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Club News

INFORMATION ON COMPETITIONS AND HANDICAPS, THE CLUB CONSTITUTION, SAFEGUARDING, THE CLUB COMMITTEE AND THE CLUB’S CODE OF CONDUCT CAN ALL BE FOUND ON THE CLUB INFORMATION TAB ON THIS SECTION OF THE WEBSITE.

Remember that if you want to enter any Club competitions, you can do so through the ‘Bookings’ tab on How Did I Do? or contact the Competitions Secretary, Steve Yemm – [email protected]

CLUB NEWS FEBRUARY 2024

There is an important date coming up in February:

 

Friday 16 February:  Club AGM (very quick) and Presentation Evening at 7pm.  Come along to air your views, collect your trophies and/or support your friends as they receive theirs.

 

We look forward to seeing you.

 

JANUARY STABLEFORD COMPETITION

Congratulations to the 48 members who played in the January Stableford, when dry weather and hard work of the green staff meant the course was in brilliant condition.  The winners were:

Division 1 – 1st Alan Price  2nd Aaron Shelley  3rd Scott Jones

Division 2 – 1st Gary O’Connell  2nd  Darren Carr  3rd Josh Wilson

Division 3 – 1st Richard Knight (overall winner) 2nd Nick Scanlon 3rd William Russell

 

CLUB POLICIES

The Committee has recently revised its Disciplinary Procedure and its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy.  These, together with the Club’s other key policies, can be found on the Club tab of the website, and members are urged to update themselves on these matters.

 

COMPETITION FEES

In the light of the rising costs of engraving, sign-writing and trophies, the entry fee for mens and seniors competitions will rise to £4 for single round competitions and £8 for multi-round competitions from 1 April 2024.  This will enable us to continue to provide worthwhile credit prizes in the shop, which otherwise will be shrinking away.

 

WHS HANDICAP CHANGES FROM APRIL 2024

Many of you will already have heard about these, and we will rpovide more detail in due course.  In essence:

  • From 1st April 2024 WHS are adding course rating minus par to the existing formula for working out course handicaps which will bring us in line with other countries. Handicaps off the yellow tees will therefore reduce by 2.6 strokes and off the whites and reds by 0.9. A chart showing the new handicap allowances at Rodway is posted on the changing room noticeboard.
  • For holes that are not played, the system will use an ‘expected score’ based on the player’s performance on other holes that round, rather than an automatic net par score.

Of less significance to Rodway Hill are the following:

  • Shorter courses will become eligible for qualifying scores
  • Four ball better ball scores played as medals or stablefords in qualifying conditions can affect handicap index. (We currently do not play any)

 

MEETING WITH ENGLAND GOLF SUPPORT OFFICER, ZOE WRIGHT

Victor Fisk, Mike Thompson and Bob Wolfson met with the Club’s England Golf Support Officer on 6 February.

The topics discussed and advice received were these:

A brief description of the Club’s history, course layout, relevant officers, membership numbers and relationship between the Club and the course owners.

Changes required by the Club to meet the England Golf Terms of affiliation: (1) a revision to the Disciplinary policy such that appeals on matters of the Rules of Golf are heard at County level rather than Club level (2) a revised Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and (3) a commitment that the Club follows the WHS rules of handicapping.  The Club has fulfilled these requirements.  We discussed how we are ensuring that the EDI policy is implemented.

We raised the issue of the complexity of the rules and the handicapping system as being a barrier to inclusion, and Zoe undertook to take this message back. We asked that England Golf should look for ways to explain the key points of the game in less complex ways.

Zoe gave a clear message that Clubs should focus on what they are good at, and not try to do everything. She felt we should not worry that we are unable to make provision for juniors, and continue to provide value for money golfing opportunities for players of all abilities in a friendly and supportive environment.

Winter Qualifying competitions. We explained our concerns that other Clubs appear to be allowing winter qualifying competitions without following the England Golf guidelines appropriately, and Zoe undertook to follow this up.

Changes to handicaps from April 2024. Zoe advised us NOT to replace the handicap allowance board outside the clubhouse with a new board, but rather to (1) encourage players to use their EG app to gain handicap information and (2) to provide a paper copy on the notice board at the entrance to the shop.

Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults. We explained that we thought the absence of reference to dementia in this policy was regrettable, and suggested that it would be helpful to clubs to have advice from EG on how to support players with this condition.

 

RODWAY HILL GOLF CLUB

 

ANNUAL INCOME AND EXPENDITURE 2023 (1.1.2023 TO 31.12.2023)

 

 INCOME2023 INCOME2022 INCOMEEXPENDITURE2023 EXPENDITURE2022 EXPENDITURE
1SUBSCRIPTIONS80458485AFFILIATIONS (1)61685958
CLOTHING ETC (2)310
INSURANCE137105
ADMIN COSTS (3)15241453
CLUB EVENTS
CLUB CAPTAINS160209
MEMBER EXPENSES
CLUB SOCIALS
CLUB REPRESENTATION (4)812544
DONATIONS
CAPITAL EXPENDITURE (5)2602693
2COMPETITIONS: totals from categories below38744096COMPETITIONS (6)39173655
MEDALS (GROSS)13201602MEDALS10601320
MENS COMPETITIONS15681492TROPHIES AND VOUCHERS14451167
SENIORS519570SENIORS545370
LADIES371335LADIES200260
OTHER9697PRESENTATION NIGHT531538
SUB TOTAL OF 1 & 21191912581SUB TOTAL1563012752
3CHARITY22341267CHARITY (7)12371056
4SENIORS ACTIVITIES18461303SENIORS ACTIVITIES18111003
TOTAL (1,2,3,4)1599915151TOTAL1867814676
SURPLUS/(DEFICIT) OF INCOME OVER EXPENDITURE 

