Weymouth Golf day

The April outing was held at Weymouth Golf Club on the 27th. I think most of us looked forward to this event with some trepidation at the thought of getting soaking wet as the weather had been horrific. With such along period of dry weather the rain was something we were not really used to.
We awoke on the day to a very grey sky and some showers. When we arrived at Weymouth the skies had cleared and there was even some sunny outbreaks.



As we gathered in 
the bar for our Coffee and Bacon Rolls we were informed that our tee time was 1200 and not 1230 as we had originally been told. Enter panic as some of our members renowned for not turning up until just before the tee time would probably not make it. After consulting with the pro we found out that we had been allocated tee times from 1200 to 1.00, a bit excessive for the 10 of us.
Anyway on top the golf itself. the course was in great condition and judging by the numbers of green keeping staff we saw heading for the kitchen for their lunch so it should be. Weymouth is quite a forgiving course in so much as you can usually find your ball if it is hit a bit offline. Playing with Trick, Brian and Jeff we were entertained with Trick trying to find out the best price of stone paving from Brian. When this discussion was interupted with the need to play a golf shot Brian managed to play a superb shot to win the Nearest the Pin competition. Jeff was also very near and this is the first time ever that I have seen a tape measure being used to see who was nearest. The overall competition for the day was Mike Powell, one of the newly formed Botany Baye Bandits. As usual I can't remember who won the other prizes except Russel who won the 2's with what I have been told was a fluky shot through the rough. 
All in all another great day with great company on a good course
Next month is at Rushmore and we hope to get another good turnout, but beware that the Dreaded Dexter Bree has threatened to play.  

Rain

Golf Bag Rain Covers









Up until recently we have forgotten what rain was, but now we have got lots of it and it is forecast that it will continue for some time you might want to have a look at some of these golf bag rain covers

Cheque presentation to National Coastwatch

Following our 2011 Charity day we are pleased to be able to donate £250 to National Coastwatch, one of our chosen local good causes.

The picture shows the St Adhelms Head Station Manager Dirk Aldous receiving their cheque from John Bryant the secretary of the Redpost Golf Society.


Other donations made from the proceeds of the golf day were £750 to The Friends of Bournemouth Eye Unit and £750 to Wool and Bovington Wishes.


May we thank all of our sponsors for their valuable donations and to all those who contributed by playing.

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2011 Nike Dura Feel Golf Glove Left Hand for Right Handed Golfer

Redpost Golf Society - How we got our name.....................

How we got our name...............

If you read our blog you might be interested how we got our name. The society was originally formed in 2005 in the Greyhound Pub in the village of Winterborne Kingston. Its founding members were taken from the Friday Night Club which was an unofficial male drinking club so the society was first named the Friday Night Golf Society. On reflection it was decided that we should not have such close links to the Greyhound as it might stop people from other areas wanting to join. Hence the society was renamed The Redpost Golf Society after a local landmark which is a unique red painted signpost on the A31 in Dorset and is affectionately known locally as the Redpost.

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For your interest the following is the history of the signpost which we hope you will find of interest 

Anyone travelling along the A31 road in Dorset heading towards the west country might  have noticed a red painted sign post between Winterborne Zelston and Bere Regis and wondered why this is there . Locally this is affectionately called the Redpost and it is highly prized and protected by locals from anyone trying to replace it with a modern version.

There are two stories about the derivation of this unique feature.

The first is that it was the site of a hangman's gibbet and the signpost was coloured red because of the blood that was drawn from persons receiving their punishment. According to folklore the recipients of the hangmans punishment were stragglers from the prisoners detailed in the following tale. It cannot be proved one way or another whether this was true but it is probably thee most unlikely scenario.

The actual sign

The story with the most credence is that the signpost was placed there to help the guards who were escorting prisoners on their long march from Dorchester Gaol which is about 15 miles further west  to Portsmouth ready for their deportation to Botany Baye in Australia. It is thought that the sign gave the guards an indication of where their overnight stopover was which was at  the still named Botany Baye Farm. There are still some traces among the newer farm buildings of the prisoners overnight accommodation.

The Botany Baye Inn 

Once rested the procession would continue on the following day and would pass the site where the local hostelryThe Botany Baye Inn is now sited.The pub was built in the1920s on land donated by the local squire who did not like overlooking the original pub which was located in the centre of the village ofWinterborne Zelston. It was originally called the General Allenby and its name was changed because of the local history

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Although he following is a song about an Irish Navvy emigrating to Botany Baye and not about deported prisoners I find it of interest and would thank the Botany Baye Inn for finding it.

