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Volume 7, Issue 8, December 2008
It is probably a sign of age but, to me, each year seems to go by faster and 2008 has been no exception. As a Club, there is so much we would like to do but there are always limits on time and, more particularly finances, to achieve everything that members desire.
As you should all be well aware, debt servicing is a considerable burden for the Club and, as Chair, I have directed the Management and Board members to concentrate their efforts on maximising income and minimising costs with a vision of clearing all debt within 5 years. We have to balance the need to maintain a top-class facility to attract visitors and prospective members and to minimise costs – never an easy ask, and one on which several members have “helpful” suggestions!
Elsewhere in this newsletter is a statement concerning our joint activities vision with Shandon Golf Club and you have seen the Club promoting (and gaining from) the “Love Affair with Golf” initiative. Although the sale of land has been finalised, this really only gives us “breathing space” and efforts must continue to ensure future financial stability.
Clearing our debt requires the cooperation of all members of the Club if we really want to be successful. I appreciate that members feel compromised if the course is closed (or access limited) for Corporate Days and some members “resent” casual green fee players as it is often felt that it is these players who “damage” the course. If the Club was to rely on subscriptions alone to finance the facility, you could expect your annual membership fee to be over $5,000. We are, therefore, dependent on casual income to keep fees at a level that will still attract members.
As members though, I do ask you donate to the Club as follows:
• Bring at least one casual green fee player each month (this “donates” over $300 per year per member)
• Help out at working bees (or join our “Tuesday boys” or an equivalent)
• Donate goods or services – next time you buy a ream of paper for your home computer, why not buy an extra one and donate it to the club? Do you have a trade or specialty skill that the Club could use for a few hours?
• Support the Club fund-raising events – tournaments and raffles
• Encourage Corporates or Social Clubs to utilise the facilities
• Assist with tournaments
• Support the shop and other Club facilities.
Without any or all of the above, the Club will continue to struggle, which will be to the detriment of the facility and its members.
On to more positive matters. Despite the very wet winter the country and course has suffered, members have enjoyed a first class facility. It has been a struggle for the greens staff and they are to be commended for their efforts. We were the Club of choice for the New Zealand Under 19’s tournament and the finals of the mid-week womens interclub event. We constantly receive very positive feedback on the course – both for its presentation and its competitive layout.
I would like to pay a special thank you and tribute to our volunteers who continually support the club, week in and week out; the “Tuesday Boys”, Dennis, Erin, Billy, David and Roy. Also to John McGregor for his tireless work with the tree plantation and of course to Clive Robertson and Bez Bowles for their knowledge, expertise and help in assisting with plans for resubmitting our Resource Consents for River protection including south of the 3rd green. And where would we be without John Snelgrove for his ongoing running of the Junior Programme. There are many others who help and assist throughout the year and I am sorry if I have missed your name, but your support is appreciated. Thank you to you all.
The Management have received valuable information through the recent New Zealand Golf surveys on the demographics of casual golf players and we will incorporate this into our own plans for attracting players. For example, there appears to be a greater demand for 6 or 9 holes of golf – this is associated with the time potential players have to play golf. Also, particularly for younger players, some “fun” events such as Rogaine and Speed golf would fulfill a niche market.
I want to say a very special thank you to the Management and green keeping staff, and the Board members for their efforts and support this year. It is a privilege to serve you as Chair and I, and other members of the Board, appreciate any and all feedback and ideas you may have for assisting the Club to maximise opportunities. Finally, I wish you all the very best for the festive season with friends and family. Happy golfing.
Chairman
Goodness gracious!! 2008 and where has the year gone. I feel as the age gets older, the years go faster but I hope that you all had a great year and that your golf has been on the up and to those of you who have been in the winning circle, congratulations.
