Somerset Golf Captains Executive Committee
DRAFT Minutes of the meeting held on Tuesday, the 25th January 2022 at the Admirals Table, Bridgwater
Present Roy Parmiter (Vice President & Chair), Bob Acland (President), John Beer, Stephen Butterfield, David Andow, Rob Ford, David Bate
- The minutes of the previous meeting were accepted as a true and accurate record, subject to the following addition page 3 add “Brown” to the surname for Adge Brown.
- Matters arising
- 8(b) The Autumn meeting at Orchardleigh will be on the 22nd of September.
- 8(a) Captain decided not to enter a team
- 3(a) Cost of website hosting confirmed at £19.95 per month plus VAT bringing the total to £23.94
- Secretary to invite President of the SGU, Tony Mason, to the annual dinner ACTION: JB
- 7(c) verbal feedback from Stephen’s contact at England Golf was to the effect “when you play a mixed match you should play off the ladies tees”. Stephen Butterfield is still waiting for a written confirmation and will chase this up for further clarification in writing.
- Captains Report.
Very little to report; things have been quiet since the end of the season. Steven and Bob Acland attended the Dorset dinner which was enjoyable affair. And the course was in good condition. The South Wales dinner was cancelled in February. Stephen will be attending the SGU AGM on the 5th of February
- Reports from Sub-groups
Dinner planning. Rob Ford passed this item over to Stephen Butterfield. Stephen reported that all the plans are in place and monies will be spent shortly. However Stephen reported that a very small number had booked tickets; currently 93 but this includes 13 guests. As yet no response from Enmore Park, Saltford, Burnham & Berrow, or Isle of Wedmore. We expect 5 from Weston-Super-Mare which would bring the total to 98. Informal contract suggests possibly 3 from Minehead, and 3 from Mendip. Everybody agreed that this was very disappointing. Covid is obviously an issue but other people have also mentioned the cost of the tickets. Bob Acland indicated that we need to ask our club contacts why people are not attending and Roy Parmiter proposed that the event was cancelled. There was some discussion about whether we should scale it back but some people felt this would devalue the event the Vice President then asked everyone around the table to confirm their individual positions. The general feeling was in favour of cancelling or postponing the event with the possibility of rearranging something later in the year. However the committee then did some projected figures based on the recruitment of 100 paying guests with 13 invited guests. After further discussion a vote was taken on the following proposal. Bob Acland proposed that “Provided that the projected loss is not more than £500 (+/-£100), and that Stephen can arrange it, we would go ahead with a cut down version.” This was seconded by David Andow and agreed unanimously. NB if the potential loss is greater than £600 the event will be cancelled. Vice-President Roy Parmiter expressed a big thank you to Stephen Butterfield for all his efforts and his hard work. Action Stephen Butterfield to contact the Cricket Club to establish their views is the numbers come down to 115 or 120
Finance Group. Treasurer confirmed that the current balance was £6123. The committee then looked at the spreadsheets which had been produced by Paul Hucker which were based on match fees of £35. Paul Hucker felt that with the current balance, the society is in a strong financial position. Both the President and the Vice-President were in attendance at the meeting with Paul Hucker. The treasurer then proposed increasing the match fee in 2022 to £40. This means we could give a donation to some of the golf clubs (rather than a green fee) which would not incur VAT. David and Roy also felt that we could be more proactive in the area of selling clothes and suggested other people should be available to sell clothes at internal meetings.
Admistrative Support Group
- Fixtures 2022 & 2023. All the fixtures for 2020 have now been confirmed by word-of-mouth, and were available on the website. The committee were informed that there may be costs involved at certain clubs. Bob Acland suggested that we should treat all the clubs the same in 2023. However, Iain‘s view, as fixture secretary, was that we needed to be flexible and the fixture secretary had to have the freedom to agree a fee with the golf club for the entire package – including food and golf!! Iain asked for an indication of the maximum price he should pay for such a package and the committee agreed that the maximum figure currently would have to be £40 (in line with the proposed increasing match fee). Action proposed increase in match fee to be taken to the AGM. The committee anticipated costs would continue to be under pressure e.g. food costs and fuel costs. The committee also recognise that the figures produced do not include the cost of wine which represents an additional expenditure of between £900- £1000 to the society. Committee agreed that we will continue to pay for wine if other counties want to do so but this decision will be reviewed at a later date. The committee recognised that we may have to review the provision for wine from SGC funds during the season or indeed prior to the 2023 season. The committee were also asked to consider whether we should reduce our fixture list if the increase in fees puts people off.
- Update on Website Hosting. Secretary confirmed that Laws Hosting has now ceased trading and the whole website has successfully been migrated onto the servers of Publicity Matters at a cost of £19.95 plus VAT or £23.94 per month. Committee expressed a big thank you to the Secretary for the efforts in managing this transition.
- Clothing and Tankards Orders Secretary confirms recent invoices from Glenmuir and Majestic Crystal. Committee approved the order of badges as per the design circulated at the meeting, and Stephen Butterfield asked if he could have one made with the lettering “Captain 2020 2021” to be paid for at his own expense. Secretary confirms that Callaway no longer make the wind tops that we previously used, and committee agreed that the Secretary could investigate further the blue wind tops currently available from Pro-Quip. David Bates volunteered to assist including Sales at the Spring Meeting
- Recruitment of New Captains Secretary circulated a table showing names of new captains and reported individually on contact and response from each captain in each club. Committee agreed to start using an initial welcome letter from the President which would be followed up by a more detailed letter from the Secretary. President could tweak the existing draft of the letter to be sent to Captains who have already joined. Iain Robertson, commented that we need to be more proactive than we need to go out and visit some of these other golf clubs e.g. Farrington, Tall Pines Isle of Wedmore. Some of the committee volunteer to do this.
- Team selection 2022. Committee confirmed that registration would start on the 1st of February through to the 31st of March and it was agreed to establish a selection committee consisting of Roy Parmiter Stephen Butterfield Rob Ford John Beer and Dave Bate which will meet on Tuesday, the 5th of April at 10 o’clock at Long Sutton Golf Club. Action Secretary to send email out for registration for the matches including a fixture list and reminder to buy tickets for the annual dinner.
- Somerset Golf Captains – Future Arrangements
Bob Acland confirmed that he would convene a President’s Committee to give this further consideration and the President‘s Committee would produce a paper which would come back to the Executive.
- Any other business
- Rob Ford asked the Secretary to register him for all the matches online
- David Andow reminded the committee that, at the previous dinner, the guests arrived before the official welcoming party: and that we really need to be there to greet them as they arrive.
- Date of next meeting Tuesday, the 22nd of February 2022 at 7 pm
Meeting closed at 21:45 pm