvement throughout the club.

Part of that process is having the right people with the right set of skills to undertake the relevant work. We have worked on the vision, mission and core values as part of our review and we are now in the process of developing a strategic plan. Having this plan in place will help safeguard the priorities of the club for the current and future management committees. The development of the plan will tell us where we are now, where we want to be in 3-5 years’ time and how we are going to get there. The plan, at the moment, is in its infancy and in due course will involve consultation with our members.

We have and are continuing to strive to improve communication between the various committees and our members. The marketing committee has worked extremely hard throughout the year to produce a newsletter, which is in my opinion of high quality and content. I hope you the members have had the opportunity to read them and feedback any comments to the club.

Thank you to Sue and Les, our Captains, for all their hard work during the past 12 months and for helping to organise with others the various events to celebrate our 125th Anniversary. What a great year it has been, incorporating a trick shot event, hickory shaft day and a summer ball, which I hope becomes an annual event.

I would also like to thank Ben Millington our Junior Captain. I feel we as a club have let Ben down in respect of the junior section this year. We have been struggling to support our junior section throughout the year for a number of reasons. However, I am pleased to announce that in early 2020 Mike Howes will be launching a junior academy at the club based on the MyPathWay2Golf academy and coaching platform provided by Golphin. This is a comprehensive resource to cover all facets of junior golf which has recently signed as the preferred option of the EGU. Any members who would be interested in a role within the junior section please let either Mike or myself know.

I am very grateful to all the volunteers for all of their hard work during the course of the year, without them this club would not exist.

I’m sure you will share my appreciation of our employed staff Sara and Julie, the greens team,

Simon and his team, and our Professional Mike and his team for their hard work and dedication over the last year.

Finally, I would like to wish all of our members and their families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and prosperous New Year.

Charlie Bell - President