Building the Governance capability at your Club

In 2019, the governance structure of the Lonsdale Golf Club included:

· Executive Committee

· Match Committee

· Women’s Committee

· Rules of Association

· Club By-Laws

· Strategic Plan

The Executive Committee had quite an operational focus which was understandable given the small amount of staff employed and the lack of sub-committees and Member policies in place. Having reviewed what was in place and knowing the large amount of growth that the Club would experience in the not too distant future, I looked into preparing a list of actions to be undertaken to better establish the governance capability at the Club.

· Governance training and induction for all Executive Committee Members and key management staff.

· Development of a set of standard Member policies to be published to the Members.

· A review of the sub-committee structure and recruitment of many new volunteer committee members. The new structure would include Match, Member Engagement, Membership, Finance Audit Risk, Future Fund, Governance, Succession Planning – see pictured below.

· Development of a sub-committee roles and responsibilities document.

· Update of Club By-Laws

· Update of Rules of Association to incorporate Future Fund Rules

· Development of Investment Policy Statement governing the activities of the Future Fund.

· Development of a new Vision, Mission & Values Statement

· Development of a new Strategic Plan.

A core part of this was to build my own governance knowledge as I would be managing the majority of changes being made. So, I undertook the Australian Institute of Company Directors course in Company Directorship. Our Financial Controller also undertook extra governance training via Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand.

The initial steps were to assess our current structure, forecast what our future needs would be and then clearly define each Committee’s charter, role and responsibilities. With this in place, recruiting the 43 Committee volunteers was much simpler as people clearly knew what their role would be. A further important step was to have one member of the management team fulfil the Secretary role on each Committee and provide that link and communication from the Members to the staff.

With our sub-committees in place, the Club By-Laws, Rules of Association and Investment Policy Statement were all reviewed and updated to reflect the new modern operations of the Club. Importantly, Lonsdale Links became a signatory to R&A’s Women in Golf Charter which saw us make changes to our governance structure to include 2 men, 2 women and Chairperson of either gender on each sub-committee. We also moved to have 3 men, 3 women and a Captain and President of either gender on the Executive Committee.

The golfing matters of the Women’s Committee were moved into the Match Committee Charter. Match is chaired by the Captain (male or female) and supported by a male and a female vice-captain and a further male and female (5 in total on Match Committee). This was an important step in recognising that all golf is of equal importance to the Club and removed the gender bias that was present with a male-dominated Match Committee and an all-female Women’s Committee therefore aligning everyone to the joint purpose of promoting all golf at Lonsdale Links.

The Executive Committee sought the consultancy expertise of Jeff Blunden’s Golf Business Advisory Service to assist in reviewing and re-drafting the Strategic Plan. Members are now surveyed on an annual basis to check how performance is trending and to seek feedback from Members about their Lonsdale Links experience.

Soon after the new Strategic Plan was adopted, the Executive Committee developed the Vision, Mission & Values Statement – see pictured below. This Statement combined with the Strategic Plan have given the Members a clear path for what the Club wants to achieve and how it conducts itself in pursuit of its goals. This process has been critical to align Members through this period of immense change.

Fast forward 4 years and I am pleased to say that all of these changes have been implemented and the Executive Committee and Management Team are set to embark on our next workshop to iterate the next version of our Strategic Plan.