(2707) (8)

 

475

BANK BALANCE AT 1 JANUARY 20231553715071
BANK BALANCE 1T 31 DECEMBER 202313088

 

 

NOTES ON THE ACCOUNTS FOR 2023

 

Introduction

 

The Treasurer and Committee present the accounts in a way that best enables members to see how their subscriptions are spent.  This is achieved by showing he accounts in four sections:

  1. Income from subscriptions and expenditure against that income.
  2. Income from competition entries and spending on prizes and related items, such as signwriting of honours boards
  3. Charity income and donations
  4. Seniors’ activities – the Club account is used as a holding account for activities such as away days and Christmas dinner, all of which are fully paid for by income. The account also holds surplus income for seniors, currently a little over £300.

The sub-total line therefore gives a better picture of the state of the Club’s finances over the year, and shows that we spent around £3700 more than our income in 2023.  The reasons for this are explained below.

 

NOTES ON INCOME AND EXPENDITURE – see numbers on the balance sheet

 

  1. The affiliations expenditure are the subscriptions we pay for members to be members of England Golf, Gloucestershire Golf Union and the National Association of Public Golf Course. The last of these, NAPGC, has re-set its subscription date, so that we paid for both 2023 and 2024; this amounts to an additional £240 expenditure. Income this year is slightly down as we have 12 fewer members than in 2023.
  2. Clothing: club funds contributed £310 to new team sweaters for the Ladies’ team,
  3. Administration costs: the major item of expenditure is the subscription for How Did I Do? to maintain members’ handicaps, run competitions etc (£910). In addition, spending on the printing of members’ fixture lists (£223) and the annual Christmas gift to groundstaff are included in this line. A £100 donation to Prostate Cancer research was also made to support the Captain’s participation in a sponsored event.
  4. Club Representation: costs are for individuals and teams to play in competitions organised by GGU and NAPGC; this year the higher expenditure reflects the success of Club members in regional and national NAPGC competitions. The Committee is concerned by the undue financial burden on all members for the benefit of a (very) few and has therefore decided that in future only 50% of the costs associated with the regional and national individual finals will be paid by the Club.
  5. Capital Expenditure: following discussion with members, it was agreed that we should reduce the surplus funds we held by supporting the course owners in making improvements to the course. We therefore paid £2600 for 108 new tee markers and three additional ball washers.
  6. Competitions: the attribution to the different sections is approximate. Costs include the purchase of small trophies, shop credit for competition winners, engraving of perpetual trophies, signwriting of the Honours boards and refreshments on Presentation Night. The figures shown here include some costs for the 2022 winners and presentation night which were purchased or take place in 2023.  The broad aim is that income from competitions should roughly balance expenditure, and this has been broadly achieved.  However, given the increasing costs of all aspects of this expenditure, entry fees will rise to £4 and £8 from the start of April 2024.
  7. Charity: a donation of £1100 was made to the Gloucester branch of the Salvation Army. The Club is currently holding almost £2000 towards the current Captains’ charities, which will be passed over after 31 March 2024. In addition – and not shown in the accounts – the entry fees of £150 for the November Stablefords were donated direct to the British Legion.
  8. The overall excess of expenditure over income is explained by – double subscription to NAPGC, purchase of tee markers and ladies’ team kit, donation to Prostate Cancer and additional costs of NAPGC competitions. The Committee is satisfied that it has sufficient reserve funds but will need to monitor expenditure during 2024 to ensure that we do not need to raise members’ subscriptions.

 

How members’ subscriptions break down

 

Members pay a subscription of £35.  Of this, in 2023, men paid £25.75 and Ladies £23.15 for affiliation to England Golf and Gloucestershire County Unions, and £1 for club affiliation to the NAPGC. The cost of How Did I Do? was approximately £4.  This totals more than £30, leaving £5 for all other costs.

Bob Wolfson

Treasurer, January 2024

CLUB COMMITTEE MEMBERS 2023-24
Hanif Bhula[email protected]Mens Vice Captian
Julian Brand[email protected]Member of Competitions and Handicap Committee
Amanda Chong[email protected]Member of Competitions and Handicap Committee
Haydn Cook[email protected]Seniors Vice-Captain
   
Quentin Haslam[email protected]Member of Competitions and Handicap Committee
Gerry Payton[email protected]Secretary
Bob Preston[email protected] 
Mike Thompson[email protected]Seniors Captain
Trevor Warren[email protected]Member of Competitions and Handicap Committee
Bob Wolfson[email protected]Treasurer; Committee Chairman
Steve Yemm[email protected]

07904 548301

Men’s Captain; Chair of Competitions and Handicap Committee