Chairman's Blog - June 2018

Hello everyone,

I thought it might be of interest to some members if I did an informal ‘blog-style’ update to members each month.  Broadly, this will provide some information on issues the directors are currently involved in and signpost future events in the club, but I’m open to (polite) suggestions if it doesn’t hit the spot.  Here goes for Month 1...

While it will be very sad to see Val Hughes leave the club at the end of this month after 22 years, I’m looking forward to welcoming our new Club Manager, Mel Brooke, to the club on Monday 18th June.  He won’t have too long to make himself comfortable as we have a challenging year ahead and plenty of work for Mel to get stuck into.

It makes such a pleasant change to reflect on an amazing month of glorious weather!  This must be one of the hottest Mays on record and it has helped Matt and his team get the course in superb condition.  Well done to Matt and his team, it’s been a real pleasure to welcome visitors to the club recently in the Council Match, Charity Day and 2 Invitations.

We are now well into the competitive season, with Board Comps in both Gents and Ladies sections coming thick and fast.  This weekend sees the first ‘Major’ of the year with the 36 hole President’s prize. Hopefully you’ve got your name down and the weather holds up until the weekend (at least).  The competition rules will be the same as the last two years with those ‘No-Returning’ on Saturday and those not wishing to play on Sunday missing out on Sunday’s play. Everybody else will be entered into the draw for the second round and it is hoped that we can do the presentation to the winners by the 18th green at around 7pm.  Good luck to all competitors!

There are a number of golf/social activities coming up over the next few weeks as we continue with our Programme of new and revitalised events.  Tickets are now on sale for the Vice Captain’s social on 23rd June which will be a disco with a 3 course meal.  Come along and support Henry in his first major club event.  Tickets are also now behind the bar for the 18th Hole Challenge and Barbecue on 22nd June which is the third in our series of new events bringing together some different golf activities with a strong link to the social side of the club.  This should be a fun evening, so please come along and enter (or just support and eat the BBQ). Finally there is the Fun Golf on Friday 8th June which has almost ‘sold out’ which is great news as this is always an enjoyable evening where non-golfing partners, children, friends can begin to understand the frustrations of us golfers!

We are still working hard to recruit new members, increase other revenue streams and improve the customer service and value for money for our existing members.  Our new Directors of Social (Eric Suthers) and Marketing (Mark Simpson) will be looking at innovative ways to increase social footfall and corporate revenue amongst other things.

While we are still some way away from finalising our dealings with Electricity North West, the team of members we have working on it continue to press hard for a resolution which works for the club. I’ll keep you posted in due course, but negotiations remain at a sensitive stage so any specifics need to be kept private for now.

Well I promised myself I’d restrict this to one page so there we have it.  Please feel free to comment on this blog (good and bad) and make any suggestions for further content that would interest you.

Cheers,

Dave Brookes.