Chairman's Blog - July 2018
Thanks to those who gave me feedback from the first blog and, as it was mostly positive, I’m here again with the second edition for July. I have to start this ‘edition’ off by congratulating both the Ladies and Gents Guild Cup teams who did the double last weekend. While the Gents may have been expected to win (being at home), the Ladies managed to go to Ashton and bring back the spoils. There will be reports and pictures on the website next week; so look out for those!
Congratulations to everybody who took part, the P&D reps, the organisers/scorers at Penwortham and a further thank you to Matt and his staff; the feedback on the course was 100% positive (and slightly envious) which is further testament to the fantastic condition the course is in. As we have also hosted the Lancashire Classic this week we should be awash with positive feedback which will hopefully spread around the region.
While it was sad to say goodbye to Val Hughes on Friday 29th June, she had an excellent send-off on a slightly emotional last day. Val wants to thank all the members who gave her gifts, passed on their best wishes or contributed to the leaving card/gift. Val asked for vouchers (and I was happy to oblige as I’ve got a history of buying poor presents). Val promised to pop in at some point and I’ll keep you posted on how she’s finding retirement.
We are now about half way through the competitive season and have recently crowned the 2018 Presidents winners (congratulations to Matt and Gill). Both Gents and Lady Captains’ events are just around the corner and tickets have just gone on sale for the Summer Ball which is always a fantastic social evening (as long as you don’t have an early tee-time on the Sunday). We promised to start some 9-hole, midweek competitions for working members who struggle to get any competitive golf in during the week. Now that the P&D league has finished we are going to start them on Wednesday’s and are thinking of combining them with an afternoon Stableford competition. This still needs a little work, but we’ll keep you posted and get these extra events started ASAP.
Last month’s 18th Hole Challenge was a huge success and it was lovely to see so many people having fun on a Friday evening at the club. We are going to repeat this event later in the season, so make sure you come along if you weren’t at the first event. There are a few tees left for the 4-person Shotgun event on Sunday 22nd July and we’re hoping to watch an exciting last day of The Open at Carnoustie after our golf and a Full English!
The focus of the Directors remains on increasing revenue and we recently had a finance meeting where new ideas were considered. We are having a second open Day on 9th September where our new packages will be launched and we hope to recruit members for 2019 and beyond. We have started to see new and returning members as a result of our more flexible packages and it will be interesting to see the response to the twilight membership. You will start to see these packages and events publicised on social media, but word of mouth is also a powerful tool so please let any friends and family know.
The website is going to have further improvements and Stuart Waterhouse has kindly agreed to undertake a course ‘fly-over’ which will be a welcome marketing addition and you may have seen our first corporate package being advertised. We are now a fully licensed and accredited wedding venue and will be marketing appropriate packages in the near future and, while it’s not until November, we are looking forward to hosting the nuptials of our past Lady Captain (Gill Roscoe) and Comps Chair (Pete Jolleys). While we hope to host many more weddings at PGC, it would be pertinent if this was our first!
Finally, we have also decided to remove the bollards and barrier at the entrance to the car park as they require regular (costly) repair and maintenance, aren’t fit for purpose and are a poor advert for the club in their current state. This will happen towards the end of the summer. Thanks for taking the time to read this and, as football’s no longer coming home, I hope you enjoy the rest of the golfing summer and we continue to be blessed with lovely weather and a fabulous course!!
Dave Brookes.
