Cardross Golf Club - Captain s Report 2017

Transcription

1 Cardross Golf Club - Captain s Report 2017 Introduction I reiterate what I said at the AGM in January 2017 that being Captain of our Golf Club is an honour and a privilege, however it is also a significant challenge. I can assure the membership that every decision taken by me or Council had been taken in the best interest of the Club. I take this opportunity to place on record my sincere thanks to the Council members, Business sub committee, green keeping, bar, caterers and administration staff for all their hard work, diligence and commitment to the Club. Also my thanks go to Sheila Gardener, Lady Captain, for her support and assistance these past 12 months also our Golf Professional and his staff, thank you. It would be remiss of me not to say a special thank you on your behalf to Alasdair Maccuish who left us in August of this year after many, many years working on our behalf in the Secretary s office. We wish Alasdair well in his retirement. Overview You may recall that I communicated with you on the following dates in 2017, 1 st February, 1 st May and 4 th September culminating in a Special General Meeting (SGM) dated 30 th November. In the correspondence I tried to keep you updated with ongoing matters at the Golf Club. The content of the correspondence was not always to the liking of the members, and as stated above it led to a SGM being called by you the members. The SGM was called to address specifically a review of categories of membership / subscription level The meeting was attended by 109 members and a full and frank exchange of views was given by all those members who wished to speak. Those exchanges lasted about 60 minutes. I then gave a Power Point presentation on our potential Land Development opportunity. Further to that I gave another Power Point presentation detailing why, in particular, Council members had decided not to proceed with a respondent s proposal to realign subscription levels in Several other issues were raised at that meeting and I intend to address them at the AGM on 25 th January. As stated in the letter dated 4 th September 2017, a Deficit will be reported in the Income and Expenditure Account for The reasons for this deficit are itemised in the 4 th September letter and were reiterated during the Power Point presentation given at the SGM. They will also be referenced during the Finance Convenors report at the AGM in January. Other issues have contributed to the deficit, namely green fee revenue is significantly down on what we had forecast, due to the significant wet weather we experienced in Apparently it was the third wettest summer since records began c. 100 years ago. Also our Bar returned a loss of c. 4k when we had forecast a profit of 4k, in effect, an 8k turnaround. The Finance Report given at the AGM will elaborate a little more on the why and wherefore of these numbers. Progress on the Land Development opportunity presented at the SGM will be given at the AGM. The application to Argyll and Bute Council is part of Cardross Golf Club s long-standing masterplan for the area, a vision which aims to deliver benefit to the Club and our members, something to which we are totally committed. The first step in this application was to submit a Call for Sites; that step has been achieved. The second step in the application is to submit a response to the Main Issues Report (MIR) and this second step was achieved on 11 th December It is important to emphasise that considerable work and investment over 1

2 a number of years would be required to bring this project to fruition. There would be a number of challenges to overcome to complete this development. A Motion in relation to Club Governance was accepted by Members at the AGM in Part of the Motion stated; The sub-committee will report back to Council no later than July 31st 2017 and set out its recommendations, if appropriate, in the form of a motion to the AGM in January Council established a sub-committee and it reported back to Council in July The Sub-committee s primary recommendation was that no significant change to Club Governance is required at this time. In particular, there is no need to elect a Club Chairman who would deal with business issues while the Captain focuses on golf issues The sub-committee continue to meet on a regular basis and report to Council. Having no significant recommendations to make to members, there is no requirement to present a Motion to the members at the AGM in Our Nominated Charity in 2017 was Gareloch branch of Riding for the Disabled, and we managed to raise the princely sum of 1,800 which was handed over and gratefully received by the manager of the branch on Friday 3 rd November. A big thank you goes to all members and visitors who contributed to the charity throughout the year. To close my overview I would draw your attention to the Junior Section of my report, and if you could assist in any way to reinvigorate that section it would be most appreciated. We would be delighted to hear from you, and you can do this by contacting the Club Secretary or Golf Professional. Finance The annual accounts include the audited accounts for the year to 31st October 2017 and the comparative figures for the year to 31st October You will note that the club has traded at a deficit of 54,736 compared to a total deficit for 2016 of 31,283. The main income variations from 2016 to 2017 are once again a reduction in fee income arising from a combination of fewer members and fewer members at the full rate. A similar reduction in members as arose last year would result in a deficit similar to 2017 which is why Council have proposed the increases noted in the AGM papers. The annual benefit arising from the increased subscription levels (if that is accepted by the members) will be reflected in the 2018 accounts. The budgets reflect proposed annual increases of 75 to apply to all members excluding Junior and Clubhouse. You will also note a reduction in net income from green fees and the bar which was due to a combination of the atrocious weather with fewer visiting parties, less visitors and member guests in addition to reduced social events held during the year. Costs have been monitored and tightly controlled throughout the year and further savings have been initiated that will benefit the 2018 accounts. 2

