Dear Members,

Almost three months have passed since the 2023 annual results were reported to you at the AGM. The 2024 pennants season is underway, with an early pennant win to the Men’s South 4BBB Red senior team. The Women’s Championship has been won by Ruby Cotton, the men’s by Ethan Lim and, the juniors’ by Finn Simpson. Well done to everyone who participated.

I appreciate this is quite a long update, but I want to address the big picture. The General Manager, Course Superintendent, House Manager, responsible Directors and I will provide shorter messages updating specific matters, on occurrence.

Governance. There has been one change on the Board, with Ray Hince being appointed to fill the casual vacancy in the position of Captain and Director of Golf. I am very pleased to have an experienced and proven Director like Ray on the Board. Many of you would remember that Ray was previously the Course Director during the very successful reticulation project and, that he also initiated the greens’ turf replacement project that will be completed this year.

The Commissioner has ratified the Special Resolutions approved by the Members at the AGM. The changes to the Constitution are now effective and consequential changes will be made to the By-laws. A significant governance change arising from these amendments is the removal of the House Director and House committee from the Constitution. Our House Manager, Darry Wall, and his team have admirably risen to the challenge of additional responsibility.

Action has been taken on two matters arising from the AGM. Specific references to COVID 19 have been removed from the By-laws and, thanks to a suggestion by Ray Hince, a valid process is being put in place to recognise the Foundation members who remain at the Club. 

Strategy. The Club’s Strategic Plan was updated in April and is posted on the website for the information of the Members. It is a living document and is under regular review.

The plan lays out the Club’s strategic direction and priorities and is the foundation of the Club’s operational plans. The strategic goals form the basis for the annual budget and targets, which include:

  • Funding for future infrastructure projects.
  • Budget guidelines for prices and annual fee variations.
  • Members’ services.
  • Course and clubhouse development plans.
  • The promotion of golf across all demographics.
  • Membership targets and members’ guests.
  • Legislative and financial obligations.
  • Human resource practices.
  • The environment.

 Finance. So far this year the Club is ahead of budget, is in a strong position to repay its loans, procure approved capital items like the final stage of the greens’ replacement project, course machinery, the cottage renovation and kitchen equipment and, to build a fund for future infrastructure projects. A Future Infrastructure Fund (FIF) will be essential if the Club is to fund major course and clubhouse works in the future

As the Club found when it quarantined three years of operating surpluses to fund the $1.47M (ex GST) reticulation project, self-funding future projects is a far more cost-effective use of the Club’s revenue than it is to make capital and interest repayments on loans. By the time they have been repaid in 2028, the $3M in loans that funded the 2001 clubhouse renovation, second buggy shed and, carpark works will have cost the Club some $6.5M in capital and interest repayments. The average annual cost was over $230,000 per year, which was a millstone around the Club’s neck that precluded other major infrastructure improvements for decades.

The Club’s access to loans is mostly constrained to ‘supporting loans’ from our landlord, the City of Melville. These loans have historically been at fixed interest rates based on relatively high State Treasury rates. The reason for this is that the Club has no assets that may be pledged as collateral in case of defaults on the repayment of loans from other trustworthy lenders.

For these reasons, the Board is looking at repurposing the Non-Refundable Capital Contribution (NRCC) as the current loan nears the end of its term. The intent is to use some of the NRCC to help build and maintain a Future Infrastructure Fund like those in place at most other private golf clubs in Perth.

The Board will keep the Members informed as the policy underpinning an FIF is developed in more detail.

Membership. The new membership and fee structure approved by the Members in 2019 continues to underpin strong financial performance. The Club has well over 1200 members in total for the third consecutive year, including a consistent number of playing members. 

Like every golf club in Australia, we would like to see more women playing members and are continuing to promote these memberships in the marketplace. If you know any women or girls who are interested in golf, please tell them about the Club or bring them along for a social game or clubhouse event.

The Match committee is also starting work on a Juniors’ Development Program. This will be done in conjunction with the renegotiation of the Professional’s contract which is due later this year. The aim is to establish a sustainable program for mentoring and nurturing junior golfers, that will be more enduring than past efforts.

