by Céline | Nov 6, 2017 | Captaincy
It’s all over. We had our AGM last Wednesday and I am no longer Lady Captain. I thought I’d reflect on my year.
To my great shock, I’m asked to be Lady Captain
It was a Wednesday after a competition, two and a half years ago. I was having a coffee and chatting in the conservatory when Judy arrived with Delia, who was to be our new Captain a few months later. They sat down and Judy asked in her usual direct manner: “Céline, when are you thinking of being Lady Captain?” Taken by surprise, I replied “I haven’t thought about it at all, but if I was asked, I would consider it.” She replied: “So when do you think that would be, then?” I made a quick mental calculation and estimated that the youngest Captains in the club must have been in their mid-fifties. I rounded down to seem generous: “In ten years?” “Too long, she snapped. How about next year?”
A bicolour jumper with a zip for temperature control. Perfect for deepest darkest winter
I was stunned. “Judy, I’m very flattered, but I really have no idea how to run a women’s section. I’m not even on the committee. I know nothing about the social and charity side of things. I don’t like dressing up!” “These things you can learn”, she replied. “I don’t know if I want to. I’m all about the golf, really,” I countered. “That’s exactly why we want you,” she said. Of course, if Judy had reminded me that I would get a jumper that says “Lady Captain 2017”, I would have agreed there and then. The parking space is another much-loved perk, but I didn’t even have a car at the time. I asked a few people who’d been Captain for advice, which went from a horrified “Don’t do it! It will suck the life out of you” to a resigned “There were a few nice bits, I guess.”
The jumper, though.
To my great shock, I say yes
On reflection, I was attracted by the idea that I might be in a position to move the section in a more modern direction. There were a few things that didn’t sit well with me, although they certainly weren’t enough to put me off being a member. As a newcomer to the world of golf, I loved mixing with women of all ages and backgrounds, but I was often at odds with the more traditional side of things. I also felt that I had the skills to improve particular areas, like communications and new member recruitment. Our section was small and ageing and I thought efforts should be made to grow it.
But really, it was mainly the jumper.
So I said yes. The good thing about being asked 15 months in advance is that it gives you plenty of time to think about what you want to achieve. You’re only Captain once, so this was my one chance to try and gently steer the section in a different direction. Following a chat with Heather, a former Worthing Lady Captain who also is a business owner, I decided I needed goals. I gave myself three:
- Grow the section
- Encourage women to play more golf
- Improve communications
A handy tank top in club colours for early starts and chilly days
Being Lady Captain was hard
This was on top of organising all the usual events, and there are many: Lady Captain’s Day, Away Day, Autumn break, various charity events, various invitations, dinners, lunches, etc. On reflection, I have to recognise that I was so focused on my three goals that I didn’t put all my energy and attention into the day-to-day running of the section. Function sheets for the catering didn’t have the correct information. Cards weren’t always prepared in advanced. Prize tables could have looked better. Players went out without markers for nearest the pin. I kept losing receipts and I got more than a few wrathful looks from my treasurer. My first committee meeting was a disaster. Afterwards, I hopefully asked someone who I knew would be honest with how she thought I did and she said: “This was the worst meeting I’ve ever been to. You might as well not have been there.” Ouch.
Frankly, in some ways, it’s a mystery how I wasn’t sacked fairly early on. Thankfully, my committee, and particularly my secretary and my treasurer, rallied around and patched things up for me. I guess they were prepared to compensate for my total lack of experience. Helped on by everyone around me busy papering over the cracks, I mostly managed to pull things off and my Lady Captain’s Day, my away day at Seaford Head, our committee away day at Littlehampton Golf Club and our Autumn break at Dudsbury Golf Club were great fun. And of course, my charity day will stay with me forever.
Being Lady Captain was satisfying
Anyway, goals: we did well in all three. Of the 73 members we now have, 23 are in their first year at Brighton & Hove. That’s a 47% increase. As I said in my AGM speech, one of my highlights of the year was the day when Anthony took me aside on a Wednesday because “A complaint was made”. The complaint was that the men now had to wait to tee off on a Wednesday (ladies’ morning) because there were so many women out on the course. This post on one of our Get into Golf days gives you an idea of how we went about encouraging women to play golf. Getting players to try golf wasn’t enough. We also made sure we created a welcoming, friendly environment. Amongst other things, we provided an Academy pack to allow women to try out golf membership at a reasonable cost. We also made sure they were made to feel welcome by existing members, who took them out on the course. We gave them information on various topics, like pace of play. And we provided a WhatsApp group to help them find buddies to play with.
