President's Bulletin – November 4th, 2022

Club 50

Tonight, next draw of Club 50 at our Club, 5.00pm, come for a drink.

North East District Men’s Championship

As I said last week, the Championship was planned for Myrtleford later this month - we could not host the event as we could not guarantee a dry course - the event has now been cancelled for the year.

If you wish to play in the NEDGA Mixed event – Wodonga 20^th November, 9.00-9.30am, entries close on the 14^th November.

Annual Meeting

Last week, I said that the Annual Meeting was on the Tuesday 15^th, well the meeting is on Wednesday 16^th, 7.30pm. As I noted there are vacancies on the Committee, please contact me or your Captain if interested. Put your hand up – great to have new faces and ideas on the Committee.

The ladies Annual Meeting to be held next Tuesday following their golf.

Alpine Classic

Planning has commenced for next year’s Alpine Classic. The three Clubs have the option to open the field to over 200 players, which would require each Club to give two days to the Classic. Meeting with Bright and Wangaratta to be held soon.

Great that Peter and Robyn Ternes have agreed again to coordinate the event - thank you both, it is a huge job and we appreciate your commitment to the event.

Men’s Comp Ladies Comp

No competition this week, we always look forward to our Melbourne Cup Day, but we will have to wait until next year. If we do get a fine week, playing the full course, then we could have a ‘Cup Day’ to raise monies and enjoy some social time together, just a thought.

The Course

As it continues to rain, we can throw our hands up in the air, and say, we cannot do much about it. OR CAN WE

One member is on the front foot, John Costello, last Saturday, he put on the gum boots and walked the course. He has produced an excellent report, identifying all the issues re drainage on our course.

He has identified the sources of water impacting our course,

1.Roadways – Myrtleford -Yackandandah Rd

Briggs Lane

Prince Street service road

2.Urban drainage – that flows through the Recreational Reserve (RR)

3.Flood waters – Barwidgee Creek

4.Bynons Paddock

5.Our buildings

6.Surface water

7.Recreational Building and their surface water

8.Motorcycle track

Where do we start with our improvements

Roads

John has met with Alpine Shire and RR and the Shire is going to look at improving and upgrading the drainage along Yack. Rd. and Briggs Lane. This will cost money, will they spend it ? Water from the roads has to run into Bynon’s paddock and back into our course on the seventeen fairway. This drain will have to be upgraded.

RR

Install rainwater tanks to capture water off their rooves. The tanks can be used to control the flow of water going into our system.

Construct an open drain approx. 1 metre deep along the third in horse event area to as far as the motorcycle track and then enter the Golf Club where we are installing new drainage pipes.

Golf Course

Clean out existing surface drains, immediately with working bees - good old shovels.

Look at lowering the level of our dam, maybe a siphon system.

Donkey dick drains on the 1^st,2^nd,3^rd,4^th,13^th,16^th, 17^th and 18^th

Well done, John and a Happy 70^th Birthday for yesterday.

Programme

The programme for the next two weeks:

Teams Event

It is good to see David Clark sourcing names for the forthcoming team’s competition, I hope all members support it.

Teams of 3, names drawn out of a hat, $10 entry, Prize - winners take all, best three scores from 14/11-24/12. 9-hole players- 6 best 6 scores.

Meeting with the Alpine Shire

I was again very disappointed that we missed out again (3 attempts) on funding in upgrading our irrigation system. The last application we employed professional writers who were successful with the Football Club.

For some reason, Golf is considered by some people as an elitist sport! We don’t have a spectator base, we don’t have 100 kids come every weekend to learn how to play – we have 170 members who enjoy the game of golf They reach out into the community to encourage people to get out into the fresh air, improve their health and share the joy of a round of golf. Oh well, we live in hope!

Alpine Shire is developing a master plan for sport in the Shire for the next decade. We must be involved in this masterplan if our Club is to grow.

John C. and I are meeting with the Facilities Manager today.

Recreation Reserve Committee

I attended the monthly meeting of the RR on Wednesday night. It is terrific that the RR and Golf Club are working together on solving the drainage issues on both our course and their Reserve. This could well be a million-dollar project.

The first step is financial support from both organizations to employ an engineer for advice on draining the swamp below the workshop, along our third and their oval and suitable piping along the fourth to the creek.

We have a Committee Meeting next week and no doubt the above financial support will be discussed. The RR have put their money on the table to set things in motion.

The next step is to apply for a grant to employ an engineer to do a full survey and design of drainage on both properties.

With the design, we then can then apply for a huge grant to carry out the project.

Good hitting,

George