AMALGAMATION

Following on the amalgamation of the SGU and the SLGA, the new board are looking at how they develop Scottish golf for the future.

There is a view that since we have merged the Ladies and Men at the top and at club level that the Counties and Areas should also be looked at.

We recently had a preliminary meeting with Lothians and Midlothian to discuss if there were more things which might be done jointly, for example a pool of qualified referees available for all to draw on.

Janette Buchanan, Elaine Dick and I then attended a meeting of all the counties and areas at Gleneagles on 31st January. We were mixed up into tables with other delegates to discuss 5 questions on what might be done. The initial thought from SGL seemed to be that the "regions" would be in the middle between the clubs and SGL. There was a lot of talk but no firm proposal for us to take back to our members at the moment.

Following the meeting SGL have amongst other matters been tasked with the following:-

1. improve the website to reflect ladies competitions as well as the men's competitions

2. develop a suite of options for consideration by the Area and County representatives in terms of structure and roles. This will include options for regional forums. This task will be carried out by the Regions and Forums Working Group that has been formed for this task

3. review the inequality in the way the Counties and Areas are funded

4. ensure good communication

Eleanor Cannon has also acknowledged that “to grow participation and build stronger clubs, the full time team should work directly with clubs. The specific engagement with regions, in whatever format they take, should focus around competitions and the playing of golf”.

We are jointly with the other East Division Captains engaging with SGL to try and obtain further information on how they see matters developing.

Once we have more concrete information and/or proposals from SGL we will provide that information to our members so that we can have a constructive conversation.

Barbara