President's Message October 2016

Spring In The Costa Del Sol For The Annual Meeting

Some years, arrangements for the Annual Meeting fall into place easily. This year has been much more of a challenge but we look certain to be going to Marbella from 22nd to 25th March 2017. Arrangements are nearing completion and will be announced in full shortly. We had a great deal of help from Chris Bertram, the golf journalist who has attended the last few events. I would like to thank him for his help. Let’s hope for some warm late spring sunshine.

New Industry Partners

I am pleased to report positive news on the Institute front. Ross, Julia and the team have worked hard on all aspects of marketing with the backing of our Marketing Consultant. We have signed up three new Industry Partners, Asian Golf Construction, Perrot and Capillary Concrete, all of whom I would like to thank for their support and I hope that we enjoy a long and fruitful working relationship.

Membership

Membership numbers are holding strong. We have had one resignation from an Associate with little or no work, but we have received new applications for both Associate and Senior Membership and eight Associate Members have also applied to upgrade to Senior Member so we have the prospect of stable or increasing membership numbers and a much healthier balance between the two categories – both cornerstones of the 5 Year Plan.

Continuing Professional Development Seminar

I am delighted that we have organised another live Continuing Professional Development event on 29th and 30th November at the Sofitel Gatwick Airport North Terminal. This was also part of our 5 Year Plan and the event represents a fantastic opportunity for members to learn more about a diverse range of topics. It will include sessions on Making The Most of Social Media, Bunker Liners, 3-D Computer Graphics and Using GPS Data To Understand How Golfers Really Play Our Courses. Again, we have received tremendous support from our Industry Partners for this event and is sure to be well attended. 25 members attended the Marketing event in 2011 and places are again limited so please book early.

CPD Points-Based Programme

We are arranging this alongside an expansion of our library of webinars and are also working on a voluntary points-based CPD programme, modelled on the platform that BIGGA developed for greenkeepers. We have been raising funding to produce this and I am exceptionally grateful to John Deere and RainBird (provisionally) for agreeing to support this. This will go to adapting the BIGGA web platform so that it is directly tailored to the EIGCA’s programme. This will mark another milestone for the EIGCA in its plan to be recognised as the professional organisation in golf course architecture which trains not just prospective golf course architects but also its established members who have the drive to learn more.

Brexit

There have been friendly exchanges between members over Great Britain’s decision to leave the EU. Whatever the rights and wrongs of that decision it changes nothing for the EIGCA. We already have members in 8 non-EU countries (China, Mexico, USA, Iceland, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland and UAE) and students from 2 more.

I look forward to seeing some of you in November at Gatwick (with my 2 good eyes again!) and even more of you in sunny Spain in March.

Tom Mackenzie