New Captain's Message
Message from the 2024/25 Captain - Paul Johnson
Dear Members,
Well, the AGM is now behind us and I am now the Captain of Formby Golf Club. Wow! What an incredible honour; it is truly very humbling to write to you all as the Captain of our great club. Thank-you to the Past Captains who have entrusted me to represent you. I have already thrown myself into the role wholeheartedly and will continue in that vein for the next 12 months.
As I said at the AGM, I see the role of Captain as one which provides continuity from one Captain to the next. And our Immediate Past Captain, David Hopkins, has certainly left me with a range of important initiatives to keep me busy! That is a testament to the huge amount of work he has undertaken in the last year, during which he has worked tirelessly on our behalf.
Thank-you for all your hard work and for leaving me with a great platform on which to continue working on the objectives laid-out in the Club’s Strategic Plan.
I see the role of Captain as being split into two main areas. The first is the playing and social side of the role and getting to know as many of our members as possible out on the links and at the great number of dinners and events we host. If you see my name on the tee sheet on a Saturday morning, I would love for you to add your name and join me. Not least because it would be more than a little embarrassing to tee off on my own!
I am also looking forward to the Captain / Pro challenges and dates have been published. Please contact Andrew if you fancy your chances!
Being Captain means I get to join the Society of Liverpool Golf Captains, and play regularly with 26 other Captains at clubs across the region. Lots of golf and lots of dinners! I am looking forward to it immensely. Formby is held in very high regard by the clubs which form the Society and I am looking forward to representing our club and ensuring this continues.
The other key role of being Captain is working with Council and Staff to ensure our club continues to be well managed and which continues to provide our members with a world-class environment to play golf and to socialise. We members at Formby Golf Club are very lucky. We have great staff. We have an iconic clubhouse with superb facilities. And we have a track which is the envy of the golfing world.
To maintain our standing we cannot stand still and we have much work to do so we may maintain and improve what we already do so well. We have assembled a Council which is talented, enthusiastic, hard-working and they always put the needs of the club first.
As all members will by now know, Council identified 10 high priority projects during the tail-end of 2023, which are estimated to cost in the region of £1.6m. At the moment, we generate an annual discretionary budget of about £200,000 (after we deduct all our running costs from our revenues) with which to tackle these projects. The obvious conclusion is that it will take 8 years to deliver them all if we carry on as we are, and that is before all the projects we do not yet know about rise to the surface!
The challenge has been laid down to think of new ways of generating additional revenue, so we can increase our annual discretionary spending, and deliver more of these projects more quickly.
With this in mind, we are now focussed on three key areas:
1. Reviewing and implementing changes in our operating model to reduce costs, where we believe we can save in excess of £100,000 per annum without impacting service levels.
2. Reviewing international membership. Working with MEC and a prominent overseas member, we believe that a new or amended International category should be implemented to provide international members (especially those from outside Europe) with rights and subscriptions which are similar to those of a full member. With 30 vacancies already available for such members and confidence they can be filled, we believe we can raise significant short-term and ongoing annual revenues which will help us in our bid to raise new capital and begin implementing, at a much greater pace, the backlog of priority projects.
3. In 2026, The Open returns to Royal Birkdale and with it comes a large number of visiting golfers who are on organised tours, enjoying corporate hospitality or travelling under their own steam. If we were to increase our normal July revenues by 3.5 times, as Wallasey did last year, we would generate over £500,000 over an 11 day period. To this end, we intend to increase the number of visitor tee-times during The Open period whilst being very conscious of providing ample tee times to our members.
If we are successful in raising the capital as described, we can begin the process of spending it on the course and clubhouse, for the benefit of our members now, and for the generations which will follow.
The immediate priorities are a new fully equipped half-way house, a new water storage tank and completing the irrigation works on the course.
I am aware of Members’ disappointment that the irrigation system around the golf course needs further investment, driven by our desire to take us to the next level with links features, more run-off areas, fewer shale paths and an increased number of grass paths.
As you will know, over the last couple of years, we have installed a new pressurised course main pipe providing better coverage to fairways and tees and ensuring water resources are not wasted.
Most of the greens are served by sprinkler systems which are over 30 years old and which need to be replaced with modern, multi-directional sprinkler heads and pipework which is more efficient and able to deliver the water where we most need it.
The lack of irrigation in some areas and lack of modern irrigation in others is the single-most factor in explaining bare, dry and worn turf from green to tee and tee to fairway, lack of growth and the wastefulness in replacing large amounts of turf every winter.
We simply are not presenting our course as well as we can due to the lack of modern irrigation in many areas. Finally, it is important that the irrigation system has sufficient capacity to meet the needs of the Club now but also in the future and why a larger water tank is required.
We have a lot of work to do and I will work tirelessly on your behalf to keep us on the right path and to deliver as many clubhouse and course improvements as I can.
