KILWORTH SPRINGS GOLF CLUB - SENIORS' SECTION

Transcription

1 KILWORTH SPRINGS GOLF CLUB - SENIORS' SECTION Minutes of Annual General Meeting held on Monday 15 th January 2018 held at the Clubhouse at Present: Alan Jacques, Brian Tuckley, Steve Watson, Alan Saunders, Alan Lilley, Clive Howe and Brian Wells. David Hargreaves, Neil Cunniffe, Steve Barber, Vaughan Allington, Pete Dennis, Roger Bowler, Alan Dixon, Ian Farrar, Peter Hall, David Janssens, Pat Pickering, Tony Miles, David Storey, Colin Hibbard, Roy Wicks, Alan Cockerill, Bob Goodacre, Keith Bacon, Keith Manning, Bill Pritchard, Andy Holloway, David Ryan and Peter Bell 1. Apologies for absence Apologies were received from the following members:-. Del Spicer and Paul Ransom 2. Minutes of the last Meeting The acceptance of the minutes of the last Meeting was agreed unanimously. 3. Matters arising (unless covered by an Agenda item) There were no matters arising from the Minutes. 4. Captain s Report Alan Jacques reported as follows:- Firstly, I would like to express my thanks to the Management of the Club for all their help to me and for providing us with a Club we can be proud of. Also the Green Staff under the leadership of Jack Mayfield for producing a quality course for us to play on all the year round. Last but not least thanks to the staff who always make us welcome and especially Head Chef Ryan for producing some outstanding meals for us at our matches. We have had quite a successful year in the matches. Having played 28, we won 15 and drew 4, only losing 9 and all those were away from home apart from one. Page 1! of! 11

2 Silverstone beat us here at Kilworth so it was very pleasurable that when we went there they had not lost at home all year and we beat them. We used 44 different players in the matches but I must thank the nucleus of the same players who were the backbone of the team. They know who they are. Your Committee relaxed the Dress Code to smart casual for the matches in keeping with what several other clubs were doing. We put up a bottle of wine for the opposition to play for on various holes which was received well and I hope Brian will continue with it. We organised to have a welcoming leaflet put on each of the tables at dinner. This introduced them to Kilworth Springs, had the menu on and a few golfing facts. Many thanks to Andy Holloway who took on the responsibility to produce it. I hope we can continue it this season. My Captains Away Day was at Northampton Golf Club and it could not have been better. Sunshine all day and a great course in good condition. The Winners on the day were Martin Bradford (The oldest) & Neil Smith (Youngest). The Seniors Open was once again a great success with 140 playing in it coming from a wide area. This year we must work hard to ensure the number of players is similar to last year. You will have noticed Tee pots on the PAR 3 s to collect up broken Tees. These were paid for out of Seniors funds as a gesture to the Club. I hope you all appreciate how much the Seniors Committee do to ensure the smooth running of Competitions and Matches Alan Lilley our Secretary and Fixture secretary who keeps all our notes etc. and organises new Fixtures. We have two new fixtures next year namely Brampton Heath and Stoneleigh Deer Park. We have dropped Helidon Lakes and Ullesthorpe due to them not being able to field 16 players. On the Competitions side these have been run with their usual smoothness by Alan Saunders. He has managed them excellently despite players crying off repeatedly. In fact on some occasions not being able to play himself due to late fall outs. I ask that next year please think before putting you names on the Entry sheets that you will be available and if you cannot play for any reason let Alan know a.s.a.p. Please bear in mind that your Committee are taking stronger actions against members who fail to notify us, continually withdraw and fail to turn up. Many thanks to Brian Wells our Results Co-Ordinator for the sterling work he does putting all the facts and figures together as well as his light hearted comments on the day s events. Page 2! of! 11

3 On the Finance side I must thanks Clive Howe who manages to get the 20 out of you at the start of the season and keeps the Seniors Books in good order. Finally Steve Watson, our past Captain and Brian Tuckley our incoming Captain for their guidance and support over the year. Sadly this year we lost Brian McInerney after a very short illness. My Charity for this year has been Guide Dogs for the Blind and I originally set a target of 2,500 so we could Name a dog and have a picture of it. But thanks to the generosity mainly of you senior golfers and a couple of donations I have reached 5,387 which enables us to Name the dog, have a picture, meet the actual dog and be kept up to date with its progress for the first year of its life. I have decided to name the dog Senior It has been a great pleasure being your Seniors Captain for the past year. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and thank you all for your help and friendship over the period. Finally, I wish to thank Brian Tuckley for his help and support over the past year and I wish him all the very best in his coming year as Captain. I will do all I can to support him during his time and I hope he gets all yours as well. 5. Competition Manager s Report Alan Saunders reported as follows. 5.1 Introduction I will cover briefly 2017 competitions and look ahead to However before I begin I would like to thank; firstly Brian Wells who, as you know, publishes all competitions on the website and provides us with the results, secondly the Seniors Committee for their inputs and thirdly the Club who provide us with all the tee allocations and course conditions data that we need for all competitions Competitions Overall Numbers & General Health/Position The Seniors Section expanded again this year and, reflecting this, all competition numbers increased. Excluding the cancelled Christmas Scramble, from January to December ,770 players entered and 1,647 players teed off in all competitions giving an average per competition of 51 and 47 respectively. Monthly Stablefords were the most popular averaging 53 players teeing off per competition with the June and July events, not surprisingly, attracting 65 and 66 entrants and 56 and 66 players teeing off. The Trophy and Board competitions both had around 10% lower number of Page 3! of! 11

