Minutes of Members Forum November 29th 2025, 4-6pm
Introduction
- Welcome & Thanks: Management opened the meeting by welcoming attendees and expressing gratitude to all participants for attending. Appreciation was extended for the many ways members share feedback already, whether through informal conversations, constructive notes in the customer service book, committee attendance or encouragement to staff.
- Value of Feedback: It was emphasized that member feedback adds real value and is greatly appreciated. Attendees were encouraged to continue sharing thoughts and ideas through whatever channel works best for them.
- Invitation to Members Forums: Management highlighted the opportunity for members to join upcoming Members Forums. These gatherings are intended to be positive, constructive, and enjoyable occasions to engage directly with management.
- Purpose of Forums: Forums were described as complementary to existing committees and feedback mechanism's, not a replacement. They are being introduced to broaden the members’ voice and strengthen the community. They are forward-looking, focused on the future.
- Commitment to Community: Management reaffirmed their commitment to listening to ideas, discussing them collaboratively, and ensuring PRGC remains a place where golf and friendship thrive
Attendees:
We had a powerful set of voices from the membership discussing pre published agenda items.
For the membership: Roger Meakes (Captain Emeritus), John White (Friday Mixed Stableford founder and leader), Dave Mackenzie (Leader of the WAGS LY), David Orford (Seniors Captain LY), Andy Hall (All Winners Winner 2025), John Tubb (Proprietor and plays Sat and Wednesdays), Luke Tubb (lowest handicapper in the club) and Brad Bunce (Relatively new member). For the management: Sarah Tietjen (Clubhouse manager), Luke Viney (Pro Shop Manager), Mark and Gary Tubb (Directors).
Apologies:
John North: "Good evening Gary, I must apologise but I will not be attending the first members meeting tomorrow. I am impressed by the club’s progress over the past season and I’m sure all members will agree."
Graham Blackwell: Confirmed that he will be leading the WAGS next year but was unable to stay for the meeting
Minutes
The management thanked all of the attendees for being so generous with their time and for their contributions. The tone and spirit of the meeting appeared to be positive and constructive.
Competitions:
The Pro Shop manager highlighted a small drop in participation in monthly Club Medals and Stablefords (19 entrees down year on year).
He also highlighted the opportunity for both members and management to re-engage existing members and encourage new members to participate. His research showed that these competitions are genuinely open, with broad chances to succeed.
- Stablefords: 22 unique winners in the last 27 events.
- Medals: 14 unique winners in the last 16 events.
What the Pro Shop is Doing:
- Encouraging participation:
- Handicap & competition training within new member induction: Ensures new members understand how to participate right away.
- Emphasizing fun, camaraderie, and the chance to win.
- Clear eligibility rules — make clear how accessible the competitions are to enter
- Supporting the introducing of new member led competition formats: eg enabling players who cannot normally play on a Friday or Saturday to still participate in a weekend competition and qualify for the All Winners. The introduction of the Sunday 'Champs' Stableford was discussed. It was agreed that the tighter the time frame over which a competition is played, the fairer / more equal the playing conditions are for competitors. A competition spread over 3 days might have rain on one day, high wind on the next and calm dry weather on the 3rd. The logic of having 3 separate Club Monthly comps on Friday, Saturday and Sunday was accepted to heighten the chances of 'equality of conditions' for participants.
- Promoting Board comps and eligibility early
The Pro Shop will be promoting the Club Board competitions sooner and making clear for members, the eligibility rules to enter. This should maximise the chances of members being able to enter them should they wish to.
Point raised: An important point was raised about how people have been introduced to comps in the past ie via roll ups like the Grumpies. It was agreed that this remains an important role for the existing members to introduce the idea of comp entry to new participants. In short, any and every opportunity to introduce new people into competitions whether via the clubhouse or membership should be encouraged.
Some questions regarding competitions raised by the Pro Shop:
1) Level of interest in mixed comps - men and women?
The California Cup and RyderHeim mixed comps were cancelled by the members committee last year. The level of interest in the two comps for 2026 had been raised prior to the meeting with the Ladies Comp Secretary and feedback on the California Cup and Ryderheim will follow in due course. There were no ladies present at the forum so the Pro Shop will await feedback and perhaps support by putting the question directly to all of the ladies and men via email at some point.
In principle the management are big fans of growing mixed golf.
Point raised: The success of the innovative Friday Mixed Stableford, founded by John White, which opened a weekday competition to seniors, non seniors, men and women was highlighted. As was the fact that as of last week, the Tuesday Seniors were also promoting the fact that their doors were open to this broader catchment - including the opportunity for mixed golf. We are awaiting confirmation of the new name of the group.
2) Saturday and Sunday comps - pre registration sheets?
The challenge was raised by the Pro Shop that a Saturday Comp had been set up for the other Saturdays outside of the Monthly Saturday Club Comps, but there was currently no pre registration or 'intent to play' registered prior to play and cards entered after play was discretionary. This falls short of the WHS requirements. It was agreed that a sign up sheet would be printed to enable pre registration for all Saturday Comps and Sunday Comps from now on whether it is a Monthly Club Comp or one of the Saturdays in between. Once pre registered in this way, cards must be entered. This new system will be monitored carefully and feedback pushed back into the forum.
