Do you or have you volunteered your services to your club?

Fish

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Yesterday I joined our wood burning team, a bunch of volunteers mainly made up by a couple of directors, the treasurer, the club captain and a couple of match & comps officials, I think I was possibly 1 of only 3 'normal' playing members, there were 10 of us in total!

The club constantly asks for volunteers to help in some areas and with all the storm damage the course has been peppered with debris from the vast amount of trees we have all over course. Armed with a rake we collected everything from small broken twig like branches to full sized 10" diameter 20ft long branches and piled them up within the tree plantations between the fairways and burnt them. We managed to rake an area within the plantations that split the 1st & 6th, the 6th & 5th and the 5th & 3rd fairways around 120yds in length with each plantation being about 25/30 yards wide and going across all those fairways.

A solid 2.5hrs of raking and building 8 large bonfires was the most work I had done for some time but when I looked back and walked across those plantations back to the clubhouse, the difference was remarkable and something our team of only 5/6 green staff could not have kept up with, especially when you think that this constant destruction from high winds and storms is right across acres of land across our course.

I have been critical at times of our greens staff, I play quite a bit or practice at the club up to 3 times mid-week and I can go days without seeing any of them, however, with 10 of us working on just that small area, it opened my eyes slightly of what they are up against and how hard it must be to prioritise the work required to keep us all playing.

I follow quite a few greens staff at clubs on Twitter and I see a lot of what some clubs accomplish, however, some of those very established clubs have a very large workforce and the funds to throw at those jobs, I'd think most of our clubs don't!

So, I will be volunteering now more often and I will put people right when I am playing with some of the habitual moaners of our course as I witnessed what it took 10 of us to do yesterday never mind the endless list of other duties they have to do to keep us all playing on our courses.

Do you or have you considered volunteering on any such work programmes at your club, or do you think, I've paid my subs its their responsibility?

I've seen the light :whistle:

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G_Mulligan

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yeah I volunteered to work a few hours a day for three weeks with the greenkeepers a couple of years ago and could not believe how hard and time consuming some of the work was. Edging the bunkers was the worst by a mile. We usually have a handfull of volunteers the day before and morning of the 2 big club comps to make sure the bunkers and greens are in pristine condition.

Other than that I have volunteered to help with some junior coaching and some free group golf psychology sessions with the junior team. Just some basics as for the most part juniors are pretty strong mentally.
 

moogie

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Not volunteered in the way you have , ie -- on the course etc

But I do give up my time to help out with the juniors
( My son is part of this section -- but I do enjoy anyway )

Help out the JLO with Junior comps, draws, getting them teed off, processing scorecards and comp results
Try to be present fo the league games too, home & away

Also Junior Presentation night , or any other way I can help out our JLO , as there is just too much work for 1 guy , and we currently have a great guy running the section , he gives an awful lot and until last couple years has had very little help , so as much as I enjoy what Im doing , I also take a bit of pleasure from the fact it takes the pressure off him and he can get the odd 'break' he couldnt do previously.......
 

HomerJSimpson

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Have done divotting in the past and given my time to help the junior section. Sadly like a lot of stuff in golf clubs, it is always the same, very few, faces doing a lot of work behind the scenes for the greater good. Never going to change that
 

jimbob.someroo

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I run one of the sections which can be a massive pain in the rear trying to arrange fixtures etc and also helped out with the club website / Facebook after volunteering at the last AGM.

Nothing as hard work as what you got up to there though Robin - far too much graft that!

One thing we do have at our place is 'members divoting days' throughout the summer when the greenstaff will just leave buckets of divot mix on designated holes during the summer and when you go through these holes, you're asked to just fill in a couple. Makes a huge difference to the state of the course when it's getting hammered with play in the busy months.
 

BTatHome

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I'm on the greens committee, have attended all the divot evenings, done tours of the new holes being built before they have been opened, helped out with rules/competition discussions/arguments too. All part and parcel of the club ethos for me.
 

JCW

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They did ask for help to assist the greenkeepers with clearing the course last week after the storm , I was too busy but I have in the past been a starter on open days for a few hours and also been a ref on finals day , carried the rule book and kept the peace in a couple of singles matchplay finals . At Parkstone I have done play ins of new members , members get an email with a request to make up a 4 ball to play a new member in and after the play in we get an email with a few questions on the new member .........................EYG
 

Maninblack4612

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For the last two years I've photographed the presentation evening, printed the photos at the event, given them to the winners & invited them to make a contribution, 100% of which goes into club funds. Funny thing is we made more this way than at another club's event where I was actually selling photos to a bigger audience.
 
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Have done various jobs over the years to help the little 9 hole club I am a member off, Last year I gave the club around 6-10 hrs a week to cut the rough through the growing season. They cant afford extra hours for the greenkeeper so a few members help out.
 

virtuocity

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I offered my services in running the social media side of things. I wanted to ensure that twitter and facebook had daily updates about weather, course conditions (i.e. temporary greens / winter tees / closed holes) as well as offering a platform for members to arrange bounce games etc. I would integrate everything with the website so that visitors could get access to photographs of the course as well as offering the ability for people to ask questions via FaceBook and Twitter to reduce the amount of calls received by the Secretary.
 

North Mimms

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I offered my services in running the social media side of things. I wanted to ensure that twitter and facebook had daily updates about weather, course conditions (i.e. temporary greens / winter tees / closed holes) as well as offering a platform for members to arrange bounce games etc. I would integrate everything with the website so that visitors could get access to photographs of the course as well as offering the ability for people to ask questions via FaceBook and Twitter to reduce the amount of calls received by the Secretary.
That sounds really good.
Its amazing how rubbish some club's websites are. All they need is an slightly Techy member like yourself.
 

GB72

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We have divot nights 2 or 3 times a year when volunteers walk the course filling divots etc. I have done that a few times and am happy to do things like that whenever they come up.
 

SwingsitlikeHogan

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So true. Small company I used to work for once got about 15 of us to do some Saturday voluntary work with WWF doing some clearing of a local wildlife site - overgrown with non-native species of shrub. We spent a day. A team of about 20 - and boy did we cl.ear a lot of stuff. Maybe we should all as members actually commit to a work team - maybe working with the greenkeepers - once a year. Maybe evening work - 2-3hrs. 2 work teams a month MArch through October would make a fair difference.
 

Wayman

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Been junior team manager at my old club done it for 3year and then committee was awkward towards me and jlo. One reason I left the place got no thanks kiss my backside or anything
 

Twire

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I've done a few divoting parties and helped out with junior coaching and practice for 3 years.

Our club don't ask for help on the course... part from divoting.
 

Evesdad

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We have divot nights 2 or 3 times a year when volunteers walk the course filling divots etc. I have done that a few times and am happy to do things like that whenever they come up.

I've done the same a few times myself although couldn't make the last couple due to work. Drag my daughter along too! It's usually the same faces too.
 
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