We are now into our final preparations for opening day, staff orientations and safety training are complete, department training in underway and inventory continues to arrive daily.
The Opening Cocktail party on April 27th has over 50 members registered, we are still targeting Friday, May 3rd as our opening day on the golf course and the AGM will be held in the dining room on Saturday, May 4th at 3:30 pm.
Other News
Golf Course
The weather has improved since the last Mad Post and the golf course improves with each passing day. General clean-up and mowing are well underway, and spring conditions look to be excellent.
Chad is planning a “dry jet” procedure on the greens this week and will aerate the greens early next week so healing is well underway prior to opening weekend.
It’s now clear the back deck of our driving range has not survived the winter ice damage and Chad is securing costs to re-sod the area. More information will be forthcoming.
Membership
Membership sales continue to proceed nicely, with 25 new members joining since the program was initiated. Our push for the final 10 memberships will continue over the coming weeks and Sandy will keep you appraised in her Mad Post messaging.
Please keep the leads coming and thank you again for your efforts thus far, you’ve played an integral role in the success of this program.
Food and Beverage
We continue to investigate ways to minimize our environmental footprint and you will see us transition away from plastics over the summer, this includes straws, cups and lids.
Marcel has sourced some plant-based products that perform far better than the paper products we tested last summer. Interestingly these literally are 100% biodegradable, if not disposed of they rapidly deteriorate. You will read more from Chef over the coming weeks.
You may have heard the rules with respect to alcohol service have changed slightly for this season. Previously we were not permitted to serve alcohol prior to 11 am, this has now changed to 9 am. This primarily impacted our early morning weekend players, now these players will be able to enjoy a pint without waiting until 11….a welcome change.
Golf Operations
All event registration will be either online or in the golf shop. We’ve found the event board becoming increasingly difficult to read due to the quantity of information. More and more members have been requesting online registration, but we will still offer manual registration for those with that preference. This has the added benefit of de-cluttering the message board.
You will also see a new message board on the driving range for coaching specific news. Chad will install this as time permits once the spring projects have been completed. A big thank you to Bill and Lorraine Strain for the construction of this board.
Director of Instruction
Sign-ups for the Vision 54 Clinics continue to be strong; we are now over 50% subscribed, Ryan will have more information in his article.
Our new SAM putt lab has also arrived and we will not only be featuring it as part of our coaching programs but it will be an integral tool in putter fitting. This is similar to our Trackman which shows you the most important launch parameters, the Sam putt lab will give you definitive data that will help you to determine which putter puts the best roll on the ball for you.
Risk Management Policy
In 2018 the Board approved the development of a Risk Management Plan for the Club. During the off-season we completed extensive assessments of each department contemplating potential risks in each area.
This included but was not limited to;
Membership, equipment operation, chemical usage and applications, tree removal, burning risks, our lightening system, parking lot, errant golf shots, employee risks, financial oversight, cybersecurity and much more.
The report did identify areas where improvements are needed or can be made and management will present mitigation options for these areas to the board. The report was presented to the board and in summary we believe Mad River has limited exposure beyond that of any other private golf club.
You can reach me by email at
[email protected] or by phone at 705-428-3673.
See you at the Club,
Gary Ward, General Manager/COO