We held a committee meeting last night with all 8 members in attendance.
Membership:
We now have 86 active members. We are getting close to the maximum and want to attract new members who really want to participate fully in the society. With that in mind we are going to implement a policy that has been in force but never really acted upon, namely, each new applicant must get the application proposed and seconded by existing members. Once the application is received the applicant will then play a round with one or more committee members and the application will then be put to a vote of the committee at the following months meeting. If approved the applicant will immediately become a full member.
Slow Play:
Slow play is the bane of every golfer's existence and is no more or less of a problem in this society. However, we have an obligation to our playing partners, the members in front and behind, the golf course and the other paying golfers to try to speed up as much as possible. With that in mind Carl has offered to present to the membership 10 reasons for slow play along with actions which will help to speed up play. Years ago Carl did a comprehensive study on slow play and, as a low handicap golfer, has great insight into this problem. Please read his comments carefully and try to implement his suggestions each and every time we play. We will be stressing this at every tournament and will assign a captain to each foursome who will have the last word on actions to keep things moving including instructing a player to pick up and move to the next hole. We appreciate your understanding of this important topic.
Finance:
Glenn presented his monthly report including the tournament report. They will be posted to the members only section shortly. We made a profit of $13 on the tournament and currently we have $8,672.93 in our new account. We anticipate further receipts of about $1100 from the raffle, clinics and 1 new membership and have obligations of about $5,500. This leaves us with a balance of about $3,200.
Charitable Donations:
Judy Bowns gave us a presentation on the wonderful work done by our 2006 charitable partner, Kids R First. This is truly a great, local charity with 99% of the donations received going to underpriviledged kids. We will be distributing a PDF flyer describing the charity shortly so please read it. So far we have donated $1100 to Kids R First.
June Tournament:
The tournament has been changed to Saturday 6/24 from Sunday 6/25 and will be at our home course, Pleasant Valley. This will be an individual stableford tournament and will be divided into two flights. The lower handicaps will play off the blues and the higher off the whites. Ladies will, of course, continue to play off the reds. For all strokeplay tournaments Johnny will be putting together a leaderboard within a few days. Please ensure that you enter your scores into the on line system or at the course. We will check that low scores effecting your handicaps are entered! Those of you who maintain handicaps outside the society should email me with your updated handicap on the first of each month.
Prizes:
We are heading to providing golf shop vouchers instead of cash for future tournaments. We are close to arranging a deal with the new golf shop in sterling whereby each member gets a 15% discount as well as accumulating points towards free stuff each time you buy something at the store. It is our hope that we can buy vouchers at a significant discount meaning that the prizes will be worth a lot more than cash.
Strokeplay Championship:
The second Annual Championship will be held on the 22nd of July in Shenandoah Valley Country Club in Front Royal. This will be a 27 hole event, full handicap and the winner will be immortalized with a placque on the trophy and a photo on the wall in our new golf pub. The cost will be $75 for the 27 holes, lunch, dinner back at Ned's and drinks. There is a change from last year in that we will still have a bus but we will charge $20 for the ride and breakfast before. Also the bus will be on a BYOB basis. The bus holds 57 so the offer is open to the first 57 that apply! The rest will have to drive. So, in a nutshell, for $95 you get breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks afterwards, prizes, a trophy for the winner, range balls, carts, 27 holes of golf and lots of fun! A hell of a deal!
Inter Pub Challenge:
The 1st match between Ned's and O'Faolains will take place on either the 23rd or 25th of June. It will be between the committees (we may need one or two members) initially and then we will have some sort of selection process for future matches should this grow into a regular thing or even an inter pub league.
Matchplay:
There are only 2 matches left in the round of 16. Phil and I will play our replay on the 8th and Carl and Ed do battle on the 9th. The current bracket is attached. To those of you remaining please remember to use your handicaps as of June 1st for the round of 16.
Ned's Golfing Society Pub:
The logo is currently being redone so Graham can put it on the mirror behind the bar. The placques on the honors boards are being redone with black lettering so we can read them and we will soon have photos of the captains and vice captains and club and strokeplay champions since our inception on the wall. In addition Pleasant Valley has commissioned a professional photographer and will be presenting three framed photos of signature holes which will have "Home of the Ned Devines Golfing Society" printed on each.
Raffle:
We didn't sell as many tickets as we hoped but still ended up with a net profit of around $3700. This money will be used to contribute to the cost of the strokeplay championship. We adopted a policy that relates to next years drawing and to our renewal fee. At the AGM in January the renewal fee will now be $125. This fee includes $25 for the actual renewal, $20 for the renewal of the USGA handicap AND $80 for 4 raffle tickets. This will obligate each member to sell or buy 4 tickets and you will have 4 months to do so. We really needed the participation of the membership and only less than half stepped up this year (many thanks to those who did). This will ensure that approximately 1/2 of the tickets are committed right out of the gate. Remember that the proceeds of the raffle (after payout and donations) goes 100% back into the society for such activities as the clinics and the strokeplay costs. This is currently our major fundraiser. It is not fair for a small number of members to shoulder this responsibility.
October Away Trip:
Graham has got the society a great deal for 36 holes at Golden Eagle which is near the bay down route 17. We can play 36 holes and have a full meal for around $70. We would then play Royal New Kent on the way back (see the calendar on the website for a link to this amazing course). We are still working out the details such as how 50 or so drunks can sleep in Graham's beach house so stay tuned!! The tentative dates are October 14th and 15th
Golf Clinics:
By all accounts these were a raving success. Many thanks to John O'Leary and his staff for an excellent job. They are, of course, available for individual lessons at discounted rates and will also give us a deal if 2 or more of you want to form a group. You are on your own for these additional lessons. The society sponsored the first set to the tune of over $1300
Membership Cards:
We are discontinuing these cards (apologies to those who never got them!!). For discounts at Pleasant Valley, South Riding and, hopefully, Sterling Golf simply state that you are a member, show your ID and they will check you against a list. Committee members will still have cards that can be ahnded out to potential members or sponsors.
Thanks everybody!
Dave Lewis, Captian