4 players teeing off while the Winter League average was 20% lower. This continues the very healthy position we are in and reflects the very high proportion of Seniors playing competitions, most of whom play regularly. The 2017 Seniors Open was a success again this year and, compared to last year, we maintained the number of clubs and players participating. We have established a very well organised event with quality features such as David Leslie and John Taylor carrying out Starter and Marshalling Duties; David Janssens running his real time comprehensive scoring spreadsheet, and two tables of high value Competition and Raffle Prizes. Innovations There was one major innovation this year which was our pace of play campaign. My thanks go to everyone who contributed to building our approach. What we did was to measure real times for whole rounds for the whole field, individual holes and time between holes. From this we published our pace of play guidelines in June which included our par round times as well as tips for best practice pace of play. We improved rapidly by around 45 minutes per round and have, by and large, sustained this improvement during the rest of the year. The guidelines are now part and parcel of the documents on the competitions table before each competition. We are continuing to monitor pace of play during the winter and will do so again this summer. Issues There is one major issue which continues to dog us. It is the number of changes to the original draw because of late entries and withdrawals. Overall from the 1,770 entries there were 378 changes i.e. 21% from the entry list or 11 per competition. One third of these changes were late entries and two-thirds withdrawals. Overall 90 Seniors who submitted a late entry and withdrew did so on at least one occasion of which 29 Seniors did so on 5 or more occasions. The top serial offender did so 14 times i.e. about 1 in 2 competitions. These changes included 80 withdrawals on the day of the competition and, even after deducting the one instance of bad weather, this is 2 per competition. Of these 30 were made without letting me know with one person doing it three times and five others doing it twice. This is unacceptable. While many of these changes were for understandable reasons such as health we do need to reduce them. You may think that it is a trivial affair to enter late or withdraw. However the knock-on effect is considerable and now absorbs an unacceptable proportion of my time. As a result the Seniors Committee has made a change to the competition process from now on. Page 4! of! 11

5 There are five announcements for Two are concerned with our internal competitions portfolio while the others are about the competitions process, the Seniors Open and the Lefties v Righties competition. With regards to our internal competitions portfolio we are introducing, at the suggestion of Brian Tuckley, a new competition which is the Seniors Captain s Medal. This fills a gap in our portfolio and will be played off Yellow Tees on Tuesday 28 th August. In addition we have introduced a protocol for both drawn and selected pairs competitions when we end up with an odd number of players on the day. Interestingly this occurs 90% of the time! This means everyone in a three balls on the day can play. As part of this the Pinehurst Pairs competition will become a selected pairs event. The change to the competition process is as follows. The Competitions Manager will continue to do the entire organisation for all competitions from entry lists, draws and changes, to scorecards preparation. However on the day of the competition the issuing of scorecards will now be done by a panel of around 7 or 8 volunteer Seniors which will be organised by the Vice Captain. You will have noticed that we have piloted this already. Thank you to those Seniors who have already volunteered. The incoming Vice Captain will be drawing up the list immediately. We will be making even further improvements to the Seniors Open to increase its reputation and popularity. The 2018 design and format will be the same as 2017 but we will be improving the marketing, selling and project planning of the event. Finally the Lefties v Righties Invitational event, which did not take place this year, will be repositioned and expanded as part of the 2018 Club festival in September. The club celebrates its 25 th anniversary this year and both the Seniors Open and Lefties v Righties will be key events in the September festival week. Full details will be agreed with the club in the next couple of months. 5.4 Conclusion That s all I have to say. I look forward to 2018 when I hope participation in and enjoyment of competitions continues. 6. Results and Handicap Coordinator s Report Brian Wells reported as follows:- As per last year I have split this brief report into 3 sections - Results, Handicaps and Website. Page 5! of! 11

