Minutes of the meeting held on 10th March at Beds & County Golf Club at 1:00pm can be found below.

The next meeting be on Monday 30th June 2008 at 1.00pm at Leighton Buzzard Golf Club.

Minutes from Previous Meetings:

12th June 2008 at Bedfordshire (Juniors)
12th March 2008 at Newmarket Links (Regional Juniors)
28th February 2008 at Leighton Buzzard (Juniors)
15th April 2008 at Leighton Buzzard (Juniors)
 

3rd December 2007 at Mount Pleasant

1st October 2007 at Caddington
2nd July 2007 at Pavenham Park
13th March 2007 at Aspley Guise
4th December 2006 at Millbrook
4th September 2006 at John O'Gaunt
26th June 2006 at Beadlow Manor

BEDFORDSHIRE LADIES COUNTY GOLF ASSOCIATION

www.blcga.co.uk

 

MINUTES OF THE COMMITTEE MEETING

held at

BEDS & COUNTY GOLF CLUB

on

Monday 10^th March 2008 at 1.00pm

The County Captain welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked Beds & County Golf Club for hosting it. As their Lady Captain, Paula Foot, was unable to attend the meeting Heather Nolan welcomed the Committee and the County Delegates to Beds & County on her behalf. She wished the County Teams well in 2008 and hoped the meeting went well.

There were some County Delegates attending their first meeting and they were asked to introduce themselves.

THOSE PRESENT

L May (Captain), K Harris (Secretary), M Watchorn (Vice President), A Taylor (Treasurer), S Cleaver (Competition Secretary), C Goldsmith (County Junior Organiser), E James (Course Assessor Officer), M Seabrook (East Region Representative), W Albone (SB), A Stroomer (MP), S Eastley & L McCartney (BM), B Kewell (C), E Mackirdy (Mow), C McDonald (B), H Nolan (B&Co), Lin Gunn (W), N Shane (Ca), C Waters (JOG), N Jackson (M), C Pike (PP), A Cherry (C&NB), A Healey (TB), M Browning (LB) and A Whitehouse (DD).

1.         APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Apologies were received from A Shuter (President), E Bruce (Vice Captain), H Molloy (Handicap Adviser), S Turnbull (Senior’s Captain), G Smith (Past Captains’ Captain), J Faris (Immediate Past Captain), M Frost (Assistant Handicap Adviser), A Shirville (LB) and B McMillan (SP).

 

2.         MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING  (1^st December 2007)

These were agreed as a true record of the meeting and were signed by the County Captain.

3.         MATTERS ARISING

Lesley asked each Delegate how they planned to use the £50.00 training grant as mentioned at the December meeting.
Mowsbury and Beds & County have talked to their Pro and arranged sessions covering chipping, putting and bunkers and members will contribute.
Bedfordshire have organised 4 sessions with the pro for a keen group of new ladies.
Leighton Buzzard. Millbrook and Wyboston are in the planning stages.
John O’Gaunt has had a group session with 30 –36 handicaps and another is planned. They have already received their £50.00 grant.
South Beds have had 2 sessions for 12 and under handicaps and have 3 sessions planned for the short game.
As Caddington is under new ownership their plans are on hold.
Colworth have planned sessions for April.
Dunstable Downs had a rules session with the Pro. They have already received their £50.00 grant.
The Bedford, Mount Pleasant, Pavenham Park, Beadlow Manor and Colmworth have not yet made any plans.

County Golf Partnership (Margaret Watchorn)

On December 16th 2007 Margaret met with the following - David Parrott - Secretary of Bedfordshire County Golf Union, Danny O’Neill  - BCGU County Junior Organiser, Paul Simpson – Chairman of Bedfordshire Professional Golf Association and Steven Peat  -Regional Development Officer for Bedfordshire, Cambridge, Essex, Hertfordshire, Middlesex and Norfolk and Suffolk.

 

ENGLAND GOLF PARTNERSHIP

The England Golf Partnership was formed in 2005 and is comprised of the English Golf Union (EGU), English Womens Golf Association (EWGA) & the PGA with the support of the Golf Foundation & Sport England.

Its aim, through the implementation of its Whole Sport Plan, is to increase & widen the participation levels in golf & achieve a vision of being ‘The Leading Golf Nation in the World by 2020’ from grass roots right through to elite level.

 

COUNTY GOLF PARTNERSHIPS

Steven outlined the purpose of the County Golf Partnerships and the support and help that could be offered by Regional Development Officers.

