Wrotham Heath Club Manager John Dale discusses why GCMA Accreditation appealed to him.
John Dale has made CPD a priority during his time at Wrotham Heath and it is paying dividends across the golf club.
As well as providing a nurturing working environment where staff can flourish, Club Manager John — who started out in the golf industry as a PGA pro and shop manager — also places a high value on his own professional development and recently achieved Accredited Manager Level 3 status.
The Accreditation programme is designed to capture your skills, knowledge, experience and value to the industry. As such, it provided John will a clear vision of where his strengths lay and what areas he needed to improve upon.
“When I moved to Wrotham five years ago I really made a point of getting into the education side of things,” he said. “I started doing some online and one-day courses, then when this new Accreditation started it really appealed to me.
“You can pick and choose the modules you want to do to suit your specific circumstances. Finance was an area that I probably lacked the most in and that’s what I wanted to work on.
“I’ve got a couple of courses I’m going to do this year, one in finance and the other in employment law. I will try to do as many as I can to build up my knowledge and experience.”
Asked what his advice would be for fellow Golf Club Managers when it comes to CPD, John added: “Invest in yourself by taking the opportunity to engage with education initiatives.
“The whole industry changes so quickly and you need to keep up to speed if you’re going to excel in this job.”