My second goal was more difficult to quantify, but my eclectic competition was popular and the two extra competitions I put in the calendar should now be regular fixtures. Finally, communications were greatly improved by my monthly newsletter and a general effort to reach out to members via Facebook, email, our website and the WhatsApp group. All this, I think, has fostered a stronger sense of team and community within the entire section. A few of our older members spend winter in milder climes and they told me they loved hearing what the section was up to via all our different communication tools.
Classic jumper in women’s section colours. To wear when representing the club.
Would I do it again?
So all in all, and even though there were many, many things I could have done much better, I feel I did myself proud and I had a great year. I played SO much golf. I had a lot of fun. I met some lovely people. I now understand how a golf club works and as I’m still on the committee, I can help future Captains avoid some of the mistakes I made. The changes I’ve made are here to stay. I will carry on producing the newsletter, which I will now write in collaboration with Kim, our new Lady Captain. Our culture of welcoming new members is well established. The Brighton & Hove women’s section is a good, fun place to play golf for everyone.
Would I recommend female golfers to say yes when asked? Absolutely. Don’t worry if you’re not sure you’re up for the job. No one in the history of Lady Captaining was more clueless than me. It doesn’t matter: you’ll learn and you’ll get help. What’s important is that you get the chance to influence the future of your section and you get a lot of love for all the work you do. You also get to learn a lot of useful skills: after my awful first attempt, I got much better at chairing meetings. You get used to standing up and talking, singing (yes!) and acting (I know!) in front of a lot of people. You will learn to listen to people’s views and as a representative of you club, you’ll have to learn diplomatic skills if you don’t possess them. These are all things that will benefit you in your social and professional life. But most importantly, you get to play a hell of a lot of golf.
And of course, you get to keep your jumpers.
by Céline | Jul 12, 2017 | Captaincy
Captain Jon was lovely, as ever
It’s been a busy couple of weeks. I had my charity day on 30 June, then the committee away day on 2 July, closely followed by my Lady Captain’s Day on 4 July. The day after, I played in the Crowborough Open. At the same time, work started misbehaving with clients sending me projects I couldn’t easily fit in in between all the golf. So it’s been very busy, but I thought I should record my Lady Captain’s day, as it’s one of the big dates in my calendar.
Traditionally, the Captain doesn’t play on her day, which I was very unhappy about. I did suggest that this particular tradition should be changed and even had a couple of tantrums about it, but I was told to zip it by the real bosses. In the end, there was no way I could have played, as there was so much to organise. Also, my elbow was still sore from my charity day, so I probably needed the rest.
I know. It’s very clever.
Jon, the club Captain, was there to be our starter and I gave everyone a little gift. It went down very well (I got it on Personalised gifts shop). When everyone had teed off, Jon suggested me and him should have a little putting competition. Genius! After two holes, however, I realised to my horror that the first group was about to turn and I hadn’t prepared anything. I was supposed to provide snacks and drinks after 9 holes! I threw my putter at Jon and sprinted around the clubhouse for a few minutes to get everything ready.
Once everyone had cold drinks and snacks and was safely off to finish their round, it was time to prepare the prize table, tidy up the snacks and check my rules quiz with Anthony. Before I knew it, everyone was back from playing their 18 holes of golf and I was gathering scorecards.
Serious stuff
Next was lunch, a putting competition and a driving competition with Jan’s huge iron. Then we all had cake and it was time for my rules quiz. We have a lot of new members and I thought it’d be a good way to learn the basic rules. I set it so we’d go through the course, with a problem to solve on every hole. I’m not a huge fan of quizzes, but far from being a bit stale and boring, it was rather rowdy and I struggled to keep the heckling under control. I’m hoping it’ll be especially useful, as I used examples of situations I’ve actually been in on the course.
All that was left was the presentation. I was given a lovely present and a lot of appreciation and everyone went home. I had a great time and I was relieved that my Lady Captain’s Day was a success. Who needs to play golf to have fun? Next to organise on my list, I had the Ladies’ invitation to the Seniors, which happened today and was great fun. And now my next deadlines are our Open in three weeks and my away day a week later. Lady Captain’s work is never done.
by Céline | Jul 2, 2017 | Captaincy
Look at those bleary eyes at 4:45am
Praying the golf goddess will send good weather
All week I’d been obsessing about the weather, checking the forecast every 20 minutes of so. I knew that it would make a huge difference to my enjoyment of my golfing charity day and, more importantly, to the success of the day and the amount we raised. Would people pull out of the 9 hole competition if the weather was truly awful? Surely people would stay at home in the evening instead of coming up for a drink and a curry in the evening if it was pouring with rain. Fewer walkers would be happening to see the signs I’d put up on the paths around the course and we’d miss out on cake sale.