Paul Johnson
Captain 2024
Well, the AGM is now behind us and I am now the Captain of Formby Golf Club. Wow! What an incredible honour; it is truly very humbling to write to you all as the Captain of our great club. Thank-you to the Past Captains who have entrusted me to represent you. I have already thrown myself into the role wholeheartedly and will continue in that vein for the next 12 months.
As I said at the AGM, I see the role of Captain as one which provides continuity from one Captain to the next. And our Immediate Past Captain, David Hopkins, has certainly left me with a range of important initiatives to keep me busy! That is a testament to the huge amount of work he has undertaken in the last year, during which he has worked tirelessly on our behalf.
Thank-you for all your hard work and for leaving me with a great platform on which to continue working on the objectives laid-out in the Club’s Strategic Plan.
I see the role of Captain as being split into two main areas. The first is the playing and social side of the role and getting to know as many of our members as possible out on the links and at the great number of dinners and events we host. If you see my name on the tee sheet on a Saturday morning, I would love for you to add your name and join me. Not least because it would be more than a little embarrassing to tee off on my own!
I am also looking forward to the Captain / Pro challenges and dates have been published. Please contact Andrew if you fancy your chances!
Being Captain means I get to join the Society of Liverpool Golf Captains, and play regularly with 26 other Captains at clubs across the region. Lots of golf and lots of dinners! I am looking forward to it immensely. Formby is held in very high regard by the clubs which form the Society and I am looking forward to representing our club and ensuring this continues.
The other key role of being Captain is working with Council and Staff to ensure our club continues to be well managed and which continues to provide our members with a world-class environment to play golf and to socialise. We members at Formby Golf Club are very lucky. We have great staff. We have an iconic clubhouse with superb facilities. And we have a track which is the envy of the golfing world.
To maintain our standing we cannot stand still and we have much work to do so we may maintain and improve what we already do so well. We have assembled a Council which is talented, enthusiastic, hard-working and they always put the needs of the club first.
As all members will by now know, Council identified 10 high priority projects during the tail-end of 2023, which are estimated to cost in the region of £1.6m. At the moment, we generate an annual discretionary budget of about £200,000 (after we deduct all our running costs from our revenues) with which to tackle these projects. The obvious conclusion is that it will take 8 years to deliver them all if we carry on as we are, and that is before all the projects we do not yet know about rise to the surface!
The challenge has been laid down to think of new ways of generating additional revenue, so we can increase our annual discretionary spending, and deliver more of these projects more quickly.
With this in mind, we are now focussed on three key areas:
1. Reviewing and implementing changes in our operating model to reduce costs, where we believe we can save in excess of £100,000 per annum without impacting service levels.
2. Reviewing international membership. Working with MEC and a prominent overseas member, we believe that a new or amended International category should be implemented to provide international members (especially those from outside Europe) with rights and subscriptions which are similar to those of a full member. With 30 vacancies already available for such members and confidence they can be filled, we believe we can raise significant short-term and ongoing annual revenues which will help us in our bid to raise new capital and begin implementing, at a much greater pace, the backlog of priority projects.
3. In 2026, The Open returns to Royal Birkdale and with it comes a large number of visiting golfers who are on organised tours, enjoying corporate hospitality or travelling under their own steam. If we were to increase our normal July revenues by 3.5 times, as Wallasey did last year, we would generate over £500,000 over an 11 day period. To this end, we intend to increase the number of visitor tee-times during The Open period whilst being very conscious of providing ample tee times to our members.
If we are successful in raising the capital as described, we can begin the process of spending it on the course and clubhouse, for the benefit of our members now, and for the generations which will follow.
The immediate priorities are a new fully equipped half-way house, a new water storage tank and completing the irrigation works on the course.
I am aware of Members’ disappointment that the irrigation system around the golf course needs further investment, driven by our desire to take us to the next level with links features, more run-off areas, fewer shale paths and an increased number of grass paths.
As you will know, over the last couple of years, we have installed a new pressurised course main pipe providing better coverage to fairways and tees and ensuring water resources are not wasted.
Most of the greens are served by sprinkler systems which are over 30 years old and which need to be replaced with modern, multi-directional sprinkler heads and pipework which is more efficient and able to deliver the water where we most need it.
The lack of irrigation in some areas and lack of modern irrigation in others is the single-most factor in explaining bare, dry and worn turf from green to tee and tee to fairway, lack of growth and the wastefulness in replacing large amounts of turf every winter.
We simply are not presenting our course as well as we can due to the lack of modern irrigation in many areas. Finally, it is important that the irrigation system has sufficient capacity to meet the needs of the Club now but also in the future and why a larger water tank is required.
We have a lot of work to do and I will work tirelessly on your behalf to keep us on the right path and to deliver as many clubhouse and course improvements as I can.
Paul Johnson
Captain 2024