Attendance: Bill Walker (BW), Algy Grimes (AG), David Gauge (DG), Richard Westergreen – Thorne (RWT)
Apologies: Les Bolland (LB), Jonathan Lean (JL)
Robert Bage (Club Vice Captain) and Tom Simm (Head Pro) attended a pre agenda session for a discussion which covered a range of topics of mutual interest. These included, senior golfer coaching sessions, new swing studio, competitions, communications and publicity, recent developments within the club and thoughts about the future as lockdown is relaxed.
Tom was thanked for setting up the Senior Short Game Session last Friday which proved very successful. It was confirmed that Richard Childerley will be running a series of sessions over the coming weeks and we will advertise them in the Newsletter.
Tom also offered the use of the Swing Studio for a virtual nearest the pin competition on Senior Captains Day.
It was agreed to continue to invite Robert and Tom to future meetings.
Action Points from the previous meeting:
Constitution | All to review relevant sections of the cuurent Constitution and respond to BW in advance of the next meeting | Completed |
Matches | RWT - circulate details of the committee to the clubs we play | Completed |
Matches | BW will liaise with the club regarding dates we can resume matches and post matcharrangements, etc. | Completed |
Matches | RWT to liaise with other clubs - payment arrangements if we play only one game with a club in 2021 | Completed |
3/ Captains Report
Ever since pandemic restrictions for playing golf were lifted, life has become delightfully busy with lots of traffic on the Tuesday Group and Unlocked Seniors WhatsApp communities arranging casual golf.
The resumption of competitions, and imminently, matches has also done much to bring lifecloser to normality. I will leave the details of these elements to the responsible secretaries and focus on the strategic issues that I have been dealing with as follows:
Seniors’ Section Status
The January meeting of the GCM took place on 2 th and Captain Peter Horlock advised the meeting of our investigation, findings and the need for recognition of the Seniors’ Section as a formal section of the Club in line with the Ladies’ and Juniors’ Sections. For some reason this resulted in much confusion within the General Committee resulting in no clear consensus or decision. However, subsequent discussions between myself, Captain Peter and President Phil Farrow resulted in a statement retrospectively included in the minutes acknowledging that the Seniors’ Section was recognised by the Club as a fully inaugurated Section within the Club of the same status as the Ladies’ and Juniors’ Sections. This was voted on ex-committee and was passed by 8 votes for, 1 against and 1 abstention. These details were then passed as a true record of decisions at the next meeting in February.
Following the above, I have met with the Club General Manager and Course Manager to discuss what differences there are between the administrative and financial support given to the other sections and those of the Seniors’ Section. This identified 3 main items:
I met with representatives of the Ladies’ Section on 10 May to discuss the above matters in order to assure them that I do not wish to undermine any of the privileges they enjoy but to bring the Seniors’ Section up to the same level of support and, if possible, enhance both in parallel. On the basis of what was agreed, I will write to Captain Pauline requesting those privileges that will bring the Seniors’ Section on a par with the Ladies’ Section.
Changes within the Club House
Members will be aware that while we have been unable to use the Club House there has been much work done to revamp and redecorate it. Those changes which affect the Seniors’ Section are as follows:
Meetings of Club Sub-Committees
There has been no meeting of the Golf & Social Sub Committee since the Club AGM. Therefore, there is nothing to report under this item.
The various aspects of the Captains report were discussed and the committee confirmed their agreement with the approach being taken by the BW in discussions with the club.
4/ Vice Captains Report
AG outlined recent contacts with section members and committee members shared information about the wellbeing of several other members. AG continues to contact, send cards and keep in touch with a number of members.
5/ Treasurer's Report
The state of play as of today (5th May 2021) is as follows.
Cash in the bank £5408.91
Of this £1230 is set aside as Captain’s charity money leaving a balance of £4178.91.
I have paid for the vouchers for golf and raffle for the following competitions
Rex Bullock
4BBB
Ken Robinson Scramble.
I have received the entry money from the club for the Rex Bullock and 4BBB. (Received 5th May – There is a bit of a time lag on getting the money)
We are owed £440 for the Ken Robinson Scramble.
I have also paid for the food for the away match v St Neots. (£67.50 Jim is playing) (Income will be recovered for this after the match £75.00)
There are now 175 members in the different categories. (3 new members joined in April)
6/ Hon. Sec Report
It has been good to see the members of the section coming out of hibernation and back
playing golf. Interest remains high in our activities and I have been pleased to see the steady
trickle of new members joining us.
The games that Bill, Algy and I have arranged with new members seems to have gone down very well. It started as a way of engaging with new members as it is difficult to do so through the normal channels. Given their success I would propose that we make
this a rolling commitment to arrange fourballs with new members soon after they join.
Action Point: This was agreed – RWT to coordinate
Matches for 2021 start tomorrow at St Neots and we embark on the new season with
fingers firmly crossed. Flexiblity will be the key phrase for the year with the first two
matches with outdoor dining and a hope for indoor dining after that.
