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The Weather
From Ballston Spa Country Club
My glass is half full mentality is overflowing with rain water. As I looked back on the two previous Fox newsletters it appears I was overly optimistic. With my poor track record of forecasting the weather I see a future in becoming a network meteorologist. During our monthly Board meeting, this is when VP Cindy will roll her eyes and say “Stop Ranting and Move On!!
In spite of the rain the roofers found a semi-dry day and completed the roof in one full day. As they were still working and it was a Tuesday night they did get a brief downpour as a storm moved through. With the roof completed the front deck awning was quickly installed and the new furniture is in place. Steve and his crew have done a remarkable job under very trying conditions keeping the course in excellent shape.
ANNUAL STOCKHOLDERS MEETING
The date of the Annual Stockholders Meeting has been established as Monday, October 2nd, 2017 commencing at 6:00 PM in the clubhouse. Please mark your calendar and plan on attending.
The purpose of the Annual Meeting is to elect four (4) members for the Board of Directors who will be responsible to carry out the important work of operating your golf course. One vacancy is for a one year term and three vacancies are for three year terms. As we have decided to forgo the December information meeting we will also include a club update.
To be eligible to serve as a Director you must have at least three (3) consecutive years of membership and be a Member in good standing. He/She must also own at least one share of stock in the club to be eligible to serve as a member of the Board.
It is not too early to consider running for election. Anyone who has served on the BOD can tell you that it is hard, but rewarding work. I have listened to many opinions on how things should be done these past few years. It is now time for those with the time, ideas and dedication to step forward and lead, not just observe from the sidelines.
TECHNOLOGY
We continue to work on technology issues almost every day. The issue(s) with viewing your member statement online have been addressed between 1-2-1 Marketing and Club Profit Systems. You should now be able to access your statement online thru all your devices.
We continue to work with Club Profit and Quick Books to allow the point of sale system to seamlessly integrate with the accounting program. As we transition all billing to the Club Profit point of sale system the yearly bunker renovation assessment was added to your monthly bill and two separate invoices were not generated like last year. This lead to the latest SNAFU in that some, but not all, couple memberships were double billed. The non-technical explanation is if you and spouse each have a number, a sub-account, both got charged. Julia caught this before the bills went out and made a manual pen and ink change. She is working with Club Profit for a permanent solution.
I can also report that the Online Payments function found on the Member Statement is working properly. I paid my bar bill this month with no issues.
Thanks for your patience as we work thru these technology challenges.
See you on the course.
Paul
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July 15th, 2017
From Ballston Spa Country Club
We continue to sign up new members and our dues projections for the year are expected to be approximately $545K. This is $50K above our budget. Starting August 1st, a mid year special takes effect and we may be able to sign up a few additional members as a result.
Our corporate pass holder revenue is right in line with our budget projections. We recently attracted another pass holder. We are one short from achieving last years revenue number.
We have made some adjustments to our revenue projections for greens fee and carts.
We have lowered them by a total of $25K. That is approximately a 7% reduction from our original budget numbers.
We continue to project a significant increase in our end of year cash position. We are currently projecting our end of year cash to be approximately $100K.
The roof was replaced and there was no additional costs for additional work. The estimate provided was the cost to replace the roof, $15,000. The insurance covered $7200 and we covered the rest. The new patio furniture was purchased and is now being used on the deck.
As always, if you have questions on anything that I have mentioned or you have been wondering about, please email me (tucats@nycap.rr.com) or talk to me when you see me at the course. I would be happy to provide you any info you need.
Sincerely,
Rick Funaro,
Treasurer
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Fox Membership July 2017
From Ballston Spa Country Club
Happy Summer. Between raindrops and thunderstorms, this has been quite the season. Even with all the rain, the course has been absolutely fantastic. Thanks to Steve and his grounds crew for making BSCC great. Also, thanks to Todd and his staff for managing to get us all out between the rain drops. Kudos to all the staff of Henry’s on the Green for the excellent food selections and service. Love the variety of the Daily specials. I know around the 7th hole of league, I begin to wonder what the specials of the evening will be, and can’t wait to try something new.
