Club Charity

In October Edward Richardson met with your Captain, Vice Captain and Competition and Handicap Secretaries from each section. At the meeting Ed explained that it is Get Golfing’s wish to support the coming together of charitable fundraising at each club. Currently, each section raises funds for the Captain’s chosen charity independently of Get Golfing and each of the other sections. The Captain’s have to work tirelessly and without support to raise these funds. While the charities are grateful for the hard work and endeavours of the respective Captains, the actual sums raised vary considerably year to year.

Ed was proposing that we collectively adopt a different strategy for 2022 where the Club as a whole dedicate its support to one local charity. Get Golfing have hired a designated member of staff who would work with the Captain’s and the chosen charity to promote the following:

• Fundraising within the member and visitors for the local charity.
• Support the charity by creating greater awareness within the club and the local community of the charity’s hardwork.
• Use of club facilities at no cost.

What Get Golfing are bringing to the table is a dedicated member of staff to work with the Club and the charity to ensure they get the most out of the opportunity. In addition to the staff member, the initiative has the full support of the Get Golfing back office with sales and marketing which will further enhance the initiative.

Get Golfing would fund the dedicated member of staff Stu Williams – [email protected] – and train that member in the specialist field of fund raising. Get Golfing would not be charging a levy for these services. Having looked closely at this change in the structure of fundraising at Club level we believe that the following will take place:

By coming together as a club with the support of Stu,

1. We believe we can raise more funds for the chosen charity without having to constantly chase members for greater contributions.
2. We believe we can enhance the awareness that the charity’s good work.
3. We believe that it change the perception of the immediate community and bring us closer together.
4. We believe we can help improve the performance of the chosen charity through the support of the club and the use of our facilities.

This proposal has been left with the Captains to discuss amongst themselves and with other members of the Club as a principle, and if they are in agreement, then collectively decide on a couple of suitable candidates as our Club Charity. Having drawn up a short list, they would then work with Kevin to assess the suitability of the charity. While we all recognise the good work of charities, we believe that not all charities would be suitable partners that would enable them, and the club, to maximise the opportunity. It is proposed, that once a charity is selected, that the Club will commit all their charitable endeavours to that charity for a fixed period of three years to enable the Club and the charity to properly develop the relationship.

The decision making panel at Arkley Golf Club is Kevin Evans, Stu Williams and Chloe Wilson. If you have any suggestions or thoughts on this proposal, may we ask that you come back to Kevin so that he can collate and distribute the feedback.

Club News

From Kevin Evans, Golf Operations Manager: All change on the Captains at Arkley, the AGM is complete and now onto Winter Golf! 

Preferred lies are now in play, and till receipts fully available to you now from Golf Reception/Bar.  

We are looking to push in a few more events with the first one being Quiz Night on Saturday 13th November hosted by Kevin Jarrett. 

Remember you can purchase your golfing goods with us, please let me know what you are after, and you will get a great price for the item along with free delivery straight to the club! Furthermore, all the profits made from your purchases will go straight back into the club! 

On Friday 22nd October we hosted the Society Masters which is a thank you to society organisers who visit us. We feel we gave them a real sense of the club and the winners on the day now head off to Le Touquet next year to compete with the other winners from Get Golfing’s Society Masters at their other sites.  

I am pleased to welcome Colin Pritchard to the team. Colin has recently joined us and will hold the Head Chef position within the kitchen. Colin is very excited to see what he can bring to Arkley and the challenge ahead. We are also going to be introducing some more local suppliers both on the bar and in the kitchen so we hope you can also join us in supporting the local businesses. 

Course News

From Jason Hatton, Course Manager: With over 200mm of rain since my last newsletter coupled in with the ongoing problem of worm casting the course has become very soft in places, over the next few weeks we will be concentrating on foot traffic management and this will be done with the use of the stakes and ropes. Please avoid going over these areas they are there to protect the course.

We have just completed our overseeding programme for the year. We managed to overseed all remaining bare areas on the fairways plus areas under trees especially right hand side of the 8th fairway.

Drainage to the 8th fairway and right hand side of the 1st fairway will commence in the next couple of weeks this will consist of cleaning out the existing drains and relaying new ones and topping up with fresh shingle and rootzone.

As we now move into winter please look out for signage in regards to trolley and buggy bans whilst we will keep them on for as long as possible I’m afraid with the wet summer we have had, the water table is incredibly high for this time of year and the slightest bit of rain will make the course very wet.

Leaf fall is now starting so please be patient we will do our utmost to keep on top of the clearing but this is a 3 month ongoing operation and ground conditions will dictate when we can do it.

