Golf Board of Governors

Golf Committee Meeting City Hall February 6, 2018 4pm Present: Hoyt Hillman, President, Chair, Greg Ferris, At-Large, Cindy Renard, District III, Richard Schodorf, District V, Debbie Burch, District VI, Shana Appelhanz, Michelle Haun, Troy Hendricks, Cody Lack, David Buschschulte Absent: Dr. Michael Williams, District I, Thomas West, District II, Cory Rainwater, District IV Hillman called the meeting to order at 4:03pm. Public Agenda Regular Agenda Items Approval of Minutes from 1/2/2018 Renard made the motion to approve the meeting minutes for November and January. Hillman second. Rounds/Expenditures Hendricks stated the rounds report is not completed because the month has not closed yet. Weather has not been good. Rounds are down 21%. We will email everyone the numbers once we receive the revenue and expense information. Elections Hillman stated it is time for annual elections. Nominations for chair. Ferris nominated Hillman. Schodorf second. Ferris nominated Renard for vice-chair. Burch second. All in favor, none opposed. First Tee Hendricks stated that we have site plans from First Tee. We should be ready to go to Council in a couple weeks. They are planning a women’s luncheon at the end of April and hoping to break ground on the driving range in May. They should be ready to open to the public in 2019. Ferris asked how much they will spend on this project. Hendricks stated around $500k. They are hoping to get a lot of charitable donations. Annual Pass – Monthly Payment Plan Hendricks stated that we have talked about this in prior meetings. We will need to work on a marketing plan, but we should wait to work on this to see what the outcome of the meetings regarding golf course closures will be. That way we don’t advertise a rate to play at five courses and then find out we are closing a course and face questions about the rate. Ferris asked what the annual revenue of pass players with and without carts is. He asked if there will be just one price, or if there will be a senior and non-senior rate. Hendricks stated he previously emailed that information, but didn’t have it today. He stated that there will be just one rate $75/month. Burch asked if we would then offer two plans, one with a cart and one without. Hendricks stated yes. Ferris recommended a senior and non-senior rate at $65 and $85 per month. Even $90 would be less than a country club. We don’t need to discount the annual pass rate. The incentive would be to pay the same and then they would be able to play more golf. Burch stated that part of the goal is to grow golfers. Ferris stated that seniors should still have restrictions for the discounted rate. We still have a lot of full rate players booking tee times on Saturday and Sunday mornings. We don’t want to have pass holders taking up all those times. There should be a difference in what you get for the full price versus the discounted rate. Burch asked if we could limit the number of passes available annually. Hillman stated that could be part of the marketing. Hendricks stated that he is not in favor of adding the cart. He just added the information as an option. Burch asked how country clubs deal with it. Ferris stated that Derby includes everything. We haven’t discussed family passes either. We need to do more analysis. He asked if we still want to consider an executive pass option. Renard asked if this would be the time to increase the senior age. She agreed it would be better to leave the cart separate from the pass. Hendricks stated that it would be a one year agreement that would charge a penalty for early termination and then be month to month after the first year. Ferris recommended keeping the junior pass, unless they are added to a family pass. Hendricks stated that we only sold 15 student passes this past year. Ferris suggested not having a junior pass. Just charging them a junior rate. Mosher stated he would like to see the passes without the carts. Buschschulte agreed, since we can run out of carts more easily. Ferris stated we can increase cart revenue when golfers pay full price for the cart. LW Clapp – no update Hendricks stated that we had a meeting with the City Manager. He wants to do a total evaluation of all of the golf courses. He will then assemble a team to review the information before any decisions are made. Schodorf stated that the team the City will assemble will not consist of golfers or others that will be as knowledgeable about the golf division as the committee and staff. It is frustrating that we have come up with plans that would make money and have not been able to move forward with them. We should start making a list of things to do to generate revenue. Hillman stated that we don’t have a timeline at this point and asked if they were still considering an outside firm. Hendricks stated that we have enough data internally to reach a decision based on the financial information without bringing in a third party. Ferris asked Hendricks to make a recommendation to the City Manager to have a member of the committee present at the next meeting they hold. We should appoint someone in the event they allow it. Schodorf nominated Ferris. Ferris agreed. Next Meeting March 20, 2018 Meeting was moved to March 27th due to spring break. Adjourned at 4:58pm.