We hope everyone is keeping well and continues to be in good health.
The latest update from the government on Monday has given us a glimmer of hope that we may be able to resume golf in some form in the next few weeks but again as it currently stands the advice from the Scottish Government remains the same, Stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives.
We saw the excitement build hoping to get back playing potentially this week and saw a few tee bookings being made but hopefully the first Minister will provide more clarity on Thursday as promised.
With the above in mind and all the current uncertainties it was agreed at last night’s committee meeting that all booking of tee times have been disabled until further notice and will be made active once we have a few more definitive answers from the government and governing bodies. This is true of the APP and the newly launched website. Details of the latest guidance can be found at the following links:
The time in the coming weeks will allow us to get a few things progressed. It will allow the green-keeping staff to continue to ready the course for play. We should all congratulate the green staff and Jim in particular for the current course condition as its looking immaculate and in first class order considering Jim has been on his own since the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak. This additional delay also provides them time to collate a plan on how we get back on the course in a safe and efficient manner.
It also gives us time to implement further enhancements off the course also, we have seen the launch of the new website which we believe will provide great benefit to the club and accelerate and grow our social media presence
We also plan to have the “Member Accounts” live soon which will assist us greatly in the post lockdown environment where if permission allows we can potentially be setup for competition play without the use of the clubhouse facilities which as I’m sure you would all agree may be closed for some time. This also benefits with the reduction of cash handling etc. Details of how to top-up etc. will follow in due course once they are active in the system.
The “Corbie Links lotto” is getting closer to launch after receiving the necessary licensing yesterday and are currently finalising the bank details and will announce more details in due course.
I’d like to finish on a more sombre note in that as has been previously mentioned in updates, the club stands to lose a substantial 5 figure sum this financial year due to the impact of COVID-19 despite the mitigations that we have already put in place. Those losses may continue into the next financial year if both the course and clubhouse facilities are not able to operate to normal capacity by the end of September.
We have applied for and been refused two grants that were potentially available to Golf clubs, one being the business grant from the government which we didn’t qualify for due to our rateable value and the latest one where an application was submitted for assistance from the Creative, Tourism & Hardship fund which again came to no avail.
It’s unfortunate in that when golf stops the bills and expenditure do not. We still have many costs to the club in terms of course maintenance, utility bills, wages for the 2 staff that have not been furloughed and several other areas which all require the money to be spent daily. It is likely that once the course re-opens we will need to bring back more of the greens staff but will generate little additional income if visitors are not able to travel or use the clubhouse facilities.
We are not in the fortunate enough position to have an endless supply of finance and as already described latest forecasting.
We had planned to make several improvements over the coming year, which have had to be placed on hold or cancelled entirely.
It is to this end we are reminding all members that donations are readily welcomed to help us with the potential deficit we face.
It’s possible with a decent level of support from the membership that we can potentially both lessen the deficit faced and make some improvements to the facility as a whole.
Stay safe & Stay healthy
Stephen Thomson
Captain
On behalf of the Committee