6 6.1 Results The Club V1 system continues to work well with only minor issues, for example the occasional hic-up because of the club s internet or when players fail to touch the accept command after inputting and checking their scores. I recorded all the 2017 Seniors competition scores in a spreadsheet and by Seniors I mean those on our contact list which does not cover all qualifying Seniors in the club. However the results show that :- 112 players played in at least one Seniors competition in of those players achieved at lease one good performance which I defined as a score of 72 or less, 36 points or more or a top 3 position in pairs or other team competitions. Star performers were Bill Pritchard with 12 such performances, John Taylor with 10, Alan Lilley & Chis Dix with 9 and Alan Vickers & Brian Tuckley with 8. These performances however were not necessarily converted into trophy wins. There were 29 trophies collected by 22 different winners (The multiple winners being Brian Tuckley with 4 Trophies, Alan Jacques with 3 and John Taylor and Bob Morley both with 2) So the other 18 were won by different individual winners. 6.2 Handicaps The major change for 2018 is the increase of the maximum handicap allowance for men (and women) from 28 to 54. Handicaps for those seniors already on the old maximum of 28 have been assessed and increased where seen fit by the handicap committee and these resulting handicaps have been advised to those 5 Seniors affected. Our max handicap limit for Seniors competitions has been increased to accommodate this change and results will be reviewed in June to see if adjustments are required. The maximum handicap for matches will remain at 28 for both home and visiting players. This does not preclude a player with a new 28 plus handicap from playing in the team but the 28 handicap will apply. We continue this year with the following standard handicap reviews: The Annual Handicap Review In 2017 this took place on 25th October and the results were advised to those Seniors affected. There is a computer report which aids the committee on this subject. Next the End of Year Review This looks at the status of players whose Competition Handicaps have lapsed. Medical conditions were taken into account and again results have been advised to those Seniors affected. Also the Continuous Handicap Reviews, again a computer generated report, which looks at those players who have gained 0.1 on each of the previous 7 consecutive Page 6! of! 11

7 qualifying rounds. The norm is for those players to be granted an extra stroke to their handicap. This will be a monthly review in the 2018 winter period increased to a weekly review in the summer when there are many qualifying competitions. In addition there is a monthly handicap review meeting which picks up any anomalies to handicaps as they occur. The results of all assessments are shown on the Club Website and I personally inform Seniors affected. Although it does pay to check your handicap on the computer screen when signing in for a competition or entering your score. The course is due to be surveyed in April or May which may lead to a reassessment of the stroke indices. This survey will include the granting of a slope rating for the course which is not the number or severity of hills on the course or indeed the increase of heart rate seniors experience while climbing to the 15th. The Slope Rate of the course will indicate how difficult the course is for bogey golfers (defined as handicap17.5 to 22.4) from each tee compared to the current scratch golfer rating. The quick (and overly simplistic) answer is that it's a single number indicating the difficulty of a golf course to a "bogey golfer". The figure can be used when calculating handicaps. The Course Slope Value is a two - or three-digit integer, always between 55 and 155, with 113 being the average or "standard" value. and will enable comparison with other courses both at home and abroad. Slope Rating of courses has been rolling out since 2013 with the aim of getting all golf courses Slope Rated by 2023 working toward a Universal handicapping system 6.3 Website I am never sure how many of Seniors have looked at the club website but in the Members Area under the Sections banner is the Seniors Section. In that section you will find eight topics covering all aspects of our Seniors golf. For example all the Competition draws and results are posted, Seniors Contact details, information on Matches etc. I have just added a Seniors Photo Gallery as a topic where David Lesley s pictures of the 2017 Trophy Winners can be seen. You don t even need a password to access the site - go to kilworthsprings.co.uk and you are in. The only area which needs a password, for privacy reasons, is the Seniors Contacts Section. I have circulated the password for that but just ask if you need a reminder. Please offer any comments on the total content, we look to improve the site at very opportunity. In particular please take a look at the proposed rule changes that may come into play in 2019 which can be viewed in the R and A link which can be found on the Seniors News section. There are 5 proposed changes on the green one of which is being able to leave the flag stick in while putting as well as other proposed changes including dropping the ball from just a couple of inches above the ground instead of shoulder height. Page 7! of! 11