 

Botany Bay - Traditional Song

"Farewell to your bricks and mortar, farewell to your dirty lies
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks
And to hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin, she's lying at the quay
For to take out Pat with a shovel on his back
To the shores of Botany Bay

I'm on my way down to the quay, where the ship at anchor lays
To command a gang of navvys, that they told me to engage
I thought I'd drop in for a drink before I went away
For to take a trip on an emigrant ship to the shores of Botany Bay

Farewell to your bricks and mortar, farewell to your dirty lies
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks
And to hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin, she's lying at the quay
For to take oul Pat with a shovel on his back
To the shores of Botany Bay

The boss came up this morning, he says "Well, Pat you know
If you don't get your navvys out, I'm afraid you'll have to go"
So I asked him for my wages and demanded all my pay
For I told him straight, I'm going to emigrate to the shores of Botany Bay

Farewell to your bricks and mortar, farewell to your dirty lies
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks
And to hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin, she's lying at the quay
For to take oul Pat with a shovel on his back
To the shores of Botany Bay

And when I reach Australia I'll go and look for gold
There's plenty there for the digging of, or so I have been told
Or else I'll go back to my trade and a hundred bricks I'll lay
Because I live for an eight hour shift on the shores of Botany Bay

Farewell to your bricks and mortar, farewell to your dirty lies
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks
And to hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin, she's lying at the quay
For to take oul Pat with a shovel on his back
To the shores of Botany Bay"

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This article has been written by John Bryant who lives in a village adjoining Winterborne Zelston called Winterborne Kingston. John runs the Redpost Golf Society and has been a member of the village parish council. He was born in Shaftesbury and for a large part of his life has lived away from his beloved Dorset and returned 12 years ago and is now sharing some of its idiosyncracies with the readers

Our Charity days

The Redpost Golf Society has over the last 4 years organised a charity day. 
The idea for making this an annual event came when we were asked if we would donate to a fund being run locally for a young quadriplegic male. So we thought we would turn one of our normal monthly events into a charity Day to see how much we could raise for Wills Wheelchair Fund which the charity had been named. Wills is an extremely sad case, his mother having died of an illness when he was 13, his father died when he was 14 as the result of an accident and Will himself up to then being a fit teenager subsequently fell from a roof while playing with his mates thus rendering him quadriplegic. 
When we were asked to be involved Will needed to upgrade his wheelchair for a special one recommended by his consultant. This was to cost £18000.00. We managed to raise about £3500 and with other collections in our own and surrounding villages we all managed about £7000. Peter Allis the well known TV Golf commentator got to hear about Wills plight and he very kindly made up the shortfall from the proceeds of the golf day he has run at Ferndown Golf Club, the aim of which is to present local people with wheelchairs . 
Will was presented by Peter with his chair at a presentation day and whilst there we met the recipient of our next Charity Day, a lady named Jenny Clark, her husband Andy and her assistance dog Farah. We were immediately taken by the way they had devoted their lives to the charity they had formed Woofability whose aim is acquiring and training more assistance dogs for people in Dorset .We therefore made our goal to raise money to buy and train our society dog originally called  Colin but whose name was changed whilst he was still a puppy to Monty as the Ryder Cup was fast approaching and so we renamed him after the proposed captain. 
 In the following years we decided we would again donate some of our proceeds to Woofability but we also wanted to donate  some of the proceeds to other local causes.

 Some of the other beneficiaries we have supported are the 

• Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution because a local farmer Laurence Burgess whose favourite charity is Rabi  had helped us out running our after golf auction with his Jethro impressions , 
• Wool and Bovington Wishes a local charity raising money to send local disadvantaged children and young adults on trips they otherwise would never go on, 
• Friends of Bournemouth Eye Unit who have helped two of our members who have had sight problems.
• As Dorset has an extensive coastline we have also made a donation to National Coastwatch a charity slowly taking over the MCA watch keeping duties along the coast 

If anyone is interested in organising their own golf day we have listed some of the things we have learnt whilst running our charity events

HOW WE ORGANISED OUR CHARITY DAY.........................................

The Redpost Golf Society  based in Dorset in the UK have now run 4 Charity events and raised in excess of £12000 and would like to pass on to aanyone who has an interest in golf and is looking to run a Charity golf day how we have done it and hope it proves helpful.Organising a golf day is great fun and rewarding but it is hard work and you need to constantly badger people to help you out.