County Golf Partnerships have been established to support and deliver the START (Providing opportunities for everyone to experience golf) STAY (Increasing the numbers of regular players) SUCCEED (Players winning at all levels) program.

 

CGP’S are an effective and structured way to support the development of golf within a county. By the County Union and Association working closely together with other appropriate bodies (such as a County PGA) at county level knowledge, experience, best practice and resources can be combined and utilised. In addition a CGP will be better positioned to access external funding from local organisations. The EGU and EWGA can provide support through the Regional Development Officers in facilitating the creation of a CGP and in the production and implementation of a county development plan.  Currently there are 17 Unions, Associations and PGA bodies who have formed a County Golf Partnership. There are 10 more working towards the process.

 

Margaret attended a County Golf Administrators Conference on 25 & 26^th February at Woodhall Spa. This was for Counties who are already operating as a partnership or who are working towards a partnership.

FUNDING - Initial grant of  £2500.00 Set up costs year 1 £10,000.00 and up to £10,000.00 in years 2 & 3 depending on the size of the County.

The next step is to obtain the approval to proceed with the formation of a County Golf Partnership from the Executive Committee’s of the Bedfordshire Ladies County Golf Association and the Bedfordshire County Golf Union. When agreement has been reached by them it is recommended that a steering group is formed.

Representation on the Steering Group should be 2 from BCU, BLCGA & PGA, with an appointed Chairman & Secretary. Also a representative each from Team Beds (Luton) and Golf Beds and Golf Foundation.

Margaret had some information which was available for County Delegates to take to their clubs. Delegates were encourage to discuss this at their clubs and to think of people who may wish to contribute to the Partnership. Margaret is sure that Bedfordshire will work towards setting this up especially as many jobs are currently duplicated in both Ladies and Mens golf. She reiterated that this is not just for Juniors but to encourage more people to play golf.

4.         CORRESPONDENCE

a. Letter from Mrs V Jones – permission to use her buggy
b. EGU/ELGA Development Initiatives for Bedfordshire
c. Changes to documents recently emailed
 - email address for Maureen Underhill, The Bedford should be .com
- address for Ms Amy Cherry, Colmworth should be 89 High Strret

5.         EAST REGION DELEGATE’S REPORT (Margaret Seabrook)

The morning was taken up with presentations from the main members of staff of EWGA each explaining their role and plans for the future. The new chief executive Jim Robertson was also present. This was an interesting insight into the plans for the future and each member was happy to answer our questions. The presentation was well presented with a great deal of information. Margaret felt that if this had been shown during the ‘Modernisation Reviews’ there might not have been so much opposition to many of the plans. The EWGA website is the place to go if you are interested in getting more details as to what is going on. (www.englishwomensgolf.org)

 

2 items of interest were that a new brochure is due to be issued in March - Safeguarding Children in Golf. This will be the new document to check with re Child Protection.

There will also be a brochure about “Volunteering in Golf  “ giving guidance on how to get people to volunteer and showing how benefits can be realised for both the volunteer and the those requesting help with a task

Our meeting proper started in the afternoon with representatives from the 6 counties – Bedfordshire, Cambs and Hunts, Essex, Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Norfolk and our Regional Chair- Anne Pyke.

We were told that after consultation Judi Walker of Suffolk has been appointed as the Region’s representative on the Championship/Venue/Rules EGWA Committee. Our Regional Selector is Jean Johnston-Norfolk.

EWGA Subscriptions for 2008 are going up by agreed rate- this means £30p to £8.15.

Financial Assistance to the Counties at County Week was discussed. Money is ring fenced for this – coming from the monies that would have previously been paid to the Midlands Division. Ruth Whitehead, Operational Board Chairman, joined the meeting and said regarding county week costs  - “The counties will not be out of pocket”. What this means has to be decided by the Operational/Management Board but we were of the opinion that each county should receive a payment, regardless of their resources, and any County that felt they required additional monies should be able to request assistance. It was felt that it would be necessary to produce accounts to back-up such requests. It is important that Captain, Treasurer and any other member of the BLCGA committee who incurs an expense in relation to County Week is aware of this as we should now keep records to back up all costs related to County Week and also have a separate Profit and Loss account for this.