With all that said, it is time to share our great course with some new faces. Therefore, we will once again, be offering our late summer specials to new members. Please share these prices with family and friends. The late summer rates count as year one of membership. If a new member joins under the special, he/she will be considered to be in year one. Next year will be year two, and the following year three. Please remember, to ask your friends, family to name you as the recruiting member in order to receive your friends/family benefit.
BSCC_- 2017-Late Summer/Fall New Member Special Rates
50% off - Beginning 8/1/17
SINGLE- 34 Years of Age and over
Year 1 $1760. ($300 towards stock prepay)
$880 - ($150 towards stock prepay)
Year 2 25% off-2018 published rate ($300 towards stock prepay)
Year 3 15% off-2019 published rate ($300 towards stock prepay)
Year 4 2020 published rate
COUPLE
Year 1 $2795. ($300 towards stock prepay)
$1398 -($150 towards stock prepay)
Children + $50.
Year 2 20% off-2018 published rate ($300 towards stock prepay)
Children + $100.
Year 3 15% off-2019 published rate ($300 towards stock prepay)
Children + $200.
Year 4 2020 published rate
Children + $300
Jr. Executives Reg, Rate 50% Off ($150 – towards stock Prepay)
(25-26) $930 $465
(27-29) $1240 $620
(30-31) $1655 $828
(32-33) $1965 $982
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July Report
From Ballston Spa Country Club
We keep ourselves busy with our typical mowing and setting up of the golf course. The above average rainfall makes it tough to keep up with mowing all the quickly growing grass. I’m sure you would agree that the turf we have is lush and thick. Wet areas are still wet and we try to mow as best we can. It is amazing that it is July and we have not run an irrigation cycle on fairways or tees yet this year. I guess this means we will save on our electric bill this year with usage to run the irrigation pumps compared to last year. Men’s member guest went about as well as it could considering all the rain that had fallen. It had rained for a good portion of the day on Friday but cleared off for Saturday. We heard lots of compliments on course conditions even though we had all this rain.
We finally installed the new bent grass collar around the 8th green. We have been waiting for this sod to be delivered for some time. The wet weather delayed other courses projects and ultimately delayed ours because the sod came from a great distance. Finally the green surround on 8 is finished and it turned out very nicely. We then turned our attention to another project that needed completion. The new building behind the driving range tee is our new teaching academy facility. The building sits on stone and is positioned so that people can hit out of the building on rainy days. To accomplish this, the area around the building needed to be raised up and leveled. Prior to this work, the ground around the building was very low and to get in and out of the doors of the building was difficult. Drainage was installed so the area stays dry. The back of the driving range was extended a little on one side to get the back of the driving range parallel to the building. The area was then raked smooth and then sodded. The building and surrounding area turned out very nicely. It will be easy to maintain for us and should be a great addition to the facility.
Summer is now in full swing we will be spraying for disease on a regular basis. The frequent rainfall and humid weather makes for a perfect combination for funguses to grow. We do a preventative approach to controlling these diseases. That means we spray on a schedule at a low rate of material, hopefully before the disease really gets going. The goal is to give you the best possible conditioned course we can. |
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July Report
From Ballston Spa Country Club
My game in ruins, I was on the BSCC practice range attempting to permanently infuse my muscle memory with half a dozen new swing thoughts. I was convinced this would be the CPR that would resuscitate my game from its gasping, imminent demise. Nearby, John Rossi, a fellow struggler (we're all strugglers, all the time), came over and offered me a 1 yuan coin he had picked up in a recent business trip to Shanghai, suggesting I use it for a ball marker. I thanked him and after he left I examined it carefully to determine its ability to improve my putting game.
Oh, I can hear the snorts of derision from you, dear reader. How can a ball marker make any difference in your ability to successfully guide an orb to its rightful destination?
Your ignorance astounds me.