My first drive went straight into the rough. Nothing unusual.
I only want to play at sunrise now. So beautiful.
A charity day filled with people
The weather turned out to be still and warm with sunny intervals. I hear that there were heavy showers in Brighton and Hove, but all we had were a couple of moments of refreshing drizzle. In other words, it was perfect for 17 hours of golf. It was pleasantly cool when we teed off at 4:51am and we were treated to a stunning sunrise. By the time we finished the first 18 holes, at 9am, the course was busy with our seniors. After the second 18th at 2pm, the clubhouse was humming with the sound of people chatting and eating cake. When I came up at the end of the third 18 holes, I found golfing and non-golfing friends enjoying drinks and curry on our lovely terrace. I went back out for my last 9 holes of the day and putted out to cheers and clapping from everyone outside the clubhouse, which was really lovely.
All that was left was to do the draw and announce the winners of the 9 hole competition and of the raffle. 1st, 2nd and 3rd place won rounds for four at the beautiful courses that are the Nevill Golf Club, Piltdown Golf Club and Seaford Golf Club. We had more rounds at Lewes Golf Club and Worthing Golf Club in the raffle, a painting by Erin Burns and a print by local architect and artist Alej Ez, two WalkFit vouchers, tickets for the Theatre Royal, a gorgeous rucksack from Badger clothing, a goodie bag from Brighton gin and a golf lesson with Anthony. Then I basked in the praise and appreciation of the lovely people who were there, I had some curry and went home to take some much-needed rest.
CAKES!
Drumroll…
In the end, we raised over £2,000, split between online donations (£715), cake sale (£235), the raffle (£580), the competition (£410) and the curry (£86). It’s an excellent result, which will make a big difference to the work of Sussex NightStop with young homeless people, so I’m delighted with that. I was hoping that it would be a day for all our members to get together and enjoy, so I was really happy to see people enjoying the cakes, the competition and the curry throughout the day.
I had a fantastic time. I was expecting to suffer from blisters and to get very tired mid-afternoon, but I was completely fine until the last round at 7:30pm, where I faded quite significantly, which showed in my score: over my seven rounds I had 20, 15 (blip, sorry team!), 20, 19, 20, 20 and 15 Stableford points. I had timed the day so Alex and I would have half an hour in between rounds in case a group took longer and also to have a little rest. That meant that after every round I got to sit around, have a cup of tea and a piece of cake and chat with whoever was around. Then off I went to play with the next group. I genuinely can’t think of a better way to spend a day. Tom was right after all! The only slight negative is a touch of golfer’s elbow that started in the last couple of hours. I was supposed to play in a 36 hole competition today, but instead I’m resting to not aggravate my burgeoning injury. Hopefully it’ll go away.
A lovely evening to spend on our terrace
Greater than the sum of its parts
This was the first charity day I’d organised and I kind of made it up by putting together things that I love: people, golf, cake and curry. It turned out all those main elements combined perfectly to maximise earnings: the people who played in the competition all had tea and cake after playing and some of them came back in the evening to have curry while the last group played their round. Other members and non-golfing friends who didn’t play in the competition also came up to enjoy Emily’s curry on our beautiful terrace. And of course all these people milling around throughout the day bought raffle tickets. So all the various elements of the day combined to get to a great amount for Sussex NightStop.
A fantastic team effort
Rarely has a pint been so eagerly anticipated
Of course, I couldn’t have done it on my own and while I was out playing golf, my team was in the clubhouse selling cakes and organising the raffle. Prior to that, my army of bakers had produced said cakes. I also relied on the experience and advice of senior members to work out the logistics of organising a competition on what is already a competition day at the club. I was very lucky to have the support of everyone, from the entire ground and office staff, to the seniors’ Captain and section, which are supposed to have the course to themselves all morning, the club Captain and obviously my own ladies’ section and the lovely Alex! And the Sussex NightStop volunteer was fantastic in sourcing some great prizes for the raffle and making posters to advertise the event.