The draw for County Week 2008 Ann Green the Hertfordshire delegate was not happy with the match time allocation. It was explained that this had been done as a draw at the previous meeting. This is to be looked at again and information sourced from the Counties where historically 6 have played for a week. We felt that some kind of rolling draw was a better solution.

County Team Colours Bedfordshire - Yellow, Cambs & Hunts - Oxford Blue, Essex - Red, Hertfordshire - Pink, Suffolk – Royal Blue and Norfolk – Coral.

 

Cambs and Hunts was concerned about the cost of the welcome reception – after discussion we agreed that the cost of the reception be split 6 ways.

County Week 2009- Venue is Stock Brook Manor, Stock, Nr Billericay. Essex. Date 22-26^th June 2009.

There is to be a system for deciding the date of County Week- nearest to 14 days before the British Open.

Each Delegate is to collect the names and contact details of the Club Delegates in their County. (Kathy Harris will be able to collate this information, as she will already have the details as BLCGA County Secretary.)

Regional Competitions - Standardising of formats is the aim. LGU will no longer be running LGU Medal Finals, Challenge Bowls, and Coronation Foursomes. EWGU will take over for next year but Challenge Bowls may finish.  The County President or Captain will present prizes when the event takes place in their County.

We are no longer required to use county greens for these events. This should make it easier for Bedfordshire to find a venue to host the Australian Spoons in 2009.

East Anglian Scratch – Currently the courses we have used give us courtesy and we give a “Donation”. Hertfordshire and Essex doubted if they would get a club in their county to offer courtesy. This would mean quite an increase in the entry fee. It was decided to consult those who play in this competition how much they would be willing to pay as an entry fee.

Eleanor Mackirdy (Mow) asked about the £15.00 requested by EWGA from each golf club. It was explained that in the past the County have paid £315 to ELGA but now the Clubs are paying this direct. This £315 will now be kept in the general fund to help towards the additional costs needed for County Week.

6.         TREASURER’S REPORT (Ann Taylor)

Ann has received £3528.00 in subscriptions but the following clubs have not yet sent theirs: Aylesbury Vale, Dunstable Downs, John O’Gaunt, Mount Pleasant, Pavenham Park, The Bedford, South Beds and Tilsworth. County Delegates from these clubs attending the meeting were asked to chase the payments.

Course Card payments are £516.00 and Ann has them to distribute after the meeting to the relevant County Delegates.

The current and deposit accounts hold healthy balances.

As mentioned earlier John O’Gaunt and Dunstable Downs have been paid the £50.00 training grant.

7.         COUNTY CAPTAIN’S REPORT (Lesley May)

Lesley began her report with the announcement of the death of Beryl O’Reilly. Beryl was Captain at Pavenham Park for 6 years and a supporter of our County competitions. She was County Delegate for 2 years. The funeral was on 8^th February and Margaret Watchorn attended on our behalf.

On a happier note Lesley was pleased to say that Holly Aitchison had been selected for the England squad. Last week she went out to Spain and was 11^th in the cut off for the match play section. This was the highest of all the English squad out there. Unfortunately, she lost on the very last putt of the 1^st round of the match play but she is obviously playing well and we wish her all success.

You should all have now received your yellow County booklets and we hope that you fill in the entry forms and join in the competitions. We really do need you and your fellow players at your club. Also we do need sponsors for the advertisements. If you know of anyone who would be willing to take an advertisement, which are £100.00 per page, please talk to us.

Lesley thanked Cecilia Holden, who has spent a lot of time re-vamping our website – www.blcga.co.uk. It is really excellent and Lesley urged the ladies to use it. Cecilia has also put in a lot of time designing and making up the County Junior Handbooks.

The County Teams have been busy training since the December meeting. There have been two sessions of  ‘on course’ management. Mark Wall of John O’Gaunt took the players out over 9 holes and walked with them to discuss their play and thoughts on the course.

Maurice Campbell of Leighton Buzzard has given ‘brain and mental’ training and hopefully the team are all more positive in their approach.

Paul Ashwell of Wyboston has given putting tuition, which has been of great benefit. He spent time on the technique and reading the putts.

There was a practice foursomes match against the scratch team from JOG Men – which was interesting – bearing in mind we were all teeing off from the winter mats and therefore same tee box!

There has been a ‘keep your body in trim’ session by Sally Olney & Christine Ellis who gave exercises in relation to golf and the golf swing.

