This morning’s AGM of the men’s club was historic in that at its end it voted itself out of existence…..Whoa, hold on i hear people say. Read on, back to the start. The meeting very well attended and started with the outstanding prize presentations, well done to all collecting. Great to see the 2017 Medals all getting presented together, nice touch. Special mention to Niall O Conor in winning the POY award for the 3rd consecutive year and Darragh Nugent in winning the 2017 winter league. The minutes of last years meeting were then read out and voted into the record. Captain Dave then read out a short “Good luck all thats me done” type speech, no seriously it was a lovely piece that really showed the special place the club has in Dave’s heart. Thanks Dave for all your efforts in what was a very tough year to be Captain. We then had a piece readout from our out going President Mr Tom Bealin who sent his apologies, our treasurers report and our Hon Sec’s report.
At this juncture the out going committee who had already indicated at the EGM that they were not seeking re-election stood down and passed the meeting over to the Steering Committee chairperson, Tony McGinley
Tony thanked the outgoing committee. Tony then made a presentation on how the club could move forward in the coming months and put itself in a position to secure a lease from the owners, honor its terms thus giving the members full control of the course and clubhouse. A series of questions on the figures were taken from the floor. the questions were answered openly and honestly by the Steering Committee The feedback from those present was extremely positive with everyone committing to rejoin next year.
Tony spoke passionately about how the club will now become one with the mens and ladies clubs committees now becoming one single entity as was originally intended by our constitution, how the club intends to embed itself into the local community and that it intends to mount an extensive/intensive marketing/advertising campaign in the new year. Tony reminded us that the work which will be extremely challenging in the coming months begins now. Tony finished the presentation by saying that the Steering Committee will be open and transparent in the work it will be doing in the next few months keeping members informed with regular updates.Tony said that the course will now remain open and run by the owners till Feb 28th with club aiming in taking over (agreement dependent) on March 1st.
Heady stuff lakesiders and no doubt he road ahead will be long, there will be times when we are traveling in driving rain, there will be times when it will be so foggy that we cannot see how we will reach our destination. But the rain will stop, the fog will clear and sometime in the new year you will turn into the lane with the sun shining on that proud piece of granite that says Blessington Lakes Golf Club and think to yourself we really did it.
On behalf of the outgoing committee…..”So long and thanks for all the fish”
