Golf Club Newsletter

[Crazyface]

After a bit of a chat with a couple of blokes who are on our committee, I'd volunteered to help in anyway I could, they suggested I do a much requested, but as yet, not fulfilled, newsletter. I'm sure a few of you out there receive one from your clubs, but is it any good? If it is, what bits do you find interesting / helpful, which bits could you do without? If yours is rubbish, why is it rubbish? What bits would YOU put in it to make it relevent to you? All replies welcome on this, no matter what. Many thanks in advance.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Relevant information for me

Greens info. What's happening, what is due to happen in the period until the next newsletter. This is the biggest one for me, it's what most golfers care about

Clubhouse, what's happening there, any promotions, any work to be done

Highlights of committee meetings

Club comps across the sections, who won. List upcoming comps.

Personally, I have no interest in how club teams are doing but some may want that in there.


The gist for me, a newsletter should keep members informed of what is happening in their club. Never been a fan of secretive clubs.

 

[Doon frae Troon]

At my old club you drove over a disused sand pit on the first hole.
The popular monthly [paper] club newsletter used to run a Pit Trophy, This was awarded to the member who topped it into the pit the most number of times per year.
Members were only too keen to post box a playing partners failure to clear the dreaded Pit.
Each month a league was recorded and members keenly viewed who was 'winning'.
The monthly newsletter was 4 pages and filled with course info, club results, gee ups, nature notes [especially birds], social info, gossip and always a few funny/strange stories.
It also posted info about members who had done well or died.

 

[Slab]

I get them from a couple of clubs and the newsletter content tends to cover the following areas having input

The club
The course
The pro shop
The bar/restaurant
Event Results
Upcoming event registrations
Event Calendar (longer view)
News on Specials/reciprocals/partnerships etc

Whether its read or not comes down to the quality, relevance & presentation of the content but typically there's links into areas of the club website for some of the run of the mill stuff like details on results/registrations etc leaving the newsletter to have the headlines/1st paragraph, a pertinent pic etc

 

[Neilds]

We get 2 weekly newsletters. 1 from the club gives information on the course, work in progress etc, and the 2nd is from the Pro Shop. This you need to subscribe to (I think) and gives information on competitions, any news about HiOs, representative golf and suchlike, and then pro shop promotions and tips.

 

[Imurg]

We get what we call The Weekly Sheet...
It outlines what is happening every day with regard to Societies or comps, when booking opens for certain comps, if holes are closed for work etc etc..
It, additionally, highlights club events like Sunday lunch, kids coaching, demo days
A Course Report comes out each month showing cutting heights, planned work, Co plated work and extras like our Deputy HG worked the LPGA Champions event a few weeks back - he wrote a diary outlining each day and it was a good read.
Any news, such as WHS changes etc etc is posted as and when.
Overall I'm pretty happy with the communication from the club..

 

[Bunkermagnet]

TBH, isn't this something the course manager or secretary should do?
Ours is relevant course info, upcoming social events and general advises/ issues that need attention.
I do think it needs to be from someone embedded in the running of the club.
Edit:
I should add the course specific things such as HOC etc and overall course messages/maintenance issues are the domain of the greens committee chairman and relayed by a monthly mailshot from him.

 

[rulie]

I get them from a couple of clubs and the newsletter content tends to cover the following areas having input

The club
The course
The pro shop
The bar/restaurant
Event Results
Upcoming event registrations
Event Calendar (longer view)
News on Specials/reciprocals/partnerships etc

Whether its read or not comes down to the quality, relevance & presentation of the content but typically there's links into areas of the club website for some of the run of the mill stuff like details on results/registrations etc leaving the newsletter to have the headlines/1st paragraph, a pertinent pic etc

While I was on the Golf Committee at our club, I volunteered to write the monthly newsletter, and used the general topics that Slab has noted. It was a PITA to get monthly "news" from all of the sources, and those responsible for providing the updates didn't like the NTR (nothing to report) that was included in their section of the newsletter. The NTR was, more often than not, on the staff representatives on the Committee. Volunteers were much more involved.

 

[jim8flog]

Ours has changed over the years .

Originally there was article from every section of the club including management.

These days it is all written by one person and is used more as as information media than what I would call a news letter. One of the silly things about that is that you have to sign up to receive it and a lot do not so are unaware of club etc rule changes.

 

[Orikoru]

Our newletter is a monthly email. January's one for example, contained:

• an appeal for photos for the social media
• info on some of the social events happening in the coming weeks
• a note about the increase in competition cards required on your record
• competition winners from the last month
• upcoming competitions
• something about memberships and a head chef vacancy
• info about greenkeeping and upcoming maintenance dates

That's fairly typical.

 

[kp17]

Let the greenkeeper do a section in detail of what they’re doing or going to be doing, I always find that the most interesting part of club newsletters

 

[Crazyface]

Thanks for the info. Please keep on adding in to this, anything you can think of. Ooooo what format should it go out as Word / PDF ? Are there other more popular formats?

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Thanks for the info. Please keep on adding in to this, anything you can think of. Ooooo what format should it go out as Word / PDF ? Are there other more popular formats?

Personally, I'd say PDF.

I'm enjoying the level of detail. Now, what font to choose

 

[LincolnShep]

Has your newsletter got a name? When my previous club revamped its newsletter, I won a pint (woohoo!) for suggesting "Putting It Out There" as a title.
I sent them a list of suggestions and that was not actually one of my favourites, but it got chosen. My favourites were "The Tee Times", "Lip Out" and "Tee & Sandwedges".

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Has your newsletter got a name? When my previous club revamped its newsletter, I won a pint (woohoo!) for suggesting "Putting It Out There" as a title.
I sent them a list of suggestions and that was not actually one of my favourites, but it got chosen. My favourites were "The Tee Times", "Lip Out" and "Tee & Sandwedges".

Do you have a consultancy for pun based shop names? Surely you have named the numerous hairdressers, fish & chip shops etc around the country that have pun based names. If not, get on to it

 

[LincolnShep]

Thanks for the info. Please keep on adding in to this, anything you can think of. Ooooo what format should it go out as Word / PDF ? Are there other more popular formats?

You might want to consider sending it using a email marketing platform. My wife does the marketing for our village hall and she uses MailChimp which is free if your mailing list is under 500 (MailerLite is free up to 1000). It means that she can see who and how many have opened the email, or clicked on a link, or opened the attachment, or unsubscribed.

 

[LincolnShep]

Do you have a consultancy for pun based shop names? Surely you have named the numerous hairdressers, fish & chip shops etc around the country that have pun based names. If not, get on to it

My consultancy will be called Punderful Promotions.

 

[Neilds]

Has your newsletter got a name? When my previous club revamped its newsletter, I won a pint (woohoo!) for suggesting "Putting It Out There" as a title.
I sent them a list of suggestions and that was not actually one of my favourites, but it got chosen. My favourites were "The Tee Times", "Lip Out" and "Tee & Sandwedges".

Ours has the snappy name of....

(drumroll please)

Weekly Club Update

 

[Raziren]

we have a weekly newsletter (fortnighly during the winter). the most recent two can be seen here https://www.bsgc.co.uk/newsindex.aspx and might give you some ideas. It's a similar format each week and is sent out by email. I believe it is mainly done by volunteers and they also had help from junior members looking for work experience / something for the cv.