An finally, we have just come back from a weekend in Yorkshire where the national coach, Pat Smillie, coached us all day on the Sunday. It was an excellent and worthwhile weekend and of great benefit to all of us and we have come home with lots of enthusiasm and tips on the short game and also match winning techniques.

At the end of March we are holding a foursomes match at Millbrook against Northants and will keep up everyone’s enthusiasm and training.

8.         VICE CAPTAIN’S REPORT (Elaine Bruce)

Lesley explained that Elaine was unable to attend the meeting but said that there was nothing to report at this time.

9.         COMPETITION SECRETARY’S REPORT  (Shirley Cleaver)

The County Knockout Foursomes has attracted 61 pairs representing 14 clubs. The 2^nd Division Spring Meeting at John O’Gaunt has 44 ladies playing both morning and afternoon rounds and 6 playing just the 18 holes. These ladies are from 11 clubs. Coffee will be available on arrival with sandwiches and chips for lunch and a two course buffet evening meal with coffee.

The following courses have been booked for 2009:- Championship at Leighton Buzzard, 2^nd Division Spring Meeting at Aylesbury Vale, Autumn Meeting at the Bedfordshire, 36 Hole Stableford at Pavenham Park and the 18 Hole Stableford at Millbrook.

Shirley asked all County Delegates to encourage their Ladies to enter the County Competitions.

10.       HANDICAP ADVISER’S REPORT (Heddwen Molloy)

There is very little to report at this time other than that the two workshops were carried out in January to explain the changes to the Unified Handicap System and the new manual. They were very well attended by members of the clubs’ handicap committees and appeared to be well received and useful.  As some clubs operate a joint handicap committee as recommended by CONGU it was interesting that several men attended the workshops and found them informative and helpful.  Hopefully this will go some way towards helping ensure all sections of clubs implement the system in the same way.

In particular clubs were advised to ensure that ladies understand the players’ responsibilities.  Players MUST return their scores from away qualifying competitions to their home clubs.  Although clubs running open competitions, etc. must send the scores to all participating clubs, it is ultimately the players’ responsibility to ensure those scores are recorded on her handicap record.

Eleanor Mackirdy (Mow) said that the Men had not attended separate workshops. Margaret Watchorn said that these had been organised by the EGU but Heddwen could do a presentation for the men if required.

 

11.       JUNIOR ORGANISER’S REPORT  (Cicely Goldsmith)

The Juniors committee is doing a great job.  We have had 2 very busy meetings since the last County meeting and Cicely hopes we have covered everything so far.  The Junior Handbook has been passed on to the majority of the girls. It contains a lot of information and looks great.  Cicely thanked Cecilia Holden for all her hard work and had a copy to view.

The coaching sessions with Paul Simpson at Beadlow Manor have been well attended and the girls seem to have learnt a lot.  He is very pleased with their progress.  Brenda & Maureen are in the process of arranging some coaching with the Pros at Bedfordshire Golf Club for the high and no handicap girls.

Entries for the Past Captains’ Salver are slow in coming. This was previously held in October when entries were low and has had to be cancelled in the past due to lack of support.  It was decided last year to bring it forward this year in the hope that more would enter.  The date this year is 13 April at Caddington and the closing date is 13 March.  Dave Sweetnam, who is running the competition, has now moved the closing date back to 20th March and we have decided to allow girls with handicaps of 37 to 49 to enter provided that they play off 36. Dave has only 4 entries so far.  Would County Delegates please speak to their club Junior Organisers urgently and ask them to encourage as many girls as possible to enter.

Our first County match, against Suffolk, was held on the Carthegena course, John O’gaunt on Saturday 1^st March.  Our first team halved their match and the 2^nd team won 2-1.  This was a good result for us as last year Suffolk won the match. Many thanks to Gill Westgate for organising this. Our next match, against Norfolk is to be held at Pavenham Park on 19^th April starting at 12.30pm.  The girls would love to have as much support as possible (wearing yellow of course) so please try to come if you can.

Cicely has had numerous emails about the Junior Matchplay Finals. This was previously run by the Midlands Division.  The winners of each Division played against each other in these finals.  In anticipation of the event continuing, arrangements were made for it to be held at Droitwich this year but of course the Midlands no longer exists.  The question was therefore does it still go ahead and if so who pays?  The 13 counties involved eventually decided to continue with the event this year with the cost being borne equally by the 13 counties.  This means that an ‘entry fee’ of £30 will be charged to each county.  In the meantime we have to decide what to do from then on. 

