02
April
2021
GCMA chief executive Tom Brooke looks at the reopening of clubs and offers another message of support to members for the weeks and months ahead As I write this, my wife is enjoying her first round of golf of 2021, as are many thousands of golfers throughout England. Unfortunately, my first bad shot of the year is going to have to wait another couple of weeks! The Welsh Parliament certainly took us by surprise recently, giving only 24 hours notice to clubs for reopening on 13th March. Congratulations to our Welsh members for the amazing work you did in turning this around so quickly and thank you also to Wales Golf for their support. As Golf Clubs in England reopened just 3 days ago, golf in Northern Ireland opening today (1st April) and of course, measures in Scotland now permitting fourballs, we are certainly on the way to ‘getting back to normality’! We recently did a piece of work with Jim Croxton, from BIGGA, aimed at reminding the golfing public that we are still only in early Spring, we’re recovering from an extremely wet winter and, of course, green keepers have been on furlough! So I do hope this has had an impact and, as golfers return to the fairways, I hope they are appreciative of the work you and your teams have been doing to get golf courses ready for play. Thank you also to Jim Croxton for joining us on a members' webinar recently and for the advice and support he has provided. Briefly touching on other industry matters, we continue to work with the Home Unions on the launch of the Independent Golfer handicap scheme and the extremely important work being done on Safe Golf. We will continue to keep you up to date and informed on these issues, as well as anything else affecting the industry. Equally, if you would like to discuss these, or any other industry matters, please do not hesitate to get in contact with me. At GCMA HQ, our attentions as always, will be very much focused on you, our members, and as such we are at the end of the phone, or email, if we can be of any support or guidance whatsoever. In the mean time, we will be planning ahead for the next series of Webinars under our new INSPIRE, KNOW HOW and HOT TOPICS banners, as well as continuing to work on all areas of our education, professional and personal development services, including the new Skillgate and Perks at Work platforms which we hope you are enjoying. Finally, within last week's E-Newsletter, we provided you with some details and reminders of our various Wellbeing and Mental Health services, so do keep this in mind and please do remember to look after yourselves! This article appears as the Welcome Note in the April edition of The Golf Club Manager Do you subscribe to the GCMA's weekly E-newsletter? Make sure you're not missing out on the latest in the world of golf club management.... Please LOGIN to read the full article.
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