3 The balance sheet summarises the assets and liabilities of the club as at 31st October The Net Assets are 536,760 compared to 622,779 for 2016 a reduction of 54,736. We trust that you will find the comments above of assistance in interpreting the numerous figures and information included in the annual accounts. Our Finance Convenor will report separately at the AGM on our detailed financial situation, but I thank him for the work he has put into helping to control our finances in a balanced and fair way. I take this opportunity to thank Jim & Peter Kinloch who give of their valuable time to examine our Income & Expenditure Account on behalf of the club, free of charge, and for this we are most grateful. Course Throughout the 2017 playing season, the condition of our course was delivered to a very high standard. The growth in the greens was very slow to kick in early season due to a cold dry spell we had April/May therefore we didn t have a true even surface until end of May beginning of June The frequent aeration and feeding programme carried out through the winter of 2016 / 17 worked extremely well bringing the greens on to a good texture earlier in the season and maintaining this texture throughout the summer months. The course hasn t looked better for a number of years and we ve received many compliments by members, visiting teams and golf parties. The buggies again proved successful during the playing season and returned a small profit whilst providing a good service to members. We will be renting 2 buggies again in The winter programme, once again, will be determined by the current finances of the club and also the weather conditions experienced over the winter. We lost a valued green keeper when Brian Logue left to take up a post at Erskine Golf Club. We are recruiting a replacement for Brian. The greens budget is the biggest single expenditure area of the club and Ross works diligently not to overreach his budget whilst keeping the course in top condition. Many thanks to Ross and his green keeping staff for the excellent work carried out during the year. A written suggestion was made by members to Council a) To bring the 18th Gents medal tee from the very back top tee into use for all gents internal club competitions. b) To ensure all the 18th tee boxes are aligned towards the 1st tee. c) To monitor / keep records of the number of competition rounds played and any incidents reported As you may be aware over the years from the initial problem of the Cala houses, we have moved the tee towards the fence and then more recently realigned the fairway to bring the line of play to now be more than 100 yards further left than the original line of play. We are now aiming towards the 1st tee to the left of the clubhouse between the big trees with the tee shot on the 18th. This produced a "perceived" concern with longer hitters creating a risk to players coming up the first hole. The belief is that by moving play on the 18th hole back to the top of the hill we will reduce this risk, as it is unlikely many players will be able to hit the ball far enough to reach the 1st fairway from the top back tee. We believe the club has made sufficient changes to minimise any risk and have statistical evidence to back this up e.g. 3

4 a) The realignment has been in place for several years and we have had no increase in players reporting incidents than on any other holes. b) The current play from the lower tees which are closer are on this alignment already. c) The committee have been allowing the Lady members to play from their top tee with no apparent increase in reported incidents. d) The reported numbers of stray balls from 18th tee into the Cala houses are zero in recent years and member s reports of balls being hit out are very low over many years now. Council debated the pros and cons of this suggestion and agreed it should be brought into play on a trial basis for the full season commencing 1 st April Clubhouse and Social Due to the restraints on the clubs finances these last few years only the most necessary maintenance / renewals have been carried out in the clubhouse. This has led to the clubhouse having a somewhat slightly tired and weary look to it and it is something that Council will be addressing in Again more information on how we intend to tackle this issue will be imparted to you at the AGM in January. Social events at the Club have not been supported as well as we would have liked these last few years and this year has been no different. Quiz nights hosted by John McNabb have been previously well supported, however recently the numbers attending have fallen away a little, and I would ask, if you can spare the time to attend what is, a very enjoyable evening. Junior Section In many ways, a Golf Club s future depends on its Junior Section. Only a few years ago we had a very successful period of catering for young golfers at Cardross unfortunately, there has been a significant downturn in retaining and attracting young golfers to the club. Something of a crisis exists. The biggest problem is in retaining the youngsters. We can attract them to Club Golf however; we struggle to get them out on to the golf course. The Council will be addressing this problem in Three essential things need to occur; a) We need to source a Junior Convenor. b) Parents or helpers need to be more available to accompany the juniors out on to the course after they have received their coaching. c) Parents who get involved on a regular basis will have to complete PVG forms and attend a three hour safeguarding and protecting children course. The Club can organise its own Safeguarding course at the club, we require a minimum of 6 people to attend. This is organised through Scottish Golf and Sports Scotland. The Golf Club s child protection officer, our golf professional and I would be happy to organise a meeting with any volunteers who would like to get involved to discuss the coaching programme, and discuss what events we should be running to encourage more juniors on to the course. Council are currently trying to source a Junior Convenor for 2018, and if this is something that would be of interest to you, we would be delighted to hear from you, and you can do this by contacting the Club Secretary or Golf Professional. Special mention should be made of those parents without whom such Coaching evenings would not be possible - Grace Laird, Duncan Mckellar and John Newman. Huge thank you also to Keith and Diana Macintosh, whose continued support of the junior section is being utilised to help stimulate and promote growth of the junior golf at the club. 4

