Match Secretary Report

Let us review the year, which was my first as your Match Secretary.

At the start of the year, I thought that the process of running the matches, generally, worked well with the Match Managers and Match Secretary liaising closely with Doug Ebdon as the Association’s Treasurer. That is still my view. On the whole, the Match Managers have done a very good job and remember this is a relatively new set-up, so the Match Managers are learning as am I.

An important piece of information that I would like all of our members to keep in mind is that even though you may only have been selected as a reserve for matches, please, please do not arrange any other events for the date of the match for which you have been selected as a reserve. If this years’ experience is anything to go by, the chances of reserves finally ending up as part of the team are highly likely.

You would not believe the number of times that we have had players drop out at the last minute, thus depleting the reserve list. Many has been the time that the reserve list has been fully exhausted, leaving the Match Manager contacting me or Peter Short for a list of members who could be contacted at the last minute.

My thanks go to all of those who are available as late substitutes and I’m sure these thanks will also come from the individual Match Managers, many of whom have less hair than at the start of the year.

2018 will go down as one of the hottest summers on record. We have had wonderful weather to play our favourite sport and, by and large, the courses we have played on have stood up to these testing conditions excellently – aided of course by all of the skilful greenkeepers.

Next year will also be an important year for me as I combine being Match Secretary with my additional role as your vice-captain (assuming you do not vote me out) and I look forward to another wonderful golfing year in 2019.

I wish all of our members good health and fortitude for next year.

David Liston
Match Manager