Bedfordshire County Golf Partnership

Leighton Buzzard Golf Club Golfmark Case Study

The BCGP would like to thank General Manager, Duncan Mutton for putting together this invalauble report.
Congratulations to you and the team at Leighton Buzzard on your achievement.

The journey to GolfMark:

Like many clubs, when GolfMark was introduced we thought we could easily achieve the requirements and duly contacted our RDO. A meeting was held and boy did we find out that things would have to change! It looked like we had no chance of achieving GolfMark status; there were hurdles everywhere. So we made a decision that we would abandon the immediate quest but start to implement some of the ideals and keep the records you need to submit.

Over the next couple of years we changed a lot of how we operate from recruitment of staff and volunteers to the way in which junior members were welcomed into the fold.

18 months ago Mike Smith our Junior Organiser, Maurice Campbell our PGA Pro and I sat down and looked at where we were. Surprisingly we realised that many of the hurdles that had been there were cleared easily we thought we'd progressed almost to the stage where we would meet the criteria so called in the new RDO Steve Peet. Glory be! We found out that we had indeed come a long way. Steve advised on where we would need to make minor changes to processes and procedures and we arranged for him to come back in 2 months to undertake a formal assessment.

That time came and it was great to see the smile on Steve's face when he advised that we had more than satisfied the criteria for GolfMark status and better yet he thought we were close to achieving High Achiever Status. Sadly that wasn't to be and we decided that rather than rush into trying to reach the standards required, we would take our time and make sure things were right so that when it comes to the formal review in a couple of years time all of the requirements will be second nature to us.

Duncan Mutton
General Manager

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Stockwood Park Golf Centre Golfmark Case Study

The BCGP would like to thank PGA Professional, Simon Wagstaff for putting together this invalauble report.
Congratulations to you and the team at Stockwood Park on your achievement.

Introduction:

After many months Stockwood Park Golf Centre were delighted to hear on 24/04/09 that we had attained the standard required to achieve GolfMark incorporating Sport England's Clubmark accreditation. It became apparent during the initial meeting with our EGU representative that to achieve GolfMark would require a lot of hard work and a thorough analysis of our current procedures.

Although initially it seemed a daunting prospect we tackled one area at a time and with much needed (and much appreciated) help and guidance from Steve Peet, our Regional Development Officer, we steadily made progress.

Course Background:

Stockwood Park Golf Centre is a local authority course run by Active Luton, which is a non-profit making Sports and Leisure Trust operating many sports and leisure facilities in the Luton area. Also situated at the centre is the Kevin Duggan Golf Academy, which receives funding from various sources including Sport England and The Ryder Cup European Tour Development Trust, funding which allows us to deliver golf sessions to underprivileged and disadvantaged children.

We are already very active in promoting golf to schoolchildren in Luton delivering Breakfast/Lunchtime/After School and curriculum golf sessions, which led towards us very recently hosting a Tri-Golf and Golf Extreme festival held over 3 days attended by over 300 school children. We also work with British Blind Sport regularly delivering golf sessions to Visually and Physically impaired children from further afield. Having Golfmark is therefore essential to us, giving us the confidence to step up our schedule and gives schools/parents confidence in our ability and our commitment to the programmes.

Problems:

Due to the thoroughness of the EGU/EWGA and the criteria set to achieve GolfMark the main problem seemed to be the amount of work that would be involved and therefore it would have to be a co-ordinated effort from different departments of the club. Having said that we found that Active Luton themselves had been very thorough in the implementation of Child Protection and Equity policies and a lot of the required procedures were already in place and just needed tailoring to be more golf specific.
Many of the procedures we complied with but found that we didn't actually have in print, for example girls and boys having equal rights regarding competition entry, no minimum age for junior membership and juniors being offered full membership upon reaching 18, obviously this has now been amended.
Most importantly we found that regular meetings between relevant departments, updating progress, ensured that nothing was missed and everyone was working towards a common goal. The whole process was very much a team effort.

Summary:

Looking forward we will now be able to promote the game to more youngsters and ladies and the extra funding now available to us will allow the delivery of free/subsidized coaching programmes targeting people who would possibly not usually try the game.

We are very lucky to have a 9 hole academy course at our centre which we often use for junior coaching and internal junior competitions but have plans to open up our current academy competitions to hold Open events. Having GolfMark will give us the credibility to be able to host such events and parents will now have the peace of mind knowing that they are leaving their children in a safe and child friendly environment.

Finally all parents, juniors, new golfers and indeed staff now have a much clearer picture of what is expected of them whilst at the club which can only lead to a far happier and more efficiently run Golf Centre.

Simon Wagstaff
PGA Golf Professional.

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Tilsworth Golf Club Golfmark Case Study

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What work did the GolfMark Accreditation Entail?

Having discussed the possibility of working towards the GolfMark Accreditation with the Committee, it was agreed to aim for a December, 2009 completion date. After completing the initial application forms on line, a straight forward task, the hard copy and GolfMark file followed shortly afterwards. It was decided that appointing a work party would be the best way forward. The team consisted of the General Manager, Immediate Past Captain, Head Professional, Ladies Vice Captain, and two of our Junior Organisers. Each person was designated certain tasks and on completion this information was collated together into the GolfMark file.

John O' Gaunt, like many other Golf Clubs, already had a lot of the paperwork on file from thriving Pee Wee, and Junior Sections. What GolfMark enabled us to focus on was refining and consolidating this information. John O' Gaunt decided to produce a new Junior Welcome Pack together with a new Junior Policy Document. This covered all the legal aspects and supplied most of the information required for the High Achiever Award. These two documents have now been signed off by the General Committee and are currently being used by our Junior Section. The equity statement will be reviewed every quarter as the Junior Section moves forward. From start to finish this work was completed in under four months - well ahead of the target date set.

Some Areas where the Club will Benefit:

• Financial Support is available from those clubs with Golf Mark status - visit the Golf Mark Website for further details.
• Recognition locally and nationally as a golf club club that strives to encourage Junior coaching in a safe environment.
• Recognition from local schools.
• A more focussed and structured infrastructure to facilitate junior progression into the general membership.

I am very happy that John O' Gaunt Golf Club can now be nationally recognised as a junior and beginner friendly golf club and that the EGU/ EWGA are fully committed to supporting our GolfMark clubs regionally and Nationally.

In closing I would like to thank Steve Peet, our regional EGU officer, for his support and assistance during the GolfMark process, and to the John O' Gaunt Team. To any Secretaries / Managers working within Golf Clubs, the way Forward for Junior golf in the region /nationally is to start with a set of goals and targets that are achievable, Golf Mark Accreditation gives you that and more.

If anyone would like copies of our Junior Handbook or Policy Document (which may ease some of the work that is required for GolfMark Accreditation) then please contact me directly on 01767 260 360 I would be happy to forward them to you.

Check out the GolfMark website and get on board !! www.golfmark.org  

Simon Davis
General Manager
John O' Gaunt Golf Club

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Mowsbury Golf Club Golfmark Case Study

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