Things start going quiet about this time of the year so it’s a good time to turn on the TV and watch the best slogging it out on courses that, for almost all of us, are too long, whose fairways are too narrow, where there are too many bunkers and there is too much water that can’t be seen from the tee. So, even if he is best taken in small doses, it is gratifying to those of us of a certain age, to watch Phil, just short of 51, sock it to young pretenders half his age. The most gratifying being the Old Man’s drive of 366 yards on the 16th – suck on that Bryson! The Board met on 17th May. Our sound cash position has meant we can start to be more confident about pushing on with the capital expenditures listed last month, which I will list again. - $117k debenture repayments plus interest in the first week of July 2021.
- $35k for upstairs toilets
- $10k for conversion to gas powered heating for clubhouse.
- $50k for pathways
- $10k for pathway edge finishing
- $60k for ID to add a staff member and work on tees, bunkers and trees as appropriate.
The Board has also started talking about subscriptions for next year. Members with views about subscriptions are encouraged to talk to Board members about their views. We are also looking at creating an under-35 category to encourage younger members to stay on. The AGM will be on 15th September 2021. Before then the Board will circulate recommendations for members to vote on at the AGM. Members wishing to table amendments are asked to think carefully about the wording of their amendment, have a seconder in place and, ideally, have discussed it fully with others, including the chair. We had an amendment last year which couldn’t work and had to be withdrawn. While we want as full a discussion of the issues as possible, we also don’t want to get tied up in knots. Budgets Our May Board meeting further discussed the 2021/22 cash flow and what we could afford to spend on capital once we had met our debt repayment obligations. Matt has started to put meat on the bones of the operating and capital budgets. We can be more confident about 2021/22 if for no other reason than if we can’t have Aussie golfers (they still like a lockdown every so often) we may expect to see domestic tourists once again come south to enjoy our courses. Those tourists were good to us last year and I think they were pleasantly surprised at the quality of the courses available but we have to accept that the Australian market is the icing. At the risk of repeating myself, the Board is bound to act prudently and decisions about what to leave in and what to leave out will reflect that approach. April 2021 results April continued like March, with almost identical results. Comparisons with last April are interesting only as a record of the impact of lockdowns on golf clubs; 80% of our revenue was a wage subsidy and green fees were the princely sum of $65. The domestic market has been buoyant enough and long enough to help us retain, even grow, our sound cash position. If we can hold that position until 30 June, the end of the financial year, it sets us up for doing some, if not all, of the postponed projects as well as repaying debt. By Spring we hope we will see a modest return of vaccinated travellers. Financial results for April 2021 and the 10 months of the financial year to 31 March 2021 | $’000 | April 2021 | 10 months to 30th April 2021 | | | Actual | Budget | Last year | Actual | Budget | Last year | | Revenue | 144 | 53 | 31 | 1,420 | 762 | 1,598 | | Cash Expense | 111 | 93 | 71 | 1,054 | 890 | 1,208 | | Surplus before depn | 33 | (41) | (40) | 366 | (127) | 390 | Good golfing. Athol Stephens – Board Chairperson |