Throughout the winter we will be regularly tining the greens with a 7mm hollow tine followed by a light topdressing, this will have no impact on play and will reduce the thatch problem that we have in the greens making the surface firmer and creating a better putting surface going into the spring.

Lastly I am trialling a new worm suppressant in the coming weeks. Fingers crossed this works and we can reduce the amount of worm casts around the course. Happy Golfing!

Captains’ Update

From Steve Vyse, Club Captain: On a personal note, I would like to thank Kaz and the membership for choosing me to be your Club Captain. It is a great honour to represent Arkley Golf Club as your Club Captain. Please bear with me as I find my feet and settle into this new position.  

My first full report will start next month but briefly:  

Further to Get Golfing’s local community program’s myself and the Lady Captain have been tasked to find a local charity or organisation to receive help from the club not only financially but the use of the facilities at Arkley.  

If you know of any charity or organisation who you believe would benefit from a partnership with Get Golfing, please let either me or Tanya know so we can pass them on to Get Golfing. 

From Kaz Donald, Club Captain:  

News  

This month we had the incredibly sad news of the passing of Viv Foster. Viv has always been a huge part of our club. She took on many roles over the years, Lady Captain being one of them, and Tanya will tell us more about this later in the newsletter. Viv chaired various committees and supported everything that AGC did. Our thoughts are with Don, at this time, on the loss of a truly remarkable lady.  

The planned refurbishment pf the Clubhouse will now not be happening in November. It is being pencilled in for early in the new year.  

Our AGM took place on Tuesday 19 October and saw Steve become our Club Captain – good luck Steve!  

Golf  

The Gibson Cup produced some amazing scores. Colin Bacon, Richard Rowbottom and Max Powell all came in with nett 68. On a normal day this would have been brilliant, but Saturday 2nd October was not a normal day. There was nothing to stop James Noble-Brown, who finally got all his ducks in a row, winning outright with nett 65. An incredible round which sees his WHI drop to 2.0!  

This year’s Seniors Trophy saw a field of 27 golfers. Terry Wakeman was the clear winner with 36 points. Bob Howell posted a solid 32 points to claim second position.  

The Roley Goddard trophy saw yet another, nip and tuck comp with three pairs posting 36 points. Runners-up, this year, were Marion and John Cas. The trophy now resides back with Mary and Steve. They have won 4 out of the last 5 years…we need to do something about this!!  

Club v Past Captains – This extremely popular competition had thirty-two players signing up. It resulted in yet another honourable draw, in favour of the Club, who won 8-0. A change to the handicapping will come into effect next year methinks!  

The Foursomes Knockout ended this month when Ian Blinder and Peter Wales took on Chris de Kretser and Dave Pitts in a remarkably close match. Victory was finally decided on the 19th hole! Many congrats to Chris and Dave on their success.  

The Stags had their final match of the season v Redbourn (a) which they won, convincingly, 5.5/0.5. It’s been another good season, for the Stags, having played 11, won 8 and lost 3. However, I still count the Mill Hill cancellation a win to us!  Stag of the Year is David Ross who won 7 of the 10 matches he played in. My congrats to David and my thanks to all the Stags who have given their time and energy to represent Arkley this season.  

Our Foxes, very sadly, lost to Manor of Groves in a close fought match that saw Captain Martin and Terry W having to go out again in a sudden death playoff. My commiserations to our Foxes but huge congrats to the whole squad on another amazing season which was capped off with a final win at the end of season event. I’ve been told that Daddy Saint scored 41 points!  

The Mixed matches finished this season with Arkley beating Redbourn 6.5/0.5. Redbourn have not had a good month… The Mixed Teams have seen a variety of players this year and all but one match has resulted in a win for us. Thanks to all who have represented Arkley this season. 

News from the SOHGC…The Quaich is a trophy that was gifted to the Society, by the R&A, on the Society’s 50th anniversary, in 2016. At that time, Bob Howell was the Society’s Captain. It was agreed that it would be played for over the three Society golf days – Captain’s, President’s & Vice-Captain’s. All three are singles competitions. The best two scores to count by individuals to win the Quaich. The 2021 winner of the Quaich is Tim Corbett, who won it by a country mile, and in fact did not even need to play in the third event! Well done Tim!!!  

A little bit of trumpet blowing now… Terry W and I have spent the summer competing against other clubs in the Hertfordshire Mixed Greensomes. We have beaten South Herts, Welwyn, Hadley Wood, Brookmans Park and in the final we beat Stevenage to become Herts County Champs. To say that we are thrilled is an understatement!  