5 I take this opportunity on your behalf to thank our professional Robert Farrell, and his staff for the significant effort they make in organising these successful evenings. They also ensure it is not only a great learning but also a very enjoyable experience for all juniors who participate. Match & Handicap The Gents Annual Dinner and Prize Giving followed by the Dinner Cup brought the playing year to an end. Club competition entries were generally pretty good with the exception of the Winter League 2016/17 which had no games played resulting in a new format of singles stableford being introduced this Winter. On the golfing front congratulations go to the following players:- The Club Championship was won by Marcus White for the first time and the Match Play Championship was retained by Chris Ruane. The other main prize winners were: McIntyre Shield (Singles): Jim Hawker Johnson Smith (2-Ball): John Thomson & Stewart McIver Durkin (4-Ball): Graeme Jenkins & Alan Crawford Scott (Mixed): Julian MacDonald & Lynne MacDonald OPEN Competitions are always well attended resulting in an extra Texas Scramble being added. However other events were not so well supported whether it is to do with the date of the event, people s disposal income being more of an issue these days or whatever. Having recognised these issues some members have come forward with a commitment from them to participate more with Council members in organising and jazzing up these events in The Online Booking system introduced this year appears to have been received fairly well with only a few comments, none of which were about the introduction but about the number of people able to be booked in by a player. Some small changes to the system for the playing season ahead should hopefully resolve these issues. Many thanks go to those others who helped out with matches during the year, including Stuart Johnson, Marvin Gray, Peter Bruce, Jeff Stobo, George Ferguson, David Stewart and Graham Mill, and any other members whom I may have missed. A big thank you to Robert Farrell and his staff whose previous experience and assistance at all these events is very much appreciated. It was another difficult year for Cardross teams, particularly the juniors, where we were unable to field a team once again this year or have any junior medals due to lack of juniors. New members for our club teams are very welcome every year, and if you would like to represent the golf club in any of our team matches then please do not hesitate to contact me or any of the competition convenors directly or via the Club secretary. Alternatively please add your name to the team sheet pinned on the Match & Handicap section of the Notice Board in the reception area. Despite the weather it was a fairly successful playing season with the course in superb condition but always with room for improvement. Ladies Section The new season started with the Captain v. Vice Captain s match which the Captains team won! With two weeks of lovely weather at the beginning of the season Sheila remarked she really thought that we were going to have superb season weather wise. How wrong could she be? However, each week a regular band of stalwarts (albeit not many) have turned up and played and all the competitions were played on their scheduled dates. 5