The charity day was truly a collective effort; my part was to provide the idea and impetus and play a lot of golf, while other people contributed in making it run efficiently. All the hours I spent working out the logistics of it and organising everything were vastly repaid when I walked up the last 18th hole around 9:30pm and saw so many people enjoying themselves outside the clubhouse and cheering as Alex’s last group finished their round. The sense of community and common purpose was overwhelming and at that moment, I couldn’t have been prouder of Brighton & Hove Golf Club.
Would I do something like that again? Yes, absolutely! The only I’d change is that I’d try and have more self-control around the cake table. But they were so delicious!
Climbing up the 18th bank for the 7th and last time of the day
by Céline | Jun 29, 2017 | Captaincy
Me: “I’ve had this brilliant idea for a fundraiser for my charity, Sussex NightStop. How about I ask people to sponsor me to play golf from dawn to dusk on one of the longest days of the year? I could invite people to join me! I could organise a 9 hole competition! We could sell cakes and tea and make a day of it! And then have a big curry and beers in the evening!”
Tom: “Playing from dawn to dusk? How does that differ from a normal day for you? People only sponsor people who do challenging things.”
Me: “It would be challenging! 17 hours of traipsing up and down a hilly course, that’s going to be around 30 miles!”
Tom: “Wouldn’t be much more challenging for you to not play golf all day?”
Me: “Oh so people would donate money to watch me sit outside the clubhouse looking miserable?”
Tom: “I would.”
Tom has a point, but I shall ignore it. Traditionally at Brighton & Hove golf club, the Lady Captain raises money for her charity throughout the year: the big event is a very popular Bridge day in March and then raffles at the Open and other events. I wanted to organise a fundraiser that would be more golfy, so here it is.
Two golfers. 17 hours. 30 miles. Countless lost balls.
The cool dude on the left is Alex. He’s an amazing golfer and he’s agreed to join me. We will tee off at dawn (from 4:51am) and we’ll carry on playing until sunset (9:17pm). We should cover around 30 miles in the day. We’ll be doing 7 rounds of 9 holes and we’ve each invited three people to pay £10 each to join us. We’ll be counting the best two scores and the two teams with the best scores will win a round for four at the Nevill golf club and at Piltdown Golf Club, who kindly donated a voucher, and the third best team some quality wine from my own personal vaulted cellar (well, from under my bed – I live in a small flat). Tee times will be 4:51am, 7am, 9:30am, 12pm, 2:30pm, 5pm and 7:30pm.
We’ll also be selling cake and tea/coffee for £3 from 11am. This is open to anyone at all, walkers, cyclists, dog walkers, anyone who fancies a gorgeous piece of cake while gazing at our magnificent views.
I’ve organised a raffle with some great prizes. Raffle tickets can be bought at the club or fire me a comment here and I’ll get some to you:
And finally, Emily will be serving her famous curry buffet from 6pm (£12, of which £2 go to my charity).
I hope my fundraiser will attract a lot of people to our beautiful club and of course, a lot of money for Sussex NightStop. It should be a fun day, so I hope to see lots of you there.
My Sussex NightStop donation page
by Céline | May 19, 2017 | Captaincy, Rules
No need to play high speed golf. Just be aware of the people around you.
We have a lot of new members, some of which are discovering golf in all its beautiful intricacy. There are so many things to learn when you join a golf club. During our last committee meeting, we tried to work out what we could do to help them get the most out of joining the club and playing golf. We came up with the idea of a welcome pack with the information they’ll need to find their way around. One huge part of the game of golf is etiquette, which all golfers need to learn about. It’s defined as follows by the R and A:
Etiquette is an integral part of the game, defining golf’s core values. It describes the manner in which the game of golf should be played to ensure all players gain maximum enjoyment.
In short, it’s about “respect”:
- Respect for the course – leave the course as you would like to find it by repairing pitch-marks, replacing divots and raking bunkers
- Respect for your fellow players – be sportsmanlike and polite, stay by the green to watch them hole out, and avoid distracting them
- Respect for the game – by knowing the Rules and etiquette of golf
Essentials are deemed to be Care of the course, Keeping pace and Consideration for others. I thought it would be useful to include a short guide on all of them, starting with pace of play. I’m still working on it, as I’m not sure how “formal” the tone should be; this will be discussed with the committee. Also, I want to help beginners without scaring them and I don’t want to alienate experienced players who might see things differently. It’s quite a tricky balancing act, but here’s what I’ve got so far. It’s a starting point, which only covers friendly rounds, as strict rules must be followed in matches and competitions. I’m hoping that feedback will help me improve it.