How we have done it .......

• First select your chosen cause and set a realistic target

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• Seek a local business as a major sponsor. We were lucky enough to find the Hearn Group of Companies in Dorchester and they have made a regular contribution to all of our events

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• Book a golf course well in advance of the event and settle the amount they want to charge and agree what is to be provided. This needs to include what food and refreshments they can offer, free use of buggies to place advertising banners on the course, Nearest the Pin and Longest Drive markers and anything else you can think of. If you stress that it is for charity they are normally happy to help financially.

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• Start getting teams to enter we try to get teams of 4 which means that it is easier to organise when they are playing. But don't turn down single players as you can usually make up more teams from these single players.

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• Find sponsors for each hole. We get them to pay a set amount for the hole ( charge more for 1 and 18 as most sponsors seem to like these holes). We ask if they are to provide their own advertising banner to place around the hole or if they would like us to provide one. we have an arrangement with a manufacturer so we make a small profit on this.

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• Organise a draw to be drawn on the day. We have in our latest event charged £10 for an envelope which includes draw tickets and an entry into the putting competition ,Nearest the Pin and Longest Drive. Anyone without the tickets cannot enter the competitions. We had about a 95% take up.

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• Get prizes. A good source of prizes are from local golf clubs who are usually willing to donate green fee tickets especially if you have played on their course. We have also approached with great success,  local organisations providing such things as Shepherds Hut holidays, Gliding, Zorbing, Shooting and alpaca walking. You will need to buy trophies as you see fit for overall winner, Nearest Pin, longest Drive, Champion Putter etc.

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• We play full handicap scoring for both team competition and individual. this makes it slightly easier for the person collating the scores. For the team score we count the best 2 scores for the first 6 holes,the best 3 scores on holes 7 to 12 and all scores on the last 6 holes. Anyone who has reasonable Excel skills can easily develop a programme to add up these scores, if not we are happy to sell you a copy of ours at nominal cost. you can contact us on www.redpost-golf-society.co.uk We also run a yellow ball competition and a nearest the mystery prize on the 18th fairway. The way the yellow ball competition works is that each team starts with a yellow ball and each player in turn has to use this ball. All the scores with this ball are added up at the end of the round and we give a prize usually a green fee voucher to the winning team. If the ball gets lost the team does not qualify. A dustbin is placed on the 18th fairway at an average driving length so the big hitters have to throttle down if they want to win and the highest handicappers still have a chance of winning. the prize is anything we need to get rid of and has included a beer cooler, a battery drill and a case of beer.

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• We have also held auctions after the golf and we have put up lots such as holidays,tickets to sports events, restaurant vouchers, football club shirts and anything else that you can cajole people and businesses into giving. We have been lucky that we have been able to enlist the services of a local farmer who has conducted many auctions and is also an entertainer in his own right. Make sure any one who is going to run the auction is "pushy" so you get as much from the auction as possible.

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• A general point is to make sure that you have enough people helping your golf day and they all need to know what you want them to do. We have enlisted the help of a lovely lady who registers all the players, enters scores and sells the £10 envelopes, she is  probably the reason we get such a good uptake in selling these!

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Finally remember what you are doing this for-

To raise as much money for your Chosen Charity by any means you canthink of!

HAVE FUN AND A SUCCESSFUL DAY

www.redpost-golf-society.co.uk

Player Profile

If you ever consider joining The Redpost Golf Society I would like to introduce you to some of our members. 
We have members from all walks of life and of differing ages from young whizz kids of 40 to players past pensionable age. Some of our members could be said not to be in the best of physical condition. We have one who was a well respected economist who decided to have a career change to a scaffolder and has now done extensive damage to himself in his new occupation. More later. We also have a member who is well past collecting his pension but has again not played recently. His reason for us not having seen him  is because of  cricket injuries which he sustained whilst still playing at 60. Other members believe it was injuries sustained running to The Railway ( no not to catch a train)

The Curly Wurly Classic Follow Through

Our first player is a past captain Dave Rance. according to his facebook profile his username is Dive so we will in future call him that. Dive is supposedly an auditor but some of us believe he is up to other dodgy dealings. As far as golf is concerned Dive plays off 15 and his greatest claim to fame is that he is a master of the Curly-Wurly drive.

