THIS NEWSLETTER IS SPONSORED JOINTLY BY
SUNSHADES & DECKING and GB PROMOTIONS>GOLF<
Another season over but unlike any other – moving out of lockdown the Bears went into double booking society events for 2021. We anticipated that there would be a strong demand to get back into society golf and indeed some courses were restricting play to members only. We were proved to be correct, hosting some of our largest fields during the year with a forty four at Whipsnade utilising a two tee start.
Badgemore Park and Newbury & Crookham hosted back to back meetings which again meant we could accommodate a larger than normal number of players. In the early part of the season, we gave booking priority to our 65 members, topping up with visitors/guests nearer the scheduled date. We finished the season at The Oxfordshire who gave over forty of us a super day and end on a high after what was a very slow start to the season.
All the courses we played in 2021 were extremely cooperative and went out of their way to welcome us back following the 2020 and early 2021 disruption. Despite this we have still been able to donate in excess of £1800 to various organisations including our designated charity, The Cancer Care & Haematology Unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
A full diary has been arranged for 2022 and we hope to again achieve good size fields and as well as enjoying our golf, raise money for some very good causes.
We will always remember, and be grateful to, the key workers and certainly the NHS, who dedicated their lives to getting us through it.
They put the GREAT back into Great Britain.
We must also remember the poor souls who lost their lives to this terrible pandemic.
ORDER OF MERIT – TROPHIES- MEDALS – 2’s COMPETITION 2022
All of the above obviously didn’t happen in 2021 due to the back to back meetings and the cancelled meetings at the start of 2021. This helped us save some funds enabling us to donate so much to charities when the season eventually got underway.
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.
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 I don’t think it’s fair to pick out just a few of you because you have bigger adverts in our event diary. We have been lucky enough to welcome several new sponsors for 2022 enabling us to carry on the great work the Bears do donating to several charities as we go about our golf.
We can’t thank the regular small sponsors enough, we can’t operate without your help and collectively you help us so much.
THINGS TO NOTE FOR 2022
The £1 for the 2’s competition, which has been included in the extra £5 added for each event at every meeting, has been a great success, it saves someone the time to collect it and that way everybody gets to join in. This also includes a tip for the waiting staff.
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. Absent friends trophy is awarded to the winner of the best 4 scores with 18 plus handicap.
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
them £5 off of the booking fee for future meetings or, if won near the end of the season, set against their rejoining fee.
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.
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 with the turmoil that Covid has caused to golf clubs, changing the days has helped us get better deals, this is usually due to us fitting in with golf clubs schedule to get the best deals.
A couple of reserve meetings tucked in there should you ALL wish to play those courses.
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 2021 £
Cancer Care Unit (our chosen charity) 1,000
JR Oxford (sick newborns and their parents) 100
Cancer Research 100
Newbury Cancer Care 100
Oxford Cancer Care Unit 150
Youth Talk St Albans (Counselling for 13 to 25yrs old ) 120
Rainbow Trust 120
Buckinghamshire Mind (Mental Health) 180
Some of the above charities are the chosen charities of Golf Club Captains that we have visited through the 2021 season.
Grand total raised & donated by the Bears: - £1,870
As we go into 2022 nobody knows how things will pan out for the Bears, hopefully we can get a full year in, we will just have to wait and see.
We here at Bears HQ want to thank each and every one of you for getting us through the year of 2021 despite all the restrictions etc and helping us to donate a large sum of money to several charities as we went through 2021.
d.