Pace of play
Summer’s here and the course is getting busy. One of the essential aspects of etiquette on the course is pace of play, which has a knock-on effect on everyone who’s out in the sunshine. This is not about being a great golfer: never forget that nobody cares how well you play, as long as you do it fast. This is the first and last rule in an excellent Golf for Her article titled 10 things to know before your first round ever. The main pace of play indicator is the group in front: as long as you’re keeping up with them, you’re doing fine. If you find yourself regularly struggling to do so, don’t stress! There are few things you can do to speed up and get back on the path of golf righteousness. Follow me, as I give you a few pointers from tee to green.
Have everything ready
Make sure you have all your tools readily accessible: balls, ball marker, pitch fix and a few tees. That way, you’re always ready to take your turn.
Short hitters first
This is not about discriminating against vertically-challenged players. In a friendly round, don’t be too hung up on the order of play. Let the shorter hitters go first, especially if they won’t reach the group in front.
Think about your next shot
As you’re walking to your ball, try and start thinking about you next shot: what club you will use, the hazards you need to avoid, etc. This speeds up the decision process when you get to your ball. Same on the way to the green: as you approach it, pay attention to its general layout to start working out the line of your putt.
You’re not a wildebeest
No need to travel as a pack. Every player should go to her own ball instead of crowding around one ball, then the next, then…
Chatting is great
But hitting the ball is even better! Don’t delay taking your shot because you’re in the middle of a brilliant piece of gossip. Pause, hit, resume conversation.
Don’t take too many practice swings
Most coaches recommend having a pre shot routine to “get in the zone” and focus on your shot. Try and keep yours to a reasonable length.
Hit a provisional ball
Your ball didn’t go exactly in the direction you intended and it might be in trouble? Take a provisional shot so you don’t have to come back to the same spot if you don’t find it. If you’re playing for fun, you can also drop a ball near the place it disappeared.
Look out for your buddies
Try and watch your partners’ shot and to spot where their ball ends up to help them find it quickly. They’ll love you for it, plus this might give you an indication of what might happen to your shot. Maybe you hadn’t realised there was a strong lateral wind. Maybe you hadn’t noticed the bunker on the right. Now you know what to look out for.
Ready? Go!
In a match or a competition, you have to follow the rules when it comes to order of play, but during a friendly round, it’s much quicker to play “ready golf”. This simply means that if you’re ready and it’s safe to do so, take your shot even though it’s not your turn.
Leave your bag in the right place
When you get to the green, have a look at where you’re heading to next and leave the bag so that you can just pick it up on the way to the next tee.
Take all the clubs you need
If you need to chip on to the green, take your putter with you so you won’t need to take unnecessary trips to your golf bag.
No loitering around the green
Don’t stand by the green bemoaning another three putts or filling in your scorecard. This can be done just as satisfyingly at the next tee while someone else is teeing off.
Let the people behind you play through
If, in spite of everything, your pace of play is off, you lose the group ahead of you and the group behind you catches up, let them through. They’ll be happy and you’ll be more relaxed.
More information on the R and A website
Photo credit: Mike Wilson
by Céline | May 1, 2017 | Captaincy
As I’ve stated in an earlier post on improving communications within the ladies’ section, one of my goals as Captain is to grow the women’s section at Brighton & Hove. We’re very small and this season, we’ve struggled to field teams in the two divisions we’ve entered. We started working on this around a year ago, when Lindsay, our club Secretary, was contacted by England Golf to organise an event to encourage women to get into golf. A few of the members got together with her to think up ways of reaching out to women and plan what we wanted to offer. We came up with a two-hour golf taster session and an Academy pack as a first step towards golf club membership. We ran the first couple of sessions last year, then another two sessions recently. Overall it’s been a great success. We learnt a lot along the way and I thought I’d share this information here, so other clubs can find ideas to encourage women to try golf.
Promoting our free Get into golf taster session
Planning a session is one thing, but how do you get women to come up to your club? We used a strategy based on three main tools, which were all successful in different ways.
Good old word of mouth
We all made a conscious effort to mention our Get into golf sessions to whoever cared to listen. We have members who play football, tennis, hockey and we encouraged them to mention them to their sporty friends. Word of mouth is a powerful tool. This is how the majority of our participants heard about us. News travels incredibly fast!
Social media
We used social media, mostly Twitter and Facebook. I created a Facebook event, shared it through the club and my personal account and encouraged our members to share it to their networks. I also spent a whole £5 to boost our post as an experiment. Facebook offers some great tools and I targeted women between 30 and 60 who were into a range of physical activities.