I must remember to do a spellcheck as I've already noticed 2 typos

Something to keep you amused

Next Event at Weymouth Golf Club

30th April 2012

Coffee and Bacon on Arrival, 18 holes of golf, 2 course evening meal.

All welcome

If you want to join visit www.redpost-golf-society.co.uk, ring me on 07768 014806 or send remail to jbes@supanet.com

A Trickey Distance

When I was playing with one of our members - Paul "Trick"  Trickey I noticed that he kept looking at hiis watch so I shouted across to him "Can't you wait to finish this game" or words to that effect. He replied "No i'm just trying to get used to my Garmin Approach S1 Range finder". 


So this is why Trick is now writing this review.

"I bought this gadget because i had seen other people having to find their range finders from their golf bags making everybody wait to find the distance and then slicing the shot or hitting it out of bounds or into the water, so I thought this is gresat piece of gear as you wear it like a watch 

it also acts like a watch so as I am nearly always late to arrive at golf days it helps to get me there almost on time. The alarm pleases my wife as it gets me out of bed in the morning and she hasn't yet found out that it is a golf gadget 

I was abit worried that some gadgets don't have any courses already loaded on them but this one has over 5000 courses in Europe and there are more being added. I will have to find out if there are any courses on it in Australia so I can use it when I stay with my brother Chris. 

As it is waterproof it will suit me as i have already dropped my mobile phone into a pond and am always having to get my balls out of the water on some courses. Although I have not tried it for that long it says that the Lithium battery will last for 8 hours when using it for range measuring and 30 hours as a watch. The machine comes with a charger and manual which I am still learning what other things you can do with it. After I have learnt about the machine I need to sort out how to hit the ball the length that it is telling me. 

I bought it from Golf247 which is a site that our secretary has added to our site for us to buy gear at good rates with discounts and vouchers

Trick 

I hope this will be useful to anyone thinking of buying one and  if you click the image above you will be able to get more information.


Trick is a member of

January to March events

As i have not started this blog until April this a brief recap of events since January.
January we played at Ashley Wood a course near Blandford which for the time of the year was in great condition. Shiner was the overall winner and duly received his prizes. I can't remember if one of his prizes was a cut in his handicap or who won the nearest the pin and longest drive prize. The after golf food was excellent and considered by most to be one of the best meals we have had whilst doing the rounds.Suffice it to say that we had another great day for the 12 that played, the weather being kind to us and the course in great condition for January.

We held our annual AGM  as we always do with  the January Golf Outing and  as usual it was stated that we had some money and we had booked some fixtures for 2012

February saw us at Ferndown Forest, a course that we have not played since the society was formed in 2005.Unfortunately the course had only just been taken over by anew owner and the previous one had taken all the tee markers, hazard markers and mowers with him. in spite of this they had done  remarkable  job in posting temporary signs etc and had managed to cut the greens.the winner of the day was Ken Hann who i played with and he thoroughly deerved it.
The apres golf food was good and given afew months when the owners have had a chance to make more improvements all round it will be a good place to play

March we had our biggest turn out for some time. it was good to see some old faces and some new who we hope will join us again.
For anyone who has not played the Isle of Purbeck before it is a tough course but has spectacular views over Poole harbour. We wer blessed with fantastic weather again . Both the Davis boys wearing shorts which was not a pretty site and was an excuse for some poor play by some players. the scores on the day were not brilliant but the day was won by newcomer Robin Smith who once played off 28 but no longer thanks to Jeff the Handicapper. We also had a team competition which again was won by Robin, Mike Powell and Mike Downs. Robin was also extremely lucky to have won a trophy - The Swingle Tree Tankard. If we can locate any more of our trophies we will present them at future events.

Anyway the next event is at Weymouth, we haven't been able to play here for some time as they stopped societies playing on Fridays but this has obviously now changed back to how it used to be. Hope to see you all here and any more new members will be welcome.
Go here to join us   jbes@supanet.com

About Redpost Golf

Hello, this is my first attempt at a Blog so bear with me for any mistakes I might make.
Just a brief intro- I am John Bryant and for my sins am secretary (sort of) for a village golf society located in Dorset in the UK.
We play throughout courses in the south of England and have about 28 members. Some of us are quite old and should be thinking about giving up any type of sport except perhaps darts and related drinking, others are a lot younger and seem to think they are Luke Donald!
My idea in writing this blog will be to keep the reader (if any) up to date with our exploits, where we have just played, reviews of new gear that members may have bought  etc, etc.
Our golf society