A County Junior Organisers meeting has been arranged for Wednesday 12 March at Newmarket Golf Club.  As usual, this will be attended by Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambs & Hunts but this year Essex , Herts and Middlesex will be joining us. Gill Westgate will also attend.

Lin Gunn (W) asked if Junior Handbooks had been given to their Juniors. Cicely asked Lin to send her or Kathy their details, as we do not have this information. She passed two Handbooks to Lin.

12.       SENIORS’ CAPTAIN’S REPORT  (Sam Turnbull) 

Sam has received Senior’s subscriptions from the majority of clubs within the county but not from the following clubs: Aylesbury Vale, Chalgrave Manor, Colworth, Millbrook, Mount Pleasant, The Bedford and Wyboston Lakes. County Delegates from these clubs are asked to remind clubs to send them in as soon as possible.

In the handouts you will find the information for the Senior 2000 Trophy which is played with the May medal. Also there is the form, which needs to be returned to Sam after the medal, giving the details of the qualifier for the Senior 2000. (These have not been given to clubs that have not sent subscriptions.)

The yellow books, which have been distributed, have a couple of errors for the Senior’s pages, please point these out to your club members:

a) the closing date for entries to the Championship should be 28^th  June on page 20;

b) the Lanaway Putter has been missed from the prize list for the Championship (this is a club trophy for a team of 4);

c) the Autumn High on page 29 has been renamed and the handicap restriction removed. Sam has included a sheet about the renamed Seniors Autumn “Jolly” in the handouts, please display these at your Clubs.

Our first match of the season is on April 7^th against the County 2nds at Dunstable Downs and the teams are looking forward to a challenging 36 holes. The rest of our matches begin in June.

At present the Seniors play ‘friendly’ scratch matches against Cambs & Hunts, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Bucks and a friendly match (off handicap) against Northants. Sam has been contacted by Norfolk to see if Bedfordshire are interested in playing in a Senior Inter-County League. This would be a competitive league with all the counties of the new Eastern Region (Cambs & Hunts, Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Essex and Hertfordshire). This raises several issues:

-           It would mean another 3 matches to find a venue for within the county each year.

-           Would clubs be able to support this extra demand?

-           Should we keep the ‘friendly’ matches going as well?

-           In some counties the ‘league’ teams and the ‘friendly’ teams would come from different sections/groups ie the team we play at present from Norfolk is from the Norfolk Lady Veterans Society not Norfolk County.

-           If we kept our matches as they are at present and added the league this would mean several more matches for the low handicap seniors within the county.

-           Bucks and Northants, who we play in matches now, are not in our division.

-           Should we be looking to include Essex and Hertfordshire in our calendar and stop the other two?

County Delegates are requested to discuss this with their members and Sam or Kathy will contact them in the next four weeks for an answer. 

At present Sam has had no discussion with other Counties about this.

13.       PAST CAPTAINS’ CAPTAIN’S REPORT (Gill Smith)

Gill was unable to attend the meeting and there was nothing to report.

14.       FORMAT FOR BRONZE AUTUMN MEETING

This had been discussed at the December meeting and Lesley asked the County Delegates for the results from their clubs.
Medal               2

Stableford         10
abstentions        4
The Autumn Bronze Meeting format will therefore be a stableford.

15.     ANY OTHER BUSINESS

Kathy reminded County Delegates that all clubs should have received the ‘Golf Club Questionnaire’ by now and asked them to try to make sure it is completed and returned. This can also be done online.

Eleanor Mackirdy (Mow) asked for entry form for the Mayor’s Annual Tournament to be added to the handouts.

Nikki Jackson also mentioned the Ladies and Mixed Open competitions being held at Millbrook.

Kathy reminded clubs that all entry forms can be added to the web site if they are sent to Cecilia (see ‘Send your news’).

Elaine James asked if start sheets would be posted on the web site. Shirley has this in hand.

Change of date in County Yellow Book – Seniors Match against Northants now 5^th August at Staverton Park.

Additional change to Club Officers and County Delegate lists recently emailed – Cally King, Chalgrave Manor email should be carolyn435@btinternet.com.

16.     DATE & VENUE OF NEXT COMMITTEE MEETING

The next meeting will be on Monday 30^th June 2008 at Leighton Buzzard Golf Club.

As there was no other business the meeting was closed at 14.20pm and Lesley once again thanked Beds & County Golf Club for their hospitality.

Signed      ___________________                          Date           _________________