3) Rolling on a comp. when missed due to weather?
Key learning from the leadership of the Tuesday and Friday comps is that if the weather is bad for a Club Monthly, they roll the comp over to the next smartest day. This will also happen now with the Weekend Comps.
The Saturday and Sunday Stableford Comps cancelled for Nov 29th and 30th due to weather have been rolled, with agreement of the GK team to Dec 6th and 7th.
4) Eligibility transparency - the Spring /Summer Board Knockouts tend to creep up on us and for some it is too late to get enough cards in - answer = more notice and clarity on eligibility rules
The Pro Shop will be circulating details of the Board Knockouts asap pre Xmas
5) Financial transparency £1 to members club funds -100% of rest to cash prizes. None of this money goes to the Management.
Each of the sign up sheets and ads for comps should detail how much is paid for the comps and where the money goes. Members should know the money is either going into a members pot for cash prizes, or to the Members Club Treasurer to pay for board engraving or trophies etc.
6) Medals versus Stablefords - per tradition the Club Calendar includes medals for the summer in addition to Stablefords. There will continue to be a club monthly Stableford for each month weather willing.
NB Medals are slower than Stableford- so there are some implications on course congestion. Timing of rounds to be more carefully monitored moving forward as part of congestion management plans
7) Minimum number of people playing - for it to be deemed a club comp. 4? 6 players?
The suggestion from the outgoing Handicap Secretary was that a minimum of 6 people would be required for the Monthly Club competitions to be deemed valid and there were no arguments to this suggestion from the forum.
8) Barcilon Ladies 2025 - just 5 entries - Wednesday would increase inclusivity?
There were no ladies present and this matter will be picked up with the ladies separately.
9) Increasing inclusivity of Mens' Barcilon eg single day
There was strong support from the forum for the comp moving to a single day (Saturday) to max inclusivity. Further discussions to take place regarding the format of the Saturday Comp
Other??
Point Raised The opportunity to actually get a medal rather than just cash for Medal winners. Also the idea of a 1st Cap ie medal or some form of trophy recognition for winning their first Monthly Medal or Stableford. These thoughts resonated strongly with the forum and will be explored
Handicaps
The Pro Shop detailed how getting a new handicap is now part of the onboarding process for new members.
-
- Pre-registering
- Correct card completion - electronic and paper
- Card verification and WHS entry
- Entering a competition for the first time
- In short, the first 3 cards are managed with the new member rather than separately by the handicap committee and are the practical aspect of their training
- It was mentioned that this training was expanding into a New Members pack which will supersede the current new Members FAQ on the website.
A brief discussion took place regarding the WHS position that a marker need not be a member or have a handicap. The management view was that whilst they could see that this was reasonable in terms of encouraging the motivational side of having a handicap - the club should have some control over how a handicap generated like this should be treated from a competition entry perspective. The view shared and what appeared to be accepted as reasonable by the group was:
- it should be rare that a new member cannot find another member with a handicap to play with and the clubhouse will do what they can to help
- when this exceptional circumstance occurs, eg 2 members join together, want a handicap, play at an inconvenient time or do not want to play with other people initially, the new training on card marking etc covers both player and marker
- we will flag these members in our system and should they enter a competition where 3 cards enable eligibility eg a monthly stableford, they can enter their first one for fun, experience and card entry, but not for qualification or money.
- the pro shop helpfully demonstrated that the initial 5 cards submitted for handicap purposes always look at potential scores rather than averages to make it fair for both the new handicapper and competitors.
- First 3 cards = WHS takes the lowest score of the 3 and takes off 2 additional shots
- After 4 cards = WHS takes the lowest score of the 4 cards and takes off an additional 1 shot
- After 5 cards = WHS uses the lowest score of all 5 cards
Two questions:
- when will we receive feedback from the AGM? - ANSWER - we have been informed that minutes would likely be sent out w/c December 1st.
- what decision making powers does the forum have? - ANSWER - this is an additional vehicle through which members can hear and question management thoughts / plans and have an influence on them. The purpose is as per the introductory section - to be complementary to, not replace other opportunities for members to voice their views. As per the first forum, there are likely to be some points that the management would like a view on and having such a broad church of members present will help speed good, timely and member centric decisions.
NB It is clear that circa 80-90% of golfers just want to rock up, meet and play golf with their friends. They want a well run club: a well maintained course, great customer service and the ability to improve their golf through coaching. They expect us to be fully compliant with our affiliation with England Golf, which we are.
We are immensely grateful to all those members who volunteer their time and positive contributions to help PRGC and its members maximise their fun and enjoyment.
The meeting ended at 6pm as scheduled and the management were grateful for the attitude displayed at the meeting, which was in keeping with the spirit set out in the introduction and for the positive comments volunteered by some of the participants afterwards. Next forum date to be socialised asap and will include agenda items not covered in the first forum - including the work done on Saturday am course congestion for the first forum and any questions relating to the new Policy Section of the Members Section which includes detail on club governance, members code of conduct, safeguarding, GDPR and many more policies which align ourselves with England Golf.
A huge thanks once again to all the forum attendees
