Sterling Farms Men’s Club

Dear Fellow Golfer,

After some crazy weather, the golf season has sprinted to a start. Sterling Farms may have lost over 100 trees, but the #1 public golf course in Fairfield County is already in beautiful playing condition.

Last year I stated my two goals as President were to increase communication and participation. There were some successes and lessons learned. The board and I have taken these into consideration and are making adjustments for 2010. I will be sending less lengthy emails throughout the season but more short email reminders. The intent is to make sure our members are aware of sign-up start and end dates.

One major addition to what we do as a club is our new Player of the Year cumulative point system. Members will get points for participating as well as for placing in all of our events. At the end of the season we will have additional payouts. We are currently working with some local companies in an attempt to get a financial sponsor. Any monies received will be used to pay out the winners of the Player of the Year as well as put money in the bank for when we host the Shoreline tournament in 2012.

Membership rates for regular and senior members have increased in 2010. We had kept the rates the same for the past few years while most of our hard costs kept increasing.

• $70 Standard Membership
• $60 Senior Membership (62 and older)
• $30 Junior Membership (12 to 17)
  ***We collect an additional $10 from members participating in CSGA events.

The website and bulletin board have been updated with our calendar of events for the year. But please mark your calendars with the following dates:

• Opening Event Saturday April 24
• Member / Member Sunday June 27
• Member / Guest Sunday August 8
• Closing Event Saturday October 2

I would like to take a moment to thank our supporters. Please think of them when looking to do business. This includes the pro-shop with Angela and her staff; The Stamford Golf Authority, Paul, Tracey and their staffs; The Royal Green and everyone who provides us with food and drink!

We hope to see you on the links!

Carl Gregorio

President
Sterling Farms Men’s Club
http://www.sfmensclub.com/

Tags: Handicap, Members, Sterling Farms, Website by CarlGregorio
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 Dear Fellow Golfers,

The season is truly beginning. As of Wednesday, April 1^st, you now must post all of your scores played in the local area.  Our first white tee event starts on Monday April 13^th and our first weekend event starts in two weeks on Friday April 17^th. In this letter I will be discussing the following:

-         Masters Party

-         Opening Event

-         Membership Sign Up 

The Masters Party is on Saturday, April 11^th from 3:00 to 6:00 PM at the Royal Green. This social event is a great opportunity to catch up with members you have not seen in many cold months as well as to meet some of our new members.  And you can’t beat the free food.  Do you have a friend who might be interested in joining our club?  Bring them along as well.  So please RSVP by email so we can provide the Player’s Club with a headcount.
- Email: sfmc@sfmensclub.com
- Event Flyer: http://www.sfmensclub.com/Masters%20Party%202009.PDF

The Opening Event is on Saturday April 25^th with a shotgun start at 7:45 AM.  This two man scramble is a great way to start focusing on your game as well as a grand opportunity to enjoy hamburgers, hot dogs, beer, soda and more! Hopefully we will fill this event up quickly. So make sure to sign up the next time you go to the pro shop or you can do it on our website.  The cost is $65 per person.
- Online Event Sign Up: http://www.sfmensclub.com/opening_event_signup_2009.html
- Event Flyer: http://www.sfmensclub.com/Opening%20Event%202009.PDF
- More Information: http://www.sfmensclub.com/opening_event.html

Hopefully you have already signed up for the Men’s Club or are planning to do so soon. On May 1^st our standard membership fees go up $5 from $60 to $65.  The Senior and Junior rates will remain the same at $55.
- Online Membership Sign Up: http://www.sfmensclub.com/membership_signup_2009.html 
- Membership Benefits: http://www.sfmensclub.com/membership_2009.html

I hope to see you out on the course very soon!

Best Regards,

Carl Gregorio
President
203-253-1476

Additional Links:
Scoring on temporary holes: http://sfmensclub.com/blog/?p=59
New slope and course rating: http://sfmensclub.com/blog/?p=51
Pro shop discounts: http://sfmensclub.com/blog/?p=48

Next Newsletter Topic:
President / Vice President Cup Sign Ups

Tags: Handicap, Members, Sterling Farms, Website by CarlGregorio
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Dear Fellow Golfer,

It is almost that time of year again!  After a long and arduous winter, the golf season is knocking on the door.  And I am glad it’s back.  This past winter didn’t just see bad weather but also dark clouds in the economy and financial markets.  The invitation to get out on the golf course for 4 hours (ok maybe 5) and forget about the current headline news has already put a smile on my face.

