Wow! What a fantastic day we had with F-Troop today and in more ways than one.
We had been approached to run the BBQ for a Vets tournament that was held at Gosford today. There were 132 players to cater for & we managed to run with that very well. We started the day very early (5.30 am set up) & worked the BBQ from 6.30 am to 12.30 pm. Annie Brink (started at 6.00am) and Des Wilson (started at 6.30 am) manned the BBQ all morning until 12.30 pm & put in a brilliant effort on behalf of F-Troop & catered well for the players. We had a good profitable day and all proceeds will go towards F-Troop projects on the course. We did have some left over stock & this will be used on Saturday when we will have another BBQ for the Saturday morning players which will boost our profits from this project.
A big THANK YOU to Annie & Des for their contribution.
The other FANTASTIC thing was that we had 21 people on hand to assist with our Monday projects which was our best effort ever for F-Troop & much appreciation goes to those people present today.
Those that I saw at the course today were Peter Martin, Di Beechey, Jan Walker, Georgina Lamb, Arthur Verlander, Peter Murphy, Bruce White, Warren Gray, John Coddington, Duncan Dyer, Geoff Bridge, Fred Middleton, Garry Trigg, Richard Casey, Frank Whittington, George Foster, Annie Brink, Des Wilson, Sam Knox & Mark Stimpson. 21 of us in all !!!!!!
For various reasons some people cannot make it every week & come when they can which is very acceptable to us. Some help is better than none ! However today seemed to be a day when most people could and did come & we were very appreciative of the extra help. If we had this many people every week we would have the course shining like a new pin.
Duncan Dyer & Geoff Bridge did some work on the machinery gate at the greenkeepers shed to enable the gate to swing evenly.
Fred Middleton added an extra feature of tree orchids to his orchid garden at the 1st tee (see photo attached).
Duncan, Geoff & Fred then worked around the course undercutting low growing trees & removing the offcuts.
George Foster did a long shift on the rough mower.
Arthur Verlander took care of obnoxious weeds around the course.
Garry Trigg & Richard Casey checked the boundary fence along Racecourse Road, picked up rubbish lying against the fence & repaired two holes in the wire fence put there by vandals or illegal users of the course.
Peter Murphy & Bruce White did raking & rubbish removal around the course.
Warren Gray & John Coddington did raking & rubbish removal around the course.
Di Beechey cleaned up around the BBQ area & assisted me with trimming & weeding at the front of the clubhouse.
Georgina Lamb weeded the front gardens & around the putting green.
Jan Walker weeded the Magnolia garden & raked & cleaned up around the putting green & wedding garden area.
Frank Whittington assisted with some timber pick up & raked around the front of the clubhouse.
Peter Martin did the 5.30am BBQ set up & supervised the F-Troop & was the Gofer for tools & equipment required for the group.
Annie Brink & Des Wilson were occupied with the BBQ all morning.
Sam Knox brought in his wood splitting machine & worked all morning on splitting up more timber for our F-Troop firewood sales.
Mark Stimpson helped to organise & clean up after morning tea & was on hand to support the group.
I started on the hedging at the front steps of the clubhouse, moved on to the shrubs in the front garden, the hedge around the "Little Gem" magnolia, part of the hedge around the putting green (before being rained out) & started on some trimming of the azaleas behind the putting green.
We really did achieve some good things today & my appreciation goes to everyone for their contributions today. We did get "rained out" about morning tea time which called a halt to most of our work.
Morning tea this morning was extra special as we had a sausage & onion sandwich thrown in as well as some mini muffins from Chef John.
Our course superintendent David is organising a day on the course to apply poison wands to the obnoxious grasses growing on the fairways. David is looking for volunteers from our Members to volunteer some time very late in the afternoon to apply poison via the wands to these unwanted grasses. A definite date has not been set at this time as we obviously need fine weather & a day that there are not too many players on the course. If you think you could spare some time to assist with this work please contact Mark Stimpson, myself or David as soon as possible as we want to organise a time that we can get specific instructions from David on the exact procedure for this project prior to proceeding with the work.
YES! WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
