John O Gaunt Senior Section
Committee Meeting
19th January 2021
Attendance: Bill Walker (BW), Algy Grimes (AG), David Gauge (DG), Les Bolland (LB), Jonathan Lean (JL), Richard Westergreen – Thorne (RWT)
Apologies: Peter Horlock
Notes of meeting
BW to arrange a game with the Captain and Vice-Captain from Northampton and use the opportunity to discuss the arrangements for 2022. | Deferred until restrictions lifted |
LB to distribute the presents and donations over the next few days to staff | Completed |
JL to enter the competitions for 2021 on to the system as a one tee start. | Completed |
RWT will circulate a revised entry for the Senior Section segment on the club website which, once agreed, will be uploaded. | To be completed when the officers are confirmed at the AGM |
DG to investigate Survey Monkey as a means to canvas members views on any topics where a vote is needed at the AGM. | Completed – we were also made aware that the club already has such a facility we could use |
RWT to contact Dave Wood about the trophies and report back at the next meeting | Dave Wood has been contacted for information and this is on the agenda |
Once again, the 6 weeks since our last meeting has been relatively quiet on the active golfing front given Tier 4 restrictions, the Christmas break and more recently Lockdown 3. Therefore, my report is limited to the following items:
See AOB below
The state of play as of today (11th January 2021) is as follows.
Cash in the bank £2663.90
The final payment of £2085.30 captain’s charity money has been made
Our £200 gratuity to the F & B staff, our £100 donation to the juniors, and our gift of wine to the admin staff have all been done.
Our gift to Lee and Sue has also been done.
The books were sent to William Skelding, for audit and the audit had now been completed and balance sheet and income & expenditure are ready for the AGM.
The main focus over the past few weeks has been the calendar and planning for 2021 and several of the points I would like to cover are already in other agenda items.
The draft Calendar Card has been sent to Wendy and I have asked her to send it back to me for a quick check before it is finalised. She needs to add a couple of club dates and ensure the formatting is right. We need to decide how we want the cards to be distributed when they are ready. Alongside sending an electronic copy to all members via the Newsletter, if we want paper copies, we will need to agree how to distribute them once we are able to do so.
I have had emails from 3 of the clubs we play so far outlining their officers and contact details for 2021. There is clearly a desire to try to salvage as much of the season as possible when we are able to play inter club matches again. The thoughts put forward by these clubs include suggestions such as matches without meals or with restricted numbers participating but they all realise that until we know more we cannot really plan.
The question has been raised by a couple of the clubs whether we could rearrange some of the early fixtures that will be lost and play them in the autumn if that were possible. The main challenge with this is that after our season of matches is finished we have a run of competitions on Tuesdays in October taking up the obvious home slots we could look to fill. I have contacted Michael Grace to make him aware that we may come back to him and his initial response is that his top priority will be competitions and course access when we are able to resume playing..
At the last committee meeting we agreed that when matches resumed we would prioritise that members play home and away fixtures against the same club when allocating people to teams. As we are likely to have at least a few cancellations this will now not really work for 2021 when trying to arrange this in a ‘fair’ way. I propose that we change to simply providing an equal and fair chance to play across the season when we are able to allocate people to games. I am also aware that we have a number of members who do sterling work ‘ex officio’ and would suggest that we both officially thank them for their efforts this year and confirm that they are willing to continue in 2021 and then circulate this to members.
Finally, I wanted to confirm that we are happy withdrawing access to the Newsletter to anyone who has not paid up for 2021 after the 2 Feb. AGM until they rejoin.
After discussion the following actions were agreed:
AG outlined his recent contacts with senior section members about their health and welfare.
All of the competitions for 2021 have been entered on to the system. All competitions have been put on to the system as a one tee start except the Christmas Fayre and this will be revisited once restrictions are lifted. It was noted that a one tee starts maximises the number of members who can participate which is in line with club policy.
DG had no matters to report.
The latest figures were updated at the meeting and stand at 134 members having signed up for 2021 so far and over £500 raised for the charity.
Action - LB will send an email to all current members who have yet to re-sign for 2021 a few days before the AGM as a final reminder.
Following a query from a member this was discussed by the committee. We have a courtesy membership and a social membership in the Constitution. Currently three people receive copies of the Newsletter each week as Courtesy members.
It was agreed that eligibility for these membership categories should be clarified and circulated to current members.
Action: BW to look at the Constitution and circulate to the committee a proposal for both membership categories prior to circulation to members.
Entry for the knockouts will be open the following day (20th Jan). The dates for the rounds to be completed will be reviewed after the deadline for entries in the light of the Covid restrictions in place at that time.
RWT will be sending committee members contact details to other clubs shortly and he has already had correspondence with three clubs.
Details about participation in matches will be sent to members next week. It was agreed that we should have a very flexible approach to the re-start of matches and the arrangements for the day such as meals and facilities, in liaison with other clubs. Those clubs that have been in touch so far all want to find ways to play safely when we are able to do so even if it means changing our normal arrangements for the day.
(see also Hon Sec Report above)
The arrangements for the AGM were discussed and confirmed.
The agenda for the AGM was also considered in detail. There were no further nominations for officers by the cut-off date and so those proposed in the notice of AGM were confirmed as being the only names going forward to the AGM. No further items for the agenda have been received from members.
It was confirmed that the Committee will organise an EGM as soon as we are able to do so and invite members to raise any questions and make comments they may have at that meeting.
The club have moved our two Honours Boards to a new location near to the bar and all look forward to viewing them when we are allowed back in to the clubhouse. It had been raised by a member that we should look to have further Honours Boards displayed for Senior Section competitions and this will be added to a committee agenda to for further discussion when we are able to return to the clubhouse.
Dave Woods has been in touch and updated on the current status of all trophies. He is unable to get further tracking everything down and checking on engraving until he can physically go to the club again. Wendy is working from home and cannot access any trophies that may be held at the club and Dave cannot check with her until they can meet.
Dave has promised to follow up as soon as possible and feed back to the committee.
BW took soundings from committee members as to the appetite to introduce tee bookings as a permanent feature of golf at JOG. While it was acknowledged that some useful management information on course utilisation has been gained from the imposed tee time booking system, the committee were strongly opposed to any retention of this system once pandemic requirements are lifted.
Alternative ways to record usage of the courses by members, which it was agreed would be advantageous to the club, were also discussed.
The committee is aware that if there were to be any proposals for tee bookings to be introduced then this would have to be taken to a meeting of the full club membership for consideration.
Action – BW to bring proposed dates for 2021 Committee Meetings to the meeting on 2nd Feb.
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