Senior Section Committee Meeting
Feb 14 2024
Present: Richard
Westergreen-Thorne (RWT), Tony Lloyd (TL), Jonathan Lean (JL), Algy Grimes
(AG), Barry Donovan (BD), Nigel Underwood (NU), Dave Wood (DW) Invited guest:
Keith Howlett
Minutes previous
Accepted
Change to handicap rules
Keith Howlett, a member of the
club’s Handicap Committee, attended for this item to explain major changes to
handicap rules being adopted from April 1 2024. The key changes as far as
Senior Section members are concerned include:
• Introduction of Course Rating CR- Par into the Course
Handicap CH calculation, impact - lower course handicaps playing yellow tees on
Carthagena
• 4BBB results to be used for calculating handicaps, but
only when in a competition
• A new method of calculating handicaps for matches
Your Course Handicap CH is likely to
change on Cart yellow between 31 March and 1 April without playing.
The I.G. and MyEG apps will update
overnight. The 1 April CH listings will be in a folder in the ProShop.
Following these changes, qualifying
roll-ups will be set up on IG as a competition and entrants will be able to
sign up on the day, the result to count towards their handicap
Matters arising not on the
agenda
· Honours Boards: New
Senior Section Honours Boards have been approved by the club and they will be
inscribed in due course
Meeting with Justin Thomas
RWT met earlier with JT as he
was unable to attend this meeting. Their discussion covered the Captains’
charities, the Prostate Challenge Day, the club’s accounting system in relation
to the Senior Section’s finances and the recent survey of members. It was
agreed that Peter Wade, Club Vice Captain, would attend future committee
meetings.
Co-opted committee members
RWT welcomed Nigel Underwood and
Dave Wood to the committee. It was agreed that Nigel would help Jonathan with
competitions and Dave would help Algy with the matches.
Action point TL
to arrange relevant admin rights with the office.
Captain’s report
It already seems a long time
since the AGM and I am very pleased that our proposal at the meeting for two co-opted members
joining the committee for this year led to a significant response from members
and the subsequent appointment of Dave Wood and Nigel Underwood.
I have had my first experience
of presenting the prizes after one of our events at the Mixed Greensomes with
the Ladies and will follow this up with the 4BBB on the Tuesday, prior to this
meeting. I enjoyed the Greensomes and it was nice to see so many people staying
until the end for the presentations.
There have been a couple of
issues on the course that I have been made aware of and I have assisted
following these up with Gordon and the Club Captain and Vice- Captain and I can
outline more at the meeting.
The closure and partial closure of JOG due to
the weather has led to times when there have been a lot of club members keen to
play and limited space on the course. This area was also a topic of discussion
at the Golf Committee.
I have also liaised with Bill
Walker regarding the roll up and what to do when courses are closed,
particularly on a Thursday when the Ladies have competitions. I have attended
two Golf Committee Meetings. The first of which was to look at the status of outstanding
items prior to the club AGM and one of the aspects covered was the introduction
of course furniture, particularly on the tee boxes which Jonathan initially
raised. There are a number of options which are being costed up by Justin
Thomas for consideration.
The second meeting focussed upon
the feedback from members of the club in the recent member survey and those
items from it that relate to the Golf Committee. There was an over 70% response
in favour of keeping the current tee booking arrangements at the club and so
the proposal has gone to the General Committee that this matter would be closed
for at least three years which seems a very sensible thing to do. Overall, the
top three golf related areas raised by members in the survey to be followed up
were:
- Tee times
- Pace of Play and associated
thoughts regarding marshalling on the course
- Competition access – which
really relates to weekend golf and club
competitions and I was able to
outline the open access and large numbers
taking part in our events to the
meeting
I have yet to meet with Justin
Thomas and Christine Ellis regarding charities for the year but, as Christine
has now returned from holiday, I hope to do so shortly.
The Matches season is about to
start and I am looking forward to the challenge.
