In his welcome note for The Golf Club Manager, Tom Brooke reveals more about GCMA Accreditation and why you should get involved…
I hope you’re having a fantastic summer so far and that you’re finding some time away from work and managing to achieve that all important work and life balance! After a bit of a break from playing golf, I’ve really enjoyed getting back on the course a couple of times recently, a few lost golf balls but great to be playing again.
This month, the focus of our magazine is very much on the launch of our all new GCMA Accreditation programme. At the 2021 GCMA Conference, we announced this as a new initiative for this year I’m really pleased to inform you that we will be officially open for applications from August.
I very much believe that this will represent a huge step forward for our Association, for the role of Golf Club Management in the UK and for the value that we offer you as part of your GCMA membership.
The vision for GCMA Accreditation is very much centred on modernising and professionalising the role of golf club management and to support your existing and ongoing professional and personal development.
As we can all relate to, golf club management is a complex and highly varied profession, and requires a wide range of skills, knowledge and experience. Golf Club Managers come from such a diverse range of backgrounds with very different sets of qualifications, learning preferences and career profiles.
In putting the Accreditation programme together, we recognised the need to capture this effectively and ensure that we’re able to reward everyone equally, regardless of their pathways into Golf Club Management or indeed the types of qualifications that you hold or the type of professional development and learning that you have chosen to undertake throughout your career.
GCMA Accreditation provides a clear framework for capturing skills, knowledge, experience and learning as well as encouraging ongoing development and representing this in a way that we hope will become sought after, aspirational and respected by your peers and colleagues.
I genuinely believe that a programme of this kind has been missing from the role of golf club management and that we’re now able to offer our members the opportunity of being rewarded and recognised for the value that you bring to your employers, to potential employers and to the industry as a whole.
I’d like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to our Board Director and education specialist, Andy Rankin, for the exceptional amount of time and support he has committed to the project and providing us with the expertise and experience that has been needed to ensure we’re bringing you a high quality and credible Accreditation programme.
I’ve certainly learnt a huge amount from being involved and feel very privileged and proud to be announcing what I see as a ground-breaking new reward and recognition system for our profession. Thanks also to Ed Richardson and Amy Yeates from our Board of Directors for your involvement and to our entire team at HQ for your contribution and for the work and support that will be needed to service the programme moving forward.
I do hope you are as excited as we all are as we look towards launching GCMA Accreditation and to the bright future that this will help to build for our Association and for you, our members.
Finally, we’re really looking forward to announcing the very first group of GCMA Accredited Managers before the end of the year. Will you be one of them?
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