This year has been a struggle for some of the club tournaments with numbers down and in some cases, postponements and cancellations which is a shame as I see these events as a great way for members to communicate and socialise with others. Together with the Match Committee, Board and Managers, I have tried to put games and events in play for you all, so how do we solve the flagging numbers in these events? If you have any ideas, please come and speak to me.
Thanks to all the players, friends and partners who supported our Hangi day tournament which was a great success. Thanks to all who helped, from the cooks to the lovely maids. To Bruce the Butcher, thank you for your wonderful array of meat and your continued support.
To all of our Club Champs winners, Stroke and Match play, ladies and men; congratulations to you all and to all other members that have participated in these and other events, thank you all for your support.
Just a little note about the Club Champs for 2009. The qualifying rounds will be played over 4 dates in August and September (18 holes on a given day) and you can select which dates suit you to play your two qualifying rounds. So to make this happen, entry lists will be in the foyer from June/July. For the Master Champs, (over 55’s) the same dates will apply and if numbers are appropriate, we may run a Calcutta between parties.
My sincere thanks to all the working bee helpers this year who put their hands up as well as supplying tools to do the work that had to be done. Thank you very much. Our course has been in great shape over the year with just a few little hick ups but apart from that we still got quite a bit of golf in. To our green staff, thank you for all of your hard work over the year, great job well done! To have the course in good playing condition for visiting tournaments and our club days has been a great achievement.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind members of their duties while on course; pitch marks, divots and rubbish to be taken to the nearest bin are all just small things that will assist.
At the time of writing there is just one more Club tournament left for the year, the Christmas Hamper and Presentation Day which is looking to be a full field. My thanks to Wendy, the Match Committee and the ladies for organising this day.
To the Board and Managers, thank you for your help and support as always. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with lots of golfing.
Barry Brice
Organiser
Membership of the Wellington District Veteran Golfers’ Association is available to all male members of Wellington Golf Clubs, aged fifty-five and upwards. The ladies have their own Association.
The annual membership subscription for the 2008 and 2009 calendar years is $20 and entitles members to play in tournaments held at almost all of the eighteen hole courses in the Wellington area, i.e. from Te Marua and Trentham in the north, south to Miramar.
We also play at Otaki, Waikanae and Carterton. The year started with a four day tournament, playing match play, in groupings selected according to handicap. Other games are spaced at approximately fortnightly intervals throughout the year. These games are scored using the stableford system.
Wellington area games are played on Mondays and out of town games on Thursdays. The entrance fee at most venues is either $18 or $20. This covers Green Fees, Prizes and a Light Meal. There was consternation during 2008 when some clubs increased their charge for the green fees part of the fee from $12.50 to $15.00. This brought about threats of boycott of these clubs, even though the $20 fee is less than would be paid as a casual green fee player.
Wainuiomata members were well represented as prize winners during 2008. Managing to take first and second prizes on two consecutive tournaments.
Another innovation in 2008 was the introduction of the “passport”, which entitles full playing members of the four participating the clubs to three free rounds at the other clubs. Some members chose to use their passports to offset part of the entry fee.
Prizes are not of a value that would endanger anyone’s amateur status and are widely distributed. This means that even if you are not a burglar, a good honest effort will bring some reward.
If you cannot manage to win a prize from your playing form there is always the raffle to look forward to.
Wainuiomata has eighteen of the nearly two hundred and fifty members of the association. We usually have from nine to twelve players at any one event, at which total players number from about ninety to one hundred and twenty in total.
Some members who work less than a full week have organized their days off to allow them to play with the vets so, If you can manage to take the occasional day off from your employment, or the household chores, give membership a go. You will probably enjoy playing at new venues and meeting golfers from other clubs.
Please feel free to give me a call.
Barry Brice Organiser
Course Superintendent
Hi all, Well what a year 2008 has been. With one of the wettest winters in a while behind us we can finally start to look forward to some golf in the sun! Unfortunately our big event for the year, NZ Under 19’s, was cancelled due to the weather. This was a real shame not just for us but also for everyone involved in the event. Preparations started months before the event on and off the course and to see it canned before some of the players had even hit a ball was terrible.
