Is your club benefiting from the COVID lockdown?

Golf is my Game

Mushy wrote: »

Ok, but quite literally none of that cheapens anything

It depends what you mean by cheapen. I take that the other poster meant that its a signal that your dealing with a lower level of golf club who need that bit of voluntary contribution, donation, charity, support, call it what you will in order to run. And that the lack of them does show a more substantial club that is richer and can afford to runs it comps and stuff simply because it has the income to do so without this kind of knocking on doors asking for support. No club that has the money to avoid it will do it because theyd like to have sponsors signs on the tees or whatever. Its nicer without it. Same with 'sponsored' cards. A sponsors name on your card doesnt make things better. You just want a card. So if you can have a card without a quarter of it being an ad, then youll do it. But if you need the cash, then you will 'cheapen' your card literally, by selling advertising space on it. Im sure Augusta National doesnt have a sponsor on its cards or the local motor dealers names on its tee markers either like. Its the same thing. cheapen just means signs of a less rich club which is a fair enough comment. Its no criticism of the members, the course, or the enjoyment they get from play golf at all I dont think.

Mushy

Golf is my Game wrote: »

It depends what you mean by cheapen. I take that the other poster meant that its a signal that your dealing with a lower level of golf club who need that bit of voluntary contribution, donation, charity, support, call it what you will in order to run. And that the lack of them does show a more substantial club that is richer and can afford to runs it comps and stuff simply because it has the income to do so without this kind of knocking on doors asking for support. No club that has the money to avoid it will do it because theyd like to have sponsors signs on the tees or whatever. Its nicer without it. Same with 'sponsored' cards. A sponsors name on your card doesnt make things better. You just want a card. So if you can have a card without a quarter of it being an ad, then youll do it. But if you need the cash, then you will 'cheapen' your card literally, by selling advertising space on it. Im sure Augusta National doesnt have a sponsor on its cards or the local motor dealers names on its tee markers either like. Its the same thing. cheapen just means signs of a less rich club which is a fair enough comment. Its no criticism of the members, the course, or the enjoyment they get from play golf at all I dont think.

It's a very snobbish way to make the comment, hence why people are dumbfounded by it. Clubs all over the country would love to be in a position where they dont need to ask for financial help from other businesses, but that's not the reality of the situation. You can say it's not a criticism of those things, but it came across as a criticism/looking down the nose of clubs that do need it

GreeBo

Mushy wrote: »

It's a very snobbish way to make the comment, hence why people are dumbfounded by it. Clubs all over the country would love to be in a position where they dont need to ask for financial help from other businesses, but that's not the reality of the situation. You can say it's not a criticism of those things, but it came across as a criticism/looking down the nose of clubs that do need it

If having local sponsorship doesn't cheapen things a bit, why doesn't your club have every square inch covered in local sponsorship? Surely more is better right? Or is there a point where it does suddenly become cheap?

If you choose to take what I said as criticism and snobbery then that's on you mate, I can't help you there. The whole idea of getting support from local businesses is to lower the club expenses, i.e make it cheaper to run.
If anything you are being a snob if you think doing it in a golf club is somehow different to doing it in a GAA club or tennis club or badminton club. It's done to raise money for the club, again, to make it cheaper to run, not as some shrewd business deal between equals as you would like to pretend.

Golf is my Game

I suppose the bottom line is that if to those outside it it looks cheap, then it's fair to say it looks cheap.
Those inside aren't exactly impartial and have an interest in not seeing it as cheap and indeed probably don't. But that doesn't change the fact for those who do see it as cheap.
Overall its a good thing and does help clubs to get income whatever.

Mushy

GreeBo wrote: »

If having local sponsorship doesn't cheapen things a bit, why doesn't your club have every square inch covered in local sponsorship? Surely more is better right? Or is there a point where it does suddenly become cheap?

If you choose to take what I said as criticism and snobbery then that's on you mate, I can't help you there. The whole idea of getting support from local businesses is to lower the club expenses, i.e make it cheaper to run.
If anything you are being a snob if you think doing it in a golf club is somehow different to doing it in a GAA club or tennis club or badminton club. It's done to raise money for the club, again, to make it cheaper to run, not as some shrewd business deal between equals as you would like to pretend.

Stop with the whataboutary now, this is about competition sponsorship being called cheapening a place.