Treasurer’s report
BD has set up profit and loss
figures on a spread sheet for every competition and match. He said the section’s
finances were in good shape. It may be necessary to increase the fee for the Member
and Guest day to £50 to cover costs. BD and RWT to continue monitoring the
Captain’s Honorarium.
Action point: NU to
provide the next meeting with costings for the Member and Guest Day. TL to provide
costing for the Senior Captain’s Day.
Honorary Secretary’s report
It has been a busy few weeks since the AGM and a steep
learning curve. But I have made some progress:
1: Five new
members have been signed up to the section. All are long-standing club members
and I didn’t think it necessary to take them under our “ambassadors’” wings.
They have received a welcome letter and a copy of our 2024 calendar.
2: Nigel Tarn has agreed to all our competition dates
for 2025 including keeping Senior Captain’s Day on Tuesday Aug 5.
3: I have been in contact with all the other clubs we
play, offering dates for 2025 and some have already replied accepting those
dates.
4: Bedford and County are hoping to field a team of 16
but will decide later in the year
5: Brocket Hall have requested to keep the matches at
12-a-side and on a Monday afternoon
6: Luffenham Heath would like to move to 16-a-side and
to a morning. JOG date not yet settled
7: I have agreed possible dates for the Swap Day with
Newmarket to Nigel Tarn and have put them to Newmarket. I have also invited
their captain and A.N.Other to JOG for a game
Competition Secretary’s report
JL gave an update on upcoming
competitions. He said the entries for the knockouts this year were
disappointing.
Action point: To discuss at the October meeting how to make these
competitions more attractive.
Match Secretary’s report
First of all thanks to those at
the AGM that approved my nomination to be the new Match Secretary for the
Senior Section, Andy Shilton is going to be a tough act to follow.
Following on from the Survey
last year, Andy and I decided on a tranche based system for selections, members
will only be asked to sign up for a few weeks in advance and should be able to
manage their diaries better than last year to reduce the withdrawals to a
minimum.
So I began, what a baptism of
fire to the start of my tenure. We had some teething problems to say the least,
a few of my own making. However, some were caused by members with duplicate
entries and other minor issues. At one point I had the same player selected
twice for the same match due to signing up displaying his name in two different
ways.
At the time of writing we have
64 members signed up, tranche 2 doesn’t close until early April. We had only
one new member so far for this tranche and we need a few more for some of the
matches.
There has been some confusion on
how to sign up, those who signed up for the first tranche were all sent a
unique link to use for the second tranche, most have used it but there were
some that used the previous link again which meant they were in the list twice.
I did have a few emails shown as non-delivered, they were mainly ‘btinternet’
addresses. All members yet to sign up are to use the original link which will
give them access to sign up as they wish, this was published in the latest Newsletter.
The first tranche of matches
will soon be upon us, we have full teams for all of them, the only issue could
be Cambridge Country Club where we only have one reserve. I do have a few
‘back-pocket’ members that I could call on if necessary so we should be
alright.
So far so good!!
Prostate Project
The committee considered a
proposal by Bill Walker that the Jock Allan Prostate Cancer Charity Day be taken
under the control of the Senior Section. It was agreed that this was a good way
forward so long as the event continued to be run by a separate committee which
reported to the Senior Section.
Staggered start
The committee considered and
accepted a draft proposal by RWT on the best way to proceed with the section’s
ambition to move to a staggered start for matches
Roll-up Days proposal
Following an approach by a
Senior Section member to change the roll-up from Tuesdays and Thursdays to
Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays it was agreed to gauge the feelings of members
through the newsletter initially. If there was sufficient demand a poll of
members would be considered.
Action point: To be an agenda item at the next meeting
Any other business: None
Dates of future meeting:
11th April
2nd May
18th July
22nd August
3rd October
5th November
14th January
Senior Section Captain Richard Westergreen-Thorne drives the 1st
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