A very big thank you to Wendy the tournament director and her band of volunteers, and to everybody who turned up to the working bees it was a real shame to see all that hard work disappear in two days of rain.
We said goodbye to Trevor earlier in the year as he flew off to warmer climates in Queensland, he is still working hard and has made the permanent shift over there taking up residence on Bribey Island. What we lost in experience we gained in youthful exuberance with Josh Comeskey joining our staff. Josh is a local lad and has fitted in nicely, proving to be a quick learner and hard working staff member.
Greg and Marcus are both doing well in their studies; Greg is coming to the end of his apprenticeship and has only a few more papers to go. Marcus recently attended his first block course and is just about ready to move onto stage two of his apprenticeship.
On a personal note I would like to thank everybody for their help this year. It’s been a very rough 2008 for me on and off the course and my wife, Tina and I would like to thank everyone for their words of support and encouragement. Thank you to my staff in the shed and the girls in the office. Your support was greatly appreciated and made it just that much easier to get through everything that happened.
Finally congratulations to all our trophy winners this year, well done and good luck to all of you playing interclub next year and I hope 2009 is a great year for the club and players.
Mark, Greg, Marcus and Josh
Board Member
Chairman Finance Committee
As you will be aware the Board applied an increase of circa 4% (approximating the cost of inflation) to annual subscriptions, even though a lot of our costs have increased immensely more than that over the last 12 months. As I alluded to at the AGM, the Board has a balancing act between covering the costs to maintain our wonderful course and yet not passing huge increases onto members subscriptions. As always we continue to look at how we can increase the number of our members, as there is little room left to decrease costs. This in itself continues to be difficult as people feel increasing pressure on their spare time.
I am pleased to advise that the Land Sale of the “horse and sheep” paddock is now signed, sealed and almost delivered, with 3 instalments received, and full and final settlement due this month. This will go a long way to reducing our debt levels and help to reduce monthly outgoings in interest costs.
The Board would continue to encourage you to spread the word about our hidden jewel of a golf course and to bring along green fee players to experience our wonderful hospitality.
All the very best to you and your families for the Festive Season and happy summer golfing!
A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since my report to the Annual General Meeting, both literally and figuratively.
Mark and the team battled against the odds to have the course in top condition for the NZ under 19’s Championship only to be beaten by the weather. It’s human nature to forget just how wet our course was back then, with greens out of play and any trip into the rough (and quite often on the fairway) resulting in a suckered ball.
When the weather improved , it was coring time. This year, due to the unavailability of contractors, this was undertaken by our own staff. All went well for 15 greens and then our coring equipment which has seen better days, started to play up and damaged the last three greens. The good growing conditions have seen the course recover and I’m sure you will all agree that they are now back near their best.
With coring out of the way the team set to work doing the other tasks that had been put on hold, like grooming the course, bringing the rough back to pre-under 19’s condition, weed eating and spraying, weeding the paths along with the other 2 pages of tasks that seem to appear on Donna’s list.
I’m sure those who have played recently will have noticed the improvement. I certainly have and have also noticed the reduction in the number of “grumbles”. And now, we come to summer and the course is already starting to dry out. We’re working progressively on the irrigation system to bring it back into full service. Recently some control system short circuits have been identified and repaired and water is available to the majority of the course, but there are some areas that still require hand watering. Leaky quick couplers have been replaced along with damaged sprinklers.
The system still has many defects, shared by most systems of that age. Most were under designed and used pipes which have become brittle with age and prone to break with pressure variations. Materials and technology have improved since those days, but that still doesn’t solve our problems.
Of course New Zealand has moved to ISO standards and the current range of plastic pipes isn’t compatible with the size of the pipes in older systems, so every break is different and poses its unique problems. So please report any leaks and breaks so we can get them fixed and keep our course in top condition.
