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Bear Golf Society Newsletter 2024 www.beargolfsociety.co.uk
THIS NEWSLETTER IS SPONSORED JOINTLY BY
Aerice Consulting / House of Cards
What a season 2023 turned out to be, the first meeting of the season at Dunstable Downs cancelled due to snow and the last meeting of the season at Stocks cancelled due to rain !!!
But saying that, the meetings in between were all standard issue Bears days out, good courses, good grub and good turnout of players.
So we started our season at The Bedfordshire and what a wonderful day to they gave us to remember, they made us so welcome and it was great way to start the season after the snow cancelled Dunstable Downs.
The next two meetings down the A34 to Newbury and Crookham and then Donnington Grove
May and June were spoilt by the logistics of getting around Oxford with road works happening at the railway station pushing drivers out to the bypass and then some bright spark decided to start road works there !! Although both venues welcomed us and provided all we ever need on a Bears day out it really was a nightmare for most people whichever way they chose to get there.
July saw a return to Collingtree Park and our dear friend Brenda Scott who most of us knew from the old Mentmore Days, Brenda knows how to run a golf club but sadly she retires soon. A sad loss to Collingtree Park. July also saw us visit Dunstable but this time just a bit windy but no snow !! As usual, a great turnout for both meetings even though they were just two weeks apart.
That’s what makes the Bears so special, the support we get from the members.
Then what a superb day we had at The Springs in August, perfect weather and the staff were very helpful. The new owners and the set up they have put in place made it a completely different golf club than the one we visited many years ago. A return visit is on the cards in the Autumn and we can then experience the course when the Thames overflows !!! ( I kid you not )
September took us to Henley, one of our favourite clubs, and as usual we weren’t disappointed.
It seems that everyone loves Henley and that shows with the attendance numbers.
So the last meeting of the season fell to Leighton Buzzard and they also pulled out all the stops to make our day with them a memorable one wearing shorts and drinking plenty of liquids day. Sadly after that the weather went downhill and then it never stopped raining, rumour had it that Noah was building another Ark !!
A full diary has been arranged for 2024 and we hope to again achieve good size fields and as well as enjoying our golf, raise money for some very good causes.
2’s COMPETITION 2023
It seems that most winners of this competition at each meeting donate the money back into our funds so we’ve decided to stop giving money away and put each meetings winner into a draw and at the end of the season pick out a winner to receive a nice prize. Sadly our end of season meeting, as you know was cancelled so we’ll have the draw at the 1st meeting of 2024
LAST MINUTE CANCELLATIONS
When we give the golf club final numbers (usually a couple of days prior to our visit) this is the number that has to be paid for. If by any chance a player has to cancel at the last minute due to unforeseen circumstances they will have to pay for their already booked place. A few years ago most clubs would only charge for the food that had to be bought in, but now most clubs specify that we have bought ‘the package’ which means the whole amount has to be paid for. This is due to the fact I think they were losing too much money on the cancelled green fees as well as the food and as most catering is franchised the golf clubs were receiving nothing towards the upkeep of the course. Please remember that if you do have to pay for a last minute cancellation it’s not the society that is demanding the money but the golf club.
1.
SPONSORS
We can’t operate without them so a big thanks must go to all of them for all their help.
You are all very important to us and we have been lucky enough to welcome several new sponsors for 2024 enabling us to carry on the great work the Bears do donating to several charities as we go about our golf.
Welcome to Aerice Consultancy and Sign Wizzard
A regular sponsor and supporter, Nick Raynor of Court View Financial Planning has offered to sponsor the NTP competition again at each meeting for the coming season.
Thanks must also go to Michael Donnachie of Michael Anthony Village Homes for agreeing to sponsor our next batch of Bear shoe bags. This will enable us to gift a Bears shoe bag to every new member that joins us.
We also can’t thank the regular small sponsors enough, we can’t operate without your help and collectively you help us so much.
The Order of Merit, a challenge claret jug to be awarded to the winner to be kept for the year, best 5 scores to count at meetings from March through to October, the winner for 2023 was Dave Hasted.
Absent Friends Trophy is awarded to the winner of the best 4 scores with 18 plus handicap.
The winner for 2022 was Nick Lewis Smith, well done to both of them
Vouchers. Due to the success of these, we will continue to use them for prize winners. Each voucher will be worth £5 and can be redeemed against any Bears meeting, saving
winners £5 off of the booking fee for future meetings or, if won near the end of the season, set against their rejoining fee.
Again thanks to Nick Raynor of Court View Financial Planning for sponsoring the NTP’s vouchers.
Some of the members have been renewing their memberships over the years without any form filling so I would just like to remind members that £7.50 of the rejoining fee goes straight into the charity fund. The rest is used to buy the trophies, medals etc. and pay deposits in advance and generally help to top up the money donated to the charities.
Having two NTP prizes seems to have been a success and will be kept for a further year.
We re-introduced the 3rd prize again with a medal, but no voucher, we’re not made of money !!! Some members have been disappointed with coming 3rd and not getting recognised in the prize awards, so hopefully they will now stop moaning!!
DATES AND VENUES
You will have had the dates and venues posted on the website and in the event diaries and members will be notified by e-mail a month before each meeting with the booking form.
Quite a few changes from our usual Wednesday meetings but we have to go with the best deals and that means changing our usual midweek day.
Hopefully when members get the event diaries at the start of the year they can plan their Bear days out in advance.
BEARS 2024 GOLF SHIRT, GILET and SWEATSHIRT
Impress Promotions (Brian Samson) has set up a section on their website (www.ipmteamwear.com) for you to order the 2024 Bears golf shirt with new sponsors displayed, should you wish to do so.
Graham has also set up a link to Brian’s website on the Bears website.
This year there will be a small selection of colours for you to choose from apart from the usual white or black.
Brian has said he will donate a percentage of the price of each shirt sold back into the Bears charity account and free delivery.
2.
THANKS to non members
Over the Bears season several people donate some excellent ‘items’ for us to auction or use as raffle prizes, these people are not members and some are not even golfers but are kind enough to want to help us in our quest to raise money for our chosen charity and a few other worthy causes. They won’t get the chance to read the newsletter but we appreciate their input and they are thanked at the time of donating.
THANKS to members
Big thanks must go to each & every one of you for raising so much money for our charities despite the pandemic.
There are too many of you to thank individually but special thanks to Graham Ecob, our very own WebMeister for running the superb website, scoring and generally helping me with all things Bears. I must also thank our man from Wilson Golf, Duncan Finch for all the goodies he donates for us to use as prizes. He continues to help us save our funds for the charities.
We want to thank each & every one of you for helping us raise the following funds & you will see how that money was distributed to each charity :-
Donations for 2023 £
Cancer Care Unit (our chosen charity) 1,355
Thames Valley Air Ambulance 100
Dementia Charity 100
Cyclists Fighting Cancer 55
MND 30
PACE 100
Dog Rescue Charity 100
Hospice of St Francis 250
Style Acre (Childrens Charity) 100
Thomley Hall 30
Prostate Cancer Charity 100
Childrens Hospice (Luton) 125
Some of the above charities are the chosen charities of Golf Club Captains that we have visited through the 2022 season.
Grand total raised & donated by the Bears: - £2.445
Bears Chosen Charity for 2024 is:-
Cancer Care & Haematology Unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital
We here at Bears HQ want to thank each and every one of you for getting us through the year of 2023 and helping us to donate a large sum of money to several charities, as well as our own, as we went through 2023.