Targeted Facebook event
Facebook engagement statistics
As you can see, a very small investment allowed the post to reach 621 people and got 9 responses. Four of the women who engaged with it came to the taster session. None of them signed to the Academy pack, but they gave us great feedback and I would be surprised if we didn’t see them again. Sometimes, the timing just isn’t right. Perhaps more importantly, they are now aware of us and whenever they decide the time is right to start golf, they’ll know where we are. Also, this raises awareness about Brighton & Hove being a club that welcomes beginners.
Post-event tweet to advertise it further
We also used Twitter to share photos of the event and raise awareness.
A dedicated page on our website
At the beginning of the year, we revamped the Brighton & Hove Golf Club website and I created a page dedicated to our Get into golf taster session for women. It’s very simple, but it’s packed full of the right keywords and is very well ranked by Google. I’ve also made sure that our women’s section page stresses that we welcome beginners. The website turned out to be a great promotion tool as well: it brought us five of the 14 ladies who came to our most recent event.
The session
We had support from the county development officer of England golf and we also are lucky to have a sports development specialist in the section. We put a little team together to plan the two-hour session.
Putting drills at the golf taster session
First hour
It was based on three activities (see the planning document at the bottom of the page):
- 20 minutes on learning the basic mechanics of holding and swinging a club with Anthony, our pro
- 20 minutes on putting games around the practice green
- 20 minutes on chipping into an inflatable target
Second hour
We then wanted to put these three skills together on the course: hitting the ball into the green from a 100 yards, then putting out. We really wanted the beginners to experience what it’s like to be out on part of the course, enjoying the views, the walk and the satisfaction of getting the little white ball in the tiny hole.
In the four sessions that we’ve organised in the last 12 months, we’ve used a variation of this template to suit the weather and numbers. We made sure that a lot of the drills took the form of games. The feedback has been excellent, the participants indicating that it was a good mixture of fun and challenge.
Cake!
It seemed important to us to have the chance to chat with the participants not only during, but also after the sessions. That’s why I asked my army of bakers to produce some delicious goodies to enjoy once we’d put the clubs away. This was a great idea: it allowed us to relax and answer questions about the club, golf and how to progress. We also took that opportunity to give them leaflets about our Academy pack, which offers three months of golf (six rounds of 18 holes or twelve rounds of nine holes) and an individual lesson with our pro for £100.
Follow-up
First golf taster session
When the participants arrived, we asked them to fill in a sheet giving their name, email address and where they heard about us. This is invaluable information, as it allows us to stay in touch with them and also to work out the most efficient ways of reaching out to them. A couple of days after the session, Lindsay emailed all the participants to thank them for coming and included the Academy pack flyer in the email. That’s it. No hard sale. We thought that providing all the information they needed if they wanted to carry on with golf was enough.
We made sure we gave the women who did sign up to the Academy pack two main points of contact (Lindsay and me). That way, they could easily find people to play with. We made sure enough members were available to take them out, show them the course and mark handicap cards if that’s what they wanted. We also encouraged them to sign up to our biweekly clinics with Anthony to improve their technique. And finally, we added them to our WhatsApp group to help them find playing partners.
Conclusion
All this support and follow-up has meant that the majority of women on the Academy pack have progressed to signing up for our one-year membership. We currently have 16 women on the Academy pack and 11 women on the introductory membership, which is an amazing boost for a section which was only 41 strong when we started. Considering that we were hoping for ten new members at the start, this is a great result. I feel like the later events were better, with more people taking up the Academy pack. Maybe we just learnt to run them more efficiently with experience.
Our golf taster sessions have been a key element of the whole strategy, but it’s not the only one. A regular presence on social media, where we celebrate the women’s section’s achievements, also helps to promote it. An awareness that our new members need support is also essential if we want them to enjoy golf and stay. To this end, we’ve organised regular group clinics to help them work on different areas of their game. We also make sure that they know they can join in our competition days even if they don’t put a card in. It’s certainly an involved, long-term endeavour, but it’s the only way to make sure the women’s section at Brighton & Hove continues to thrive. And that’s very important to me.
Please use the comments’ sections to tell me what your section does to attract new members. I’m always keen to learn more on the subject!
Resources
Get into golf taster session flyer
Academy Pack flyer
Get into golf taster session for women: course time
Get into golf taster session for women: putting, chipping, driving activities
