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Moving home course... (long thread sorry)

ManchesterGolfer

AKA.... Obi-Wan Ho-Nobi
Jan 4, 2006
3,467
0
I'm considering moving to a new home Club. I'm currently a member of North Manchester Golf Club (North Manchester Golf Club) which is well over 100 years old and has lightening fast traditional greens, you know what the pudits on TV are on about when they talk about wrong sideing yourself playing here. It's a great course with fantastic looking and playing fairways as well as the quick greens. It's a tough test as well, it's at least a couple of shots harder than most of the other clubs in the area. It's not going to be easy to move, infact who am I kidding it's gonna be a wrench to leave, I love the place.

Problem is the club is having financial difficulties and I don't agree with a lot of things that have happened at Council level. We had a standard setup a few years back with a Secretary who ran all the financial side of things and a Steward who runs the club house and does the catering. It works well and I'd say 90% of clubs are setup and ran this way. Problem is a few years back the Council decided that the club needed a change in direction. The Secretary was laid off as the management was restructured to have a Genral Manager who would be in charge of everybody...Steward, Catering, Groundstaff, Pro...everything. To put this plan in action they had to pay the old Secretary off to the tune of £20,000+. The GM's wages are more than the old Secretary's, not exactly sure of how much by but it's an extra expense. Then to top it off the catering was taken away from the Steward as they thought he was making to much money catering for the private functions that happen at the club house as well as the day to day money made from food sales to members, money they thought would be better in the clubs coffers. However the Steward always had a couple of people on the bar so doing food for the members was not a problem as the labour was already on site. The new Chef needed a Waitress so the members of staff needed for the day to day running of the bar and Kitchen doubled from 2 to 4. As far as we can tell the financial side of things have taken a turn for the worse as a result of the changes to the setup.

Instead of admiting that mistakes were made and going back to how things were they decided to lay off a member of the Green staff to cost save. This resulted in another member of the green staff resigning as he wanted job security and it affected all of there moral... so instead of a team of 5 greenstaff, 2 of which were fully qualified, we now have 3. Only one of which is fully qualified and they have taken on two labourer's to help out. It's only been a month or so since this happened and already the effects can be seen on the course. The greens have been noticabley slower and look ropey, the semi rough is up and uneven from one hole to the next. Area's around the par 3's which are normally an even 4-6 inches are all over the place, now they look like your back lawn when you don't mo it for a week or so. We have Draw and Fade bias Tee's that need leveling, at the moment you just choose the appropiate slope for the shot you want to play!

To top it off the course is suronded by a Housing estate so we have a lot of problems with kids on the course. They vary from being a pain in the ass when your playing, shouting abuse for a chase..to pintching a ball or two from the fairway, to causing thousands of pounds worth of vandalism when theres nobody about... and this year they've decided that burning tree's down is the thing to do, real fun! I rekon about 80% of the troublesum kids come via the fence that runs along side the 16th hole. A fence that needs reinforcing or even another fence putting up inside that one like they had in WW1 & 2 in the trenches. Everytime you bring this up you are told there is nothing that we can do about it. I agree to a point that there will always be kids on the course but we don't need to make it easy for them. I personally thought that the GM's #1 priority should have been to reduce the amount of kids on the course and get the course in the best shape possible as a clubs number one asset is it's course..thats why we're members.

It's a real shame but I feel that they have stopped listening to the Membership and try to keep things that effect us a secret. It's not nice to talk about peoples lively hoods in these difficult financial times but personally I think laying off the GM, or down grading him to a part time secretary, laying off his assistant, laying off the Chef and giving catering back to the Steward would have been a far better way of cost saving and getting the Club back on a financial playing feild it can handle, but the members opinions seem to fall upon deaf ears. We need a course to be proud of as our other factilities aren't the best but a great golf course more than makes up for that, especially if we can try to keep the Vandals off.

So the question is do I try to call an EGM and have a long battle ahead of me or do I leave and go to a course that isn't as good but a club which is ran better and value there members opinions more?
 

mddubya

Hybrid convert
Nov 6, 2007
6,029
2
Tough call there Manchester. There is a local Country club nearby that was private. But due to the hard times and dwindling membership they have gone public.

My home course is run horribly, but every time I try to make a suggestion as to how to fix it I am ignored. They were supposed to add holes and enlarge the club house to make it a 18 hole course, but those plans have been put on hold.

I guess what I'm saying is, you're probably better off moving your membership, I seriously doubt you'd have much luck getting them to change anything. At least that is my experience.
 

Clugnut

Gimme some roombas!
Aug 13, 2006
3,423
1
I'm sorry to hear about your situation, MG. I'm sure that it will be a hard decision. Either stay and put up with it, trying to make it better, or move on to other (maybe greener) pastures. I guess it depends on how much you value the course and the membership there.
 

FATC1TY

Taylormade Ho' Magnet
May 29, 2008
2,878
0
I'd say let them have your concerns, lay them out, explain the problems. Tell them your not alone with these concerns, and ask what their plan is.

At that point, you could wait and see, or get a feel for what they might intend to do, based on your conversation with the GM.

Make it known, you will leave because your don't feel it's worth it to you anymore. Make it known that OTHERS will leave because of the dissatisfaction. If they are hurting for money, if members leave, the income is gone. The club struggles and/or closes, or goes public.

Lay it out there, you have nothing to lose, even if you consider leaving.
 

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