I took over the role as Secretary in April this year, and though having understudied Peter Short for a year there is still much for me to learn. I thank Peter Short for his continued help and support.
This year I have been working very closely with Rod Jones, who not only stepped in to fill the vacant Captain’s role at the last minute, continuing with the Role of Match Secretary, and Doug Ebdon, our treasurer.
The last few weeks have been very busy for all of us. We have hosted The Captains Tour at Celtic Manor, Captain’s Day at Gerrards Cross, two County matches and the 4 Counties South Tournament (we host this every 4 years) at Hazlemere all in the space of four weeks.
We are nearly halfway through our year and whilst we are not, as yet, having the same success as last year I should remind you of the words from Peter Short in August last year.
“But as you know these matches against other Counties are not all about winning. It’s about meeting up with new and old friends having a good game on courses often not played before and a nice meal afterwards.”
That is why we are members of ABGC.
We are working on recruiting more new members, 5 against 1 in the same period last year but in last twelve months our overall membership has gone down from 99 to 94 of which still only 60% are playing , and more of whom are requiring buggies and playing less matches.
We need to recruit more members to increase the available playing pool and, in the meantime, examine other possibilities, such as playing fewer matches, including The Vets Section Captains, merging with another County with a similar problem, all of which have their own pros and cons.
All of the home fixtures have been organised for 2027 but we are still waiting for some of the away fixture details. As forecast. venues have been increasing prices which is why we have introduced a variable pricing structure for our matches and events.
We have a committee meeting coming up in August and our most important task is to bring more members onto the committee as well as getting a Vice Captain for next year to become Captain in 2028, and then build a growth plan for the future years
If you would like to join the committee please let us know.
Terry
Secretary