The only potentially detrimental side effect of strong membership numbers is full fields with longer waiting lists for some competitions. While the booking waiting lists work very well, the following management tools are available to help alleviate long waiting lists on some competition days:

  • Restricting the number of invitation days (the Club has done this).
  • Tee time booking/cancellation policies (the rules about ghosting on time sheets are in place but, every member needs to remove their name from booking sheets as soon as they know they will not be playing).
  • Provisional membership booking restrictions (these are in place and restrict some new members’ booking lead times to four days).
  • Nomination fees (these are in place to slow down the recruitment of some playing membership categories).
  • Membership waiting lists (these are in place for some categories and can be expanded if necessary).

Golf. The Club has a competition on every day of the week, with more than 50,000 competition rounds played a year. The regular wear and tear on the course are managed very well by the course staff. But we do not need to make their job harder, or leave poor playing conditions for other Members, by not taking care of the course ourselves.

Please be vigilant in properly repairing divots and pitch marks, and correctly raking bunkers. This is good golfing etiquette and is the responsibility of every Member and guest who use our course. It also helps our course maintenance team who continue to be frustrated by the lack of care shown by a small percentage of members.

In addition to the Club’s on-line induction program, the Board will be introducing a Provisional booking restriction for all new playing Members until such time as they have attended a short ‘course care’ session run by the Professional. This new service will be part of the upcoming renegotiation of the Professional’s contract.

Our high course usage is carefully managed to ensure enough time for maintenance. While the Course Superintendent has adequate maintenance time in most weeks, there will be occasions when golf must give way to extra maintenance time. When this arises, social golf will be restricted to allow extra time for specific maintenance jobs.

Course and grounds. As soon as the reticulation system was replaced in 2022, it became viable to resurface the old greens with a better performing turf (Bent 007). The greens’ work will be completed later this year. The wonderful outcome from this very cost-effective project is the result of good planning by past Boards and, the exceptional work done by Dane McBride and his course maintenance team.

The strategic priority for the course is to increase variety between the holes and, make the course more interesting to play. Now that the new irrigation system is in place, this work will proceed along the lines of the Ross Watson master plan. Secondary to this work is improving course aesthetics, when that is affordable. Future work on the course will include:

  • Continuing to refine the new reticulation system.
  • Finishing the greens project this year.
  • Building a new clubhouse cart path and replacing existing paths (planned for this year).
  • Replacing and repairing paths on the course.
  • Levelling Tee boxes and improving the durability of their turf.

Clubhouse and related buildings. The strategic concept for the clubhouse and related buildings is to:

  • Renovate the caretakers’ cottage to meet our WA landlord responsibilities. This is underway.
  • Renovate the men’s locker room, then the women’s locker room.
  • Move the Professional shop to give it better visibility of the course and practice facilities. This may include an undercover training area.
  • Move the main bar forward slightly to create more workspace for the bar staff.
  • Increase the size of parts of the lounge to improve its capacity to simultaneously cater for both the Members and viable external events. As every private golf club can attest, external events are essential to the food and beverage business unit and, the Members need adequate space when there is an external event underway.
  • Improve visibility over the course, especially the view over the 1st tee and the 18th
  • Renovate the carpark and entrance way. This may include an electronic gate to better control access to the property.

The Professional shop and clubhouse work is part of a concept design and order-of-magnitude costs being developed for the Club. This initial concept, once agreed by the Board, will be made available for Member consultation. Subject to feedback (and costings) this would then be the basis for commissioning a detailed design and Council approval.

Capital expenditure priorities. All the major course and clubhouse works noted above cannot be done at once. This would not be practical or affordable. They will be given priorities and phased using the Boards established system of Capital Expenditure Priorities over the 1/3/7 years forecast period. The Board will follow past practice and use Member surveys to help establish the priorities for each of the jobs, or packages of jobs.

Suggestions and complaints from Members. As you would all know, any suggestions or complaints should be sent to the General Manager, Matt Espie, in the first instance. He and the Board always appreciate polite and well thought out correspondence that not only identifies a shortfall but also proposes a practical solution.

One excellent suggestion was to change the early fees payment initiative to reward more than just one Member. The preferred option was confirmed by a Members’ survey and implemented last year. The benefit now is that four Members now receive a 25% discount on their next year’s subscription fees, if they pay before 31 December. I encourage all Members to communicate along these lines. 

We are all very lucky to be Members of Melville Glades. Please enjoy your golf.

Mark Bonser
President