What a great night the Annual Awards/Captain’s Dinner turned out to be. We had a full house! It was great to, finally, be able to have my Captain’s Dinner and to give out the prizes. I thought that combining my dinner with the Sausage and Mash worked really well. Congrats to all the winners this season – lots of different names going onto the trophies and a large audience to toast your success. Thank you to our H&C Chair Ken, and C’tee, for getting the trophies to the party on time!  

And now it’s time for me to say, “thank you.” To our team managers – Martin, David, John G and John C for successfully running the competitive side of all things ‘Team Arkley.’  To Andrew and John G for organising the ever-changing swindles. To Tanya and Chloe for sorting the mixed comps and matches. To Ken, Kevin, Wendy and the H&C Committee for taking on the WHS and getting us all through the change to the system. To Kevin our Pro, or GM as he is now known, and his team for sorting the cards before the weekend comps and our weekly tee times. To Jason and the boys for the work that they do to enable us to thrash around the course each week. To Presidents Hammett and Holt for being marvellous soundboards. To Mary, our 2019-2021 Lady Captain, for being a fab partner in crime. Last, but by no means least, my thanks go to all of you for the amazing support you have given me over the last 2 years. I’ve loved every minute of it… It has been a blast!  

The very best of luck to our 2021/22 Club Captain Steve Vyse and Lady Captain Tanya Wilson. Enjoy!!  

That’s all folks…  

Captain Kaz has left the building 

Ladies 

From Tanya Wilson, Lady Captain: This month started with a bang!

Our ladies AGM and awards evening, where I officially became the Arkley Lady Captain!  

Congratulations to all the Awards winners, special mention to Kaz Donald & Wendy Living who jointly won the golfer of the year! The evening was well attended by our ladies section, we had a lovely meal and laughed together. Thanks again to Mary & Captain Kaz for looking after us for the last two years.  

The 5th October was my Lady Captain’s  drive in!  

The weather had been horrendous during the night, but lucky for me, Jason our course manager assessed the situation and decided to allow the course to open, luckily the weather held for us we played a 9 hole fun comp. Well done to the Ladies & Gents for playing in the wet conditions.  

It felt so special to have so many ladies and gents  and my family who supported me that morning, as you know my Charity is  ‘Prostate Cancer’ to date we have raised £500.

Congrats to ‘Alan Gibbons’ who guessed my drive ! 

We also played our end of year Medal & Stableford final this competition is offered to all the Ladies who has won a competition throughout the golfing year, congratulations to Marion Rich who won on the day. 

Fingers crossed the weather holds for our  up coming winter golf. 

Lastly I regret to share the sad news of Viv Foster passing. This news has shocked us all. 

Viv will be greatly missed, Viv joined Arkley 46 years ago. She was a keen, very competitive golfer until very recently. We all knew her as ‘Mrs Arkley’ Viv loved Arkley, we were her extended family. As a member for many years Viv was greatly involved with the golf club, she was our Lady Captain, Pearson Captain as well at the Secretary of the ladies committee and more! I have fond memories of the earlier years as Viv played golf as a business lady, so mainly played at the weekends due to her work commitments. I was also a business lady at the time, so we often played our golf competitions together. As business ladies, Viv and my Mum would arrange our ladies golfing weekends away.  We played many courses over the years, so many stories to tell and so much fun. Viv was a warm generous lady,  always so welcoming to the new members, always very keen to see how you’ve played, always there to help answer any questions. Rest In Peace Viv, you will be missed. Our thoughts are with Don at this sad time xx 

Community Outreach

The team this month have been focusing on working with our 8 sites to adapt the Club’s charitable role within their communities.

As you’ve read, Ed our CEO would like all sections of the club to work together to support one local charity for the next three years and really embed them into our sites with awareness, fundraising and use of our amazing environments.

The aim will be to have one Group charity across all Get Golfing and then one local charity at each site that can receive great support over a sustained period of time. This should maximise fundraising and allow charities to plan and budget more effectively over a 3-year period.

We also hope that with all sections of the club working together it will integrate sections, create great social interactions, and create an inclusive and exciting program of social and fundraising events.

Captains and vice captains are currently in discussion to select the Club’s local charity and we aim to announce group and local charity partners with a January launch. We are supporting this process and will have designated resources to help sites make a real difference to the local charity of their choice.

The team are also currently

• Selecting our partner primary and special schools for 2022 that will receive an amazing package of support over the next 3 years.
• Organising our TAP/SEN program cohorts for 2022.
• Setting up our This Girl Can Get Golfing calendar.
• Developing partnerships with a wide variety of clubs and providers to broaden activities offered on our sites.

We look forward to supporting your club and if you have any ideas or links to local groups who could benefit from our support please get in touch with the team.

[email protected]

[email protected]  (East)

[email protected]  (West)