Our equipment has made it through another Spring and most will be serviced by Christmas, although it is difficult to take equipment away during this period of high usage.
Due to a change in my employment circumstances, it is highly likely that I’ll have to leave Wellington. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here and particularly my golf at Wainui and I’ll leave many friends. Best wishes for Christmas to you and your families.
Patrick McGuire
Ladies Captain
Well Christmas us almost upon us and a chance to look back on the year. Our Interclub team finished in the lower half of the competition this year, but the team result didn’t reflect that there were a lot of tight games which didn’t go our way.
We entered the Off –The-Stick (OTS) for the first time and struggled in Division 3 so were relegated to the 4th division for 2009. Our combined bronze pennants team with Boulcott performed very solidly. It was disappointing that we couldn’t continue the combined team entry next year. Many thanks to the ladies who played in these teams especially as most rounds were played in very heavy and cold conditions during winter.
Congratulations to our Club Champions:
Mid week Silver: Lois Amaru
Mid week Bronze: Lexie Oliver
Weekend Silver: Wendy Rhodes
Weekend Bronze: Sue de Roo
Our midweek numbers continue to be very low which makes holding competitions very difficult . For 2009 ladies will still play on Tuesday mornings for an informal competition, but most trophy events usually played Tuesday will be played instead on Saturdays. This is a trial for 2009 but if mid week numbers should grow to provide a competitive field then we would review the programme.
On Saturday mornings we also will trial having tee times available for women members to play with other women. Hopefully both of these initiatives will support women to enter the competitions that will be available each day of the weekend.
Summer Cup will commence Sunday 14 December until 23 January. Let’s hope it is keenly contested as last summer.
I would like to express my very sincere thanks to all members that assisted and supported the NZ Under 19s in September. Many helped at the working bees to present the course as best we could; others hosted billets and helped with the tournament. Sadly the weather prevented us from show casing the course and club as we wanted but your efforts were greatly appreciated and certainly the players experienced your generous hospitality.
I would like to extend my sympathy to members who have lost family and friends this year. I also trust that those who had had major health issues this year are well recovered or do so very soon. In finishing, I wish everyone a very happy Christmas and look forward to 2009 for some great golf.
One of the wettest winters in a long time and as Patrick has noted, a lot of water under the bridge this past year with a number of highs and lows. On the course side we lost the lovely big gum on the pond at the 3rd in July which pleased a lot of members but it was an obstacle which thwarted a number of people and we are investigating replacing it with another specimen of tree, preferably a flowering native of some sort but they are notoriously slow growing.
We have also lost a lot of land on the right side of the river at the southern boundary (to the left of the 3rd green) and are currently preparing an application for Resource Consent. In some regards, this is where you wish for the “old days” when you could just throw a bulldozer into the river and fix it but this is not to be.
On the membership side, we lost some members to other clubs, some to retirement due to ill health and our greatest loss was the sad and untimely death of Grant Fowles, a long time member and extreme supporter of our Club.
One of the most rewarding parts of our job is the interaction with our members and staff and emotionally, 2008 has certainly played havoc with us. On the positive side, it is absolutely fantastic to see Colin Triggell back playing golf and trying to get his handicap back to where it was prior to his aneurism!
Golf Passports: We have received a lot of great comments about these since they were introduced in April, but with every new venture there are always a few teething problems which we seem to have addressed with the aim of keeping everyone happy.
Over winter when tee times are precious, Passports may not be used on weekends up to 12:00pm and are subject to course/club availability. All of our Clubs are there to support their own members and of course, they take preference.
The Rules at our Club over summer are:
Sundays are our Club day. Members may bring ONE guest to play before 1:00pm and passports cannot be used. Passports can be used at our club at any other time, subject to availability. Similar rules apply at Shandon, Manor Park and Hutt and we ask you to respect their policies. Please remember when booking a tee time at another club to ask if your passport can be used. If you do have any problems, please let us know rather than ‘having a go’ at the staff on the other end of the phone.
