Dear Members

Little did we imagine when we closed our bar/restaurant on Saint Patrick’s Day that we would be in a similar situation at Christmas time.

Unfortunately the pandemic is still with us and we as Council members have had to make important decisions on a daily basis, one of the most recent being the decision regarding the closure of the bar/restaurant during the Christmas period.  As you are aware restaurants serving drink were permitted to open but “wet” pubs were not. We looked at the health and safety implications for the members and staff and concluded that it would be impossible to open whilst adhering to the government regulations.

Council continues to pursue all government grants available to golf clubs in order to provide some income streams while the bar/restaurant remains closed. We qualify for government support schemes for loss of bar revenue and although this is a slow process, we expect to have a positive result in the near future. We have also taken care to regularly scrutinise our expenditure and cancel any services that are not required when we are closed.

We have recently sent out notice of Ladies’, Men’s and Joint AGM’s as is normal at this time of year.  Due to government regulations we are unable to proceed with the AGMs at this time, so we have decided to postpone them for now. Our constitution allows for this. We will however accept any nominations or motions that have already been sent to the respective secretaries and we will forward the new dates for the AGMs when that decision has been made.

Members may have heard that we had a break-in recently in the greenkeeper’s shed. Two leaf blowers and a strimmer were stolen. We will try to reinforce security around and inside the shed. In the meantime we ask members to be vigilant and if anyone sees any suspicious activity please report it to any council member and we will forward the information to the police who are investigating the break-in and robbery. This will be particularly important while the course is closed during the imminent lockdown.

In conclusion I would like to thank all our members who continue to adhere to the social distancing rules etc. around the club and on the course. So far this has kept Covid at bay. I want also to thank all our members and staff who have helped out in any way to keep our club running during this difficult year.

On behalf of Council I wish all our members and staff a happy, healthy and safe Christmas. Hopefully 2021 will be kinder to us all.

Hugh McManus (Chairperson)