My travels have taken me to many countries and I usually bring back coinage to use as ball markers or just to throw in the little wooden box The Amazing Max and I go through every decade or so to help us reminisce. On leaving the house to play a round I used to naively grab any old coin that looked interesting in the hope my playing partners would notice and give me the opportunity to recall some of my experiences abroad, imagining conversations such as:
"Golly gum drop, Tuck, that's an interesting ball marker!"
"Yes it's a 32 Splutzenflab coin I picked up in Molvania just before the Russian Putsch in '89...."
"Interesting. Okay you're away, Tuck."
"I could actually see the T-14 Armata tanks rolling across the Vomitsplatz River Bridge when..."
"I don't think you should give the hole away, but it's definitely going a tad left."
Before long, I discovered that my coin choice made a definite difference in my putting. It all started when I placed a Canadian Loony behind my ball and noticed Queen Elizabeth II was facing the hole. Okay Liz, I said, Give me a read.
I sunk the putt, which was of moderate length. That did it. From then on, I used coins to mark my ball and they were exclusively coins displaying the head of someone important. If I inadvertently had forgotten such a coin, any currency with an animal's head would suffice, since I reasoned the deer on the Irish punt probably played as much golf as Lizzie 2. Naturally, I wasn't always successful with this headstrong ploy but I was convinced abandoning it would result in a 3-putt.
One day as I was sifting through my foreign coin collection in search of a new ball marker, I noticed that the coins that were headless generally came from non-golfy, nations. Whereas my 20 Jamaican dollar coin had Marcus Garvey scowling, my Irish, British, Canadian and American coins, all very golfy nations, had monarchs, politicians or animals I could use to help me read the break. However, my 5 Koruna specie from the Czech Republic, my 1982 Russian ruble, 20 franc coin, and rupees from Indonesia and India, all relatively golfaphobic countries that had produced no major winners, and were headless.
So it was with a critical eye that I accepted John's yuan and appraised its utility. Uh-oh, no head. Just a chrysanthemum or something.
It was to be expected. The Chinese government has recently reaffirmed its opposition to golf as a non-proletariat activity, so why would they put anyone's head on a coin?
Coincidentally, a few days after I got my Chinese yuan ball marker, a friend called to invite me to play with him and the father of one of his SUNY Albany pupils who had arrived from China to attend his daughter's graduation and was looking to smack it around while he was here. I eagerly accepted the invitation for many reasons, not the least of which was to see what he would mark his ball with and what sort of success said ball marker would provide.
Li Ching spoke no English, so his non-golfing daughter came along to interpret. He had a great swing and a 10 handicap but went 40/50 on the Ballston Spa Country Club track - not an unusual disparity, even for long time members. In our post-round conversation, I learned that his home town, Hangzhou, had a population of 9 million, with eight courses averaging over 1,000 members each and dues that included a $60,000 initiation fee that allowed you to pay $300/round as a member. Li Ching played four times a week.
On the first green, I looked closely as he marked his ball. One thing I noticed was that aside from being headless, the coin he used had a hole in the center and I remembered I had a coin from Hong Kong or Taiwan that had a hole as well. The difference was that his coin's hole was square, rather than the round one in mine.
BSCC greens are always well manicured, with very few flat putts, and speeds and slopes that demand you be below the hole to avoid hissy fits. After the round, I asked him what his impressions were of the course and he was very complimentary but threw in the caveat that the greens were tough and his lack of local knowledge hurt him, especially when it came to reading putts..
Even if I didn't have to go through the translation process I'm too polite to have pointed out that he couldn't possibly master them with a headless coin and for crying out loud, if you have to use a headless coin with a hole in it, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to use one with a round hole? You know, like the hole you're trying to put the ball in? You just can't ignore an obvious symbiotic relationship like that; golf's hard enough as it is.
So yesterday when John Rossi asked me if the yuan he'd given me was working, I didn't want to seem ungrateful by explaining my discovery about the head thing. I just told him I was missing putts a lot closer with it. |
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