The way it was said came across as snobby, I cant say it was intentionally that way. How am I being a snob about those other places, literally never mentioned them? We all know why competitions are sponsored, but what was originally said came across wrong

GreeBo

Mushy wrote: »

Stop with the whataboutary now, this is about competition sponsorship being called cheapening a place.

The way it was said came across as snobby, I cant say it was intentionally that way. How am I being a snob about those other places, literally never mentioned them? We all know why competitions are sponsored, but what was originally said came across wrong

Look, I'm not going to keep arguing with you, especially when you ignore the specific question I have asked, namely is your club covered in sponsorship and if not, why not.

You decided to take umbrage with a perfectly normal comment I made, as seems to be the norm for some on here, I'm not going to apologise for you taking offence, offence is taken not given.

Mushy

GreeBo wrote: »

Look, I'm not going to keep arguing with you, especially when you ignore the specific question I have asked, namely is your club covered in sponsorship and if not, why not.

You decided to take umbrage with a perfectly normal comment I made, as seems to be the norm for some on here, I'm not going to apologise for you taking offence, offence is taken not given.

It's not cos it's not needed. I can easily accept it if it means lowers the costs to run, but the phrase "cheapen a place" sounded like it was insinuated a club was cheap by having competition sponsorship. Comment could easily have been clearer from the outset though

GreeBo

Mushy wrote: »

It's not cos it's not needed. I can easily accept it if it means lowers the costs to run, but the phrase "cheapen a place" sounded like it was insinuated a club was cheap by having competition sponsorship. Comment could easily have been clearer from the outset though

But why not, surely your club should take advantage of any income it can get?

A club has sponsorship because it needs the money to survive, in the same way that your club doesnt need to sponsor everything my club doesnt (currently) need to sponsor anything.
In the same way that it could be considered cheap for your club to have sponsorship on everything, it could be considered cheap for my club to sponsor anything.

I think maybe you need to take the time to go back and read my original post and especially the post it was replying to, that was *specifically* about sponsorship in *my* club.

Keano

Gone way off topic and starting to get a little out of hand...again. Time to get back on topic now please or it will be locked.

Golf is my Game

Going back onto the topic then because I think this bit came up from clubs losing money from not having competitions during the lock down and that thats important income for some clubs for its general running. And that some clubs would also lose some sponsorship income due to that and not just members entry fees. But I think for the sponsorship, given the 'donation' character of it rather than pure business income like societies or green fess which are truly lost, there probably a way of recovering the sponsorship income some how. Some effectively want to give it anyway as long as there is a decent cover story. So they will probably still contribute, even if it's now for the midweek open, or the open week, or sponsor a tee for a classic or whatever. So I don't think clubs who think about it will really be out of pocket on the sponsorship side.
Which I think is where the discussion started.

GreeBo

Golf is my Game wrote: »

Going back onto the topic then because I think this bit came up from clubs losing money from not having competitions during the lock down and that thats important income for some clubs for its general running. And that some clubs would also lose some sponsorship income due to that and not just members entry fees. But I think for the sponsorship, given the 'donation' character of it rather than pure business income like societies or green fess which are truly lost, there probably a way of recovering the sponsorship income some how. Some effectively want to give it anyway as long as there is a decent cover story. So they will probably still contribute, even if it's now for the midweek open, or the open week, or sponsor a tee for a classic or whatever. So I don't think clubs who think about it will really be out of pocket on the sponsorship side.
Which I think is where the discussion started.

I'd also expect that any sponsorship is probably yearly rather than adhoc weekly, so income from it wouldn't have been impacted.

One option for clubs could be to lower the competition purse, most people play comps for handicap purposes rather than to win money and anyway, most people put in more than they get out!

For any of the clubs that added significant numbers, from a club constitution point of view, were you under the membership limit and so no issues adding people, or do you feel the clubs were just taking whatever came their way, without looking at the overall impact?
Was there any communication about increased numbers/ EGM etc?

Miley Byrne

GreeBo wrote: »

If having local sponsorship doesn't cheapen things a bit, why doesn't your club have every square inch covered in local sponsorship? Surely more is better right? Or is there a point where it does suddenly become cheap?

And where are all of these magical local sponsors going to come from?

Also is it OK for an Insurance company to sponsor an event but not ok for some sponsors or what?
https://twitter.com/GrangeGolfClub1/status/1217945047745908736/photo/1

Keano

We are done here.