Note: Your Golf Passports are valid until 31st March 2009 and new ones will be issued in April.
NZ Golf & Golf Nation: It was a real shame that after putting in months of hard work, NZ Golf were unable to launch Golf Nation, a nation wide membership promotion which would have benefited existing and new members as well as the Clubs.
NZ Golf are going back to the drawing board to see if they can tweak a few ‘conditions’ that some clubs had issues with and will again go back to all clubs in the New Year.
In the meantime, together with a couple of other Clubs in our region and NZ Golf, we have been looking at ways that we could take parts of “Golf Nation”, parts of our local “Golf Passport” and a few other ideas and launch a package in the Greater Wellington Region as a trial. At the time of writing, all clubs have just been issued with an invitation to join this new initiative which we are looking at launching mid to end of February.
In addition to this, NZ Golf will be launching a countrywide ‘Member get Member’ promotion for 3 months from 1 February to 30 April 2009.
The main concept is that all current Club members will be encouraged to introduce new members to their Club through a promotional campaign. During the campaign, existing and new member will receive a NZ Golf gift pack and they will also be entered into a draw for a major prize and word on the inside is that the major prize would certainly be worth winning!!
It will be billed as ‘The New Zealand golfing experience money can’t buy’
The ‘member get member’ promotion is being wholly funded by NZ Golf and will be advertised through posters and flyers, in magazines and of course through their own website and Dot Golf.
Just out of interest, the Dot Golf website (www.golf.co.nz) is being upgraded and you will soon see huge changes on this site so don’t be too confused when the changes are made.
Volunteers: We keep on mentioning them and how much we appreciate the amount of work they do for us as a club, around the clubhouse and course.
To the Tuesday Boys, Dennis, Erin, David, Billy and Roy; to John McGregor and to John Snelgrove, thankyou.
Your ongoing loyalty, support and services to the Club are invaluable. Remember, if you’re at a loose end on a Tuesday, pop down and see what they’re up to. You don’t need to be a ‘tradesman’ to volunteer, just have a passion and interest in your club and enjoy pottering. The pay’s non existent, conditions are excellent and you may just get an extra few holes in when you’ve finished ‘working’.
Land Sale: Neil has noted that the land sale is just about completed and we thought it prudent to let you all know what happens next.
John Hughes Contracting Ltd has purchased the land and he has some very exciting plans for it. In the near future you will see the ‘paddocks’ being tidied up and a bit of tree planting happening for future privacy. In the long term, John will be building chalet/lodges for accommodation, initially on the bottom part of the land.
Once completed, you might also see a putting and/or chipping green going in for the exclusive use of those staying.
Obviously as a Club, we will be working very closely with John on “golfing stay and play packages” with an added bonus of perhaps being able to offer hunting and fishing options as well. Many of you will know that John is a member of our Club, and while he is a businessman, he is passionate about his family, Wainuiomata and our Club and his vision for this future development is positive and exciting.
Tee Booking: Just a little reminder that start sheets will be operating every day from Friday 19th December through until Monday 19th January 2009 and as usual will be available 7 days in advance. If you do wish to make a specific booking further out than 7 days, please telephone or email and we will endeavour to accommodate your booking.
Raewyn Leaving: The band Fallout Boy have a song called “Thanks for the Memories” and this is truly appropriate of the excellent working relationship that Raewyn and I have had over the past 13 years and in particular since we were given the opportunity to become joint managers of the Club over 4 years ago.
A lot of hard work, some long days, a lot of fun and a few tears! I am sure that you all join with me in wishing Raewyn all the very best that life can offer and success with her new job and lastly I know that many of you can also say “Thanks for the Memories”.
To those who have lost family and friends this year, remember the fun, laughter and good times! We wish you all a very safe and happy holiday season with lots of golf. Donna and for the last time, Raewyn