6 Invitation day was glorious day weather wise. The winners were Alison Ram and her guest Fiona Chalmers. The format of Open Day was changed to a two ball better ball format in order to make the allocation of the scratch Trophy easier. However, the entries were well down and so the committee has decided to revert to a Triam next year. This year s winners of the Hargan Trophy were Margaret Stirling and Christine McAdie with the Harper Trophy being won by Mandy Allan and Davina Lavery. This year the Lady Captain s chosen charity was Gareloch branch of Riding for the Disabled and I am delighted to say that through their generosity of both providing raffle prizes and buying tickets that the ladies raised 797. The Ladies outing this year was to Ralston and despite a few hiccups with the bus a superb day, was had by all in beautiful weather. Another keenly contested competition was the Ladies v. Seniors match. This year it was played over 15 holes with a two ball better ball format using appropriate stroke indexes plus two courtesy strokes for the ladies. I understand the ladies really thought that this year they would have no problem in wrestling the trophy from the Seniors. Wrong again! They seniors won 4 matches to 2. Congratulations to our new Ladies Champion Lorraine Campbell who won against Vicky Hendren. Congratulations also go to Rae Strang for her defence of the Bell trophy, winning against Carolyn Craig. This year Vicky Hendren and Moira Still represented the club in the Daily Mail Foursomes where they were unfortunately defeated in the 6th round. The qualifying competition for 2018 was won by Lorraine Campbell and Lynne MacDonald. Vicky Hendren and Moira Still played in the Coronation Fours regional final at Lanark. Jillian Farrell has had an exceptional year. Jillian was runner up in the Scottish Girls Amateur match play championship, semi-finalist in the Scottish Ladies Championship, Dumbarton and Argyll County Champion, finished 3rd in the Irish Girls Championship and 5th in the U21 Scottish strokeplay championship. She rounded off her summer by representing Scotland at the Girls Home Internationals and has now started a golf scholarship at the University of Carolina and we will follow her results over the coming year. Seniors Section The seniors section was initially set up to promote social but competitive golf for members who attain the age of sixty and are not in full time employment. The group meet every Monday and Thursday teeing off at 8.00am in summer and 8.30am in the winter and is open to all members who meet the above criteria. The standard format is a team better ball three ball with golf balls as prizes each day. The seniors are well organised and take part in a wide range of competitions which are as follows:- James Adie Foursomes won by David Gall and Nick Miller. Sandy Donald Memorial Stableford won by Nick Miller. Seven monthly medals, with the best three rounds counting for the Egg Cup nett Trophy and Egg Cup gross Quaich and a nine hole competition for the John Gibb Trophy (age 75 & over), with the winners as follows:- April medal - Donald May. May medal Alan Summers. June medal Gordon Chapman. July medal Edward Murphy. August medal Donald May. September medal Alex Calderwood. October medal David Gall. John Gibb Trophy Andrew Bain. Egg Cup net Trophy Donald May. Egg Cup gross Quaich David Gall. Seniors social golf comes to the fore with the following competitions: Convenor s v Vice Convenor s teams contest the Archie Lyon Trophy - Match drawn 2 2. Annual Outing to Dunblane: Winners David Gall, Andrew Bain, Gordon Whitelaw. 5 - Club Texas Scramble, Winners - Ronnie Fox, Eddie Murphy, Tim Lightoller. Iain MacLeod Memorial 5 -Club Challenge: Winners Iain Dick, Andrew Bain, Stewart Campbell. 6

7 Seniors v Ladies for the David and Valerie Liu Salver: Winners Seniors. This match is always keenly contested closely fought but played in good spirit and followed by a most harmonious lunch in the clubhouse afterwards. The McIntyre Seniors League team, to which our seniors section contributes players, finished in mid table. Once again the Cardross Seniors Open in July attracted approximately one hundred and fifty competitors. Many compliments were received for our running of the event and for the excellent condition of the course presented by Ross McLeish and his team. I am delighted to say the event contributed a substantial income for the Club. The year concluded with a presentation of trophies. New members to the seniors section are assured of a most warm welcome. Vice-captain Last and certainly not least, my thanks to Andy Caldwell, Vice-captain for his support and wise counsel during these past 12 months. Obituary Notice The Council regrets to record the deaths of the following valued members of Cardross Golf Club, who sadly passed away this year; Mrs Joyce MacPherson and Dr Tom Alcorn. Conclusion It is clear that during 2017 a number of members became much more aware of ongoing matters affecting the golf club. This renewed awareness can only be to the benefit of the club. I am especially pleased to confirm that several members, including a Vice President have volunteered their services to assist on Council in In order to survive in an ever decreasing market place Cardross Golf Club will have to differentiate itself from others in the area. We are currently taking steps to achieve that aim. I am confident that we will be the most robust club in the area in the years to come and in a position to attract new members of all categories, especially if any other club in the area fails to survive the challenges that lie ahead. I thank you again for your continued support, and good luck to you all with reducing your golf handicap in Best Regards Andy O Connor Captain January,