8 6.4 Finally I find, as I am sure most of you do, that playing in the Seniors Section competitions and Roll Ups is very enjoyable as you can gather from my competition reports. We seem to be able to bring the right attitude to a serious, competitive round of golf but are able to laugh at the unscripted events that occur and it has been a privilege to have served on your committee this past year. So my thanks to Captain Alan Jacques and the rest of the committee for their support during the year with special thanks to my partner in crime, Competition Organiser - thank you Alan. 7. Treasurer s Report Clive had distributed copies of a summary of the Seniors Accounts prior to the Meeting. He then reported that we have had 95 members pay the 20 Competitions Entry Fee with a small number still paying the 3 per competition fee. Clive said that there had been several one off payments this year such as trophy engraving, paying for tee boxes on the par three tees. 100 had also been paid in advance for 2018 s Captains Away Day. He also said that for this year the Seniors Open was treated as a standalone event will any excess funds being paid to the Captain s chosen Charity. This has meant that no funds were paid to the Seniors Section as in previous years. He confirmed that the Seniors Open will continue to be treated this way in the future. This has meant this year there expenditure exceeded income and resulted in a small decrease in Seniors funds. Overall he stated he felt that the accounts were in a healthy state and would be budgeting to break even in In light of the above he recommended that the Competitions Entry Fee should remain at 20 for Secretary s Report Alan Lilley reported as follows:- 8.1 General I have nothing to report on the general Secretarial front as, we as a Section, are not overburdened with Committee Meetings and paperwork and things tick over fairly straightforwardly! Page 8! of! 11

9 8.2 Matches As far as Matches are concerned there are a few changes for I reported last year that both Ullesthorpe and Hellidon Lakes had been struggling to get out 8 pairs for their matches; unfortunately this was again the case in Consequently I have dropped both of these Clubs fixtures for I have, however, arranged home and away fixture with both Brampton Heath and Stoneleigh Deer Park to replace them. The overall effect of these changes is this year we will be playing 29 matches against 17 different Clubs, the same as in A quick update on dress code for Seniors Matches. You will probably know that last year we as a Seniors Section adopted Smart Casual as our home dress code. Out of the 17 Clubs we play 10 are now smart casual with 7 remaining as Jacket and tie. From conversations I have had with other Fixture Secretaries I am expecting another 2 or 3 to switch to Smart Casual for I am constantly in touch with other Clubs with the view to refreshing our fixture list. These Clubs include ones such as Kirby Muxloe, Loncliffe, Lingdale, Hinckley and Nuneaton. If there are any other Clubs you wish me to approach please let me know. Finally regarding Matches, as a Committee we have agreed that 28 will be the maximum permissible handicap allowance for our Inter-Club matches. Members with handicaps of over 28 will be allowed to play but will be restricted to 28 handicap. This is in line with what most other Clubs are also proposing but I will be writing to all of them over the next few weeks to get clarification. 8.3 Competitions and Match Schedule Back in early September I drew up the initial schedule for this year which was finalised with both Alan Saunders as Competitions Manager and the Club itself in early October. In summary, in addition to the 29 Matches, we have 41 organised Competitions as well as about 80 Social Roll-Ups organised and booked for Mondays and Thursdays. There is one new Competition to be held this year, the Seniors Captain s Medal, which Alan Jacques mentioned earlier. In total I have booked 1,009 Seniors Tee Times, equating to 4,036 individual tee slots not bad value for 20! In this respect the Competition and Match Dates sheet and the Seniors Social dates were posted on the Seniors Section of the Club Website some weeks ago. Thank you Gentlemen, that is all I have to say but I am more than happy to answer n, y questions or take comments that anybody wishes to make Page 9! of! 11

10 9. Confirmation of Brian Tuckley s appointment as Captain for Alan Jacques confirmed that as Captain Elect Brian Tuckley was duly appointed as Captain for the 2017 season. Brian Tuckley thanked Alan Jacques and said that on behalf of all the Members thank you for a highly successful year as Captain. Brian said that he was honoured to be elected as the Seniors Captain and hoped everyone was looking forward to a busy and enjoyable year. Brian s Captains Away Day was confirmed as Monday 16 th July and will be played at Kirby Muxloe. His Captain s Charity will be the Matt Hampson Foundation which mainly helps people suffering with sports related injuries. 10. Resolutions Alan Lilley said that there had been no resolutions raised by Members. 11. Election of Officers Alan Lilley confirmed that there was only one nomination, duly proposed and seconded, for the following posts. Vice Captain Treasurer Secretary/Match Secretary Competitions Manager Results and Handicap Co-ordinator Andy Holloway Clive Howe Alan Lilley Alan Saunders Brian Wells By a show of hands all were duly elected unopposed. 12. Any other Business 11.1 During 2018 Andy Holloway as Vice Captain will, in conjunction with Claire Kunz from the Ladies, oversee and organise any mixed events. Page 10! of 11!

11 11.2 Andy will also be setting up a rota for all Seniors Competitions to cover the issuing of scorecards and the collecting of any monies due. Anybody who wishes to offer help to Andy in this area should contact him directly. There being no further business Alan Jacques thanked everyone for their attendance and declared the meeting closed at Page 11! of 11!