When the club announced that visitors will be allowed back on the course we enquired
about three matches that were on the calendar before 21 st June but had been cancelled. Wewere advised that the club were keeping to the agreed timescale for resumption of non-
competitive games.
55 signed up to play in matches this year which is about the same as those planning to play
in 2020. It does mean that we have an encouraging 10 ‘newbies’ and in the first batch people were selected for around 50% of their picks.
Work on the calendar for 2022 is proceeding well and the provisional dates for matches for 2022 nearly completed. There is just an issue with the date to offer to Beds and County for our home game to resolve. Once this is in place I will be able to share with JL to see if he wants to tweak the dates for the competitions before submission to the club for final agreement.
7/ Comp. Sec. Report
The competition programme is now under way and we are managing to maintain a near-normal schedule but with revised scoring entry and prize giving.
The first competition was the Rex Bullock on 13 th April which attracted a full entry of 102 although 2 withdrew before playing. Winner was Peter Salmon with 36 points off 95% of handicap.
The 4BBB on 27 th April proved to be a bit of a nightmare to run owing to the requirement of groups of 4 players. There were some last-minute withdrawals with the last one coming at 11pm the night before the competition. We got there in the end though. We ended up with 92 competitors – 46 pairs. Winners were Jim Peacock and Derek Page with 45 points.
The Ken Robinson Scramble on th May was a fun event with 88 entrants. Three reserves
volunteered to be last minute stand-ins in case of dropouts which took a lot of the pressure off. Winners were Philip Armstrong, Peter Imray, Paul Stallard and Peter Salmon (again!!).
The Annual Medal Trophy and Jubilee Trophy on 11 th May attracted a somewhat smaller field than hoped for with 82 entrants. I suspect that several seniors do not like the pressure of medal competitions (myself included!).
Generally speaking, the system is working OK at the moment with a good percentage of seniors managing to enter their scores on IG which only leaves me a small number to enter manually as well as checking leading scores and any anomalies. Hopefully, before long, players will be able to have access to terminals in the clubhouse to enter scores which will reduce the load even more. There is time pressure now as all qualifying competitions have to be finalised on the day of the competition and cannot be left until a few days later as in the past.
The biggest problem I have is late withdrawals from competitions. It is not a big problem with individual competitions but a nightmare with team competitions such as the 4BBB and the Ken Robinson Scramble. The next one where it might be a problem is the Seniors/Ladies Mixed Scramble although at the moment it seems that there will be more seniors than ladies so we should have some reserves.
8/ Immediate Past Captains Report
There were no matters to report.
9/ Constitution
The Constitution had last been revised in 2017 and BW had circulated the Constitution to committee members to suggest possible amendments.
A number of suggestions had been put forward and BW briefly outlined some of the key points.
Action Point: It was agreed that BW will finalise a new draft Constitution and that this will be put to the membership for approval at the EGM proposed for 20th July.
10/ Arrangements for 20 July EGM and Committee Meeting on 13th July
It was confirmed that the committee wished to hold an EGM on 20th July if possible with a three item agenda:
Action Point: Details to be firmed up, agenda circulated and the date to be publicised in the Newsletter – RWT to coordinate.
11/ Progress on Section Status
This was covered in the discussion of the Captains Report.
12/ Managing odd numbers in team competitions
JL has found it difficult when there are late withdrawals from team competitions as the numbers need to be right and a withdrawal causes knock on effects.
At the 4BBB JL needed to withdraw himself at the last minute to get the numbers to balance and he needed to support of a number of members who offered to be a reserve to solve the issue in the Scramble.
It was agreed that it was not fair for JL to be in this position each time in team competitions. It was also agreed that JL should set a deadline for entry on a first come first served basis. If there were odd numbers at that point then the last few entrants would be reserves and subsequent entrants would be taken as reserves. This would give JL the flexibility he needs.
Action Point: JL to be asked to confirm the arrangements that would work best for team competitions and to circulate them in the Newsletter prior to sign up.
13/ Handicaps in matches with other clubs
We have a policy of allowing full handicaps in matches in line with club policy. St Neots, our first match this year, are also following this policy but two clubs have so far contacted RWT to say that they have a 28.4 playing handicap limit at their club.
It was agreed that we would play to full handicaps at home matches and we would hope the same would apply away. If a club informed us it was their club policy to enforce a limit then we would abide by their decision in the away fixture.
14/ AOB
It was agreed that we should proceed with the Member and Guest Day on Tuesday 3rd August if the club are in agreement – subsequent to the meeting it was confirmed that the club agreed to the event taking place with the catering arrangements to be agreed nearer the time.
Action Point: JL to set up on the IG system and RWT to publicise in the Newsletter
15/ Date and time of next meeting
The following were confirmed:
13 July - Review preparations for a possible EGM
20 July EGM
5 October
16 November - Review arrangements for Annual dinner - Dave Woods in attendance.
18 Jan 2022 - Review arrangements for AGM
1 Feb 2022 - AGM
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