In the following letter, I will talk about membership fees, my focus and objectives as president, and our event schedule. As always, if you have any questions after you read this letter, feel free to email me at president@sfmensclub.com or check the website for more details at www.sfmensclub.com.

Membership rates are staying the same in 2009 except for one minor adjustment.  They are as follows:

• $60 Standard Membership
  • Standard Membership goes up to $65 on May 1^st (this is the only minor adjustment)
• $55 Senior Membership (62 and older)
• $55 Junior Membership (12 to 17)

***As usual, we will collect an additional $10.00 from any member participating in CSGA events.

As your new president I am focused on two goals for this upcoming season.  They are to increase communication and increase participation.

The first part of increasing communication is already in the works.  I spent the winter months building our new website.  Sean Sullivan helped me out with the administrative side of things and the entire Board of Governors has provided input throughout the process.  The new website is a user-friendly tool to provide information as well as timely updates.  We also have a blog to give a little more insight into the club and a forum for members to discuss hot topics or to find a partner to fill up a tee time.

Communication works both ways.  The website is just one of the ways the Board of Governors communicates with our members.  Now there are feedback forms, emails and phone numbers on the website to facilitate our members communicating with the Board.  We continue to seek your feedback throughout the year.

Increasing participation, especially in our tournaments, is a top priority.  The past few years has seen shrinking participation in our special tournaments.  In addition, this year there are many people keeping an extra eye on the money leaving their wallet.  Because of this we have kept the costs the same.  Please mark your calendars with the following dates:

•          Opening Event                   April 25^th (Saturday)
•          Member / Member          June 27^th (Saturday)
•          Member / Guest                September 13^th (Sunday)
•          Closing Event                     October 11^th (Sunday)

For the first time we are hosting an event during the week from the white tees.  Visit our website for more information (http://www.sfmensclub.com/white_tee.html).

2009 has all the makings for a fantastic golf year.  Our club’s home is at the #1 public golf course in Fairfield County.  The Golf Authority tirelessly continues to make improvements to an already great course.  We are supported by an excellent pro shop staff as well as golf course employees.  So come and join us!  We have weekday events, weekend events and/or special tournaments almost every week of the golfing season.  You can win some pro shop credit, meet new friends and play some competitive golf.

We hope to see you on the links!

Carl Gregorio

President
Sterling Farms Men’s Club

www.sfmensclub.com

Tags: Members, Website by CarlGregorio
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A funny thing happened at a recent board meeting.  Two members were asked for their take on what “winter rules” means.  They each had two very different responses.  One thought it meant to roll the ball over with your club.  The other thought you lift, clean and drop within a club length.

If there are disagreements on a rule within the board, it usually means there is an even larger discrepancy throughout the membership. 

To set the standard we have added the definition of ‘winter rules’ to the local rules page (http://www.sfmensclub.com/local_rules.html).  When we start up the season in April, Winter Rules will be in effect.  The board will decide when to move to summer rules.  This decision is based on course condition, weather and the SFMC’s calendar of events.  If, for example, the President’s Cup qualifier weekend A is played under ‘winter rules’ we will wait until the qualifier weekend B is played before moving to summer rules.

So here is the rule:

• Through the green only (in the fairway or the fringe of the hole being played), after marking your ball, you are permitted to lift, clean, and place the ball within 1-club length of it’s original position, no nearer the hole
• This is allowed once per stroke. Once the ball is placed it may not be re-lifted and re-placed.
• Failure to mark the original position before lifting it, such as rolling it with a club, is a 2-stroke penalty or loss of hole in match play.

Tags: Members, Rules, Website by CarlGregorio
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A few years ago our bulletin board was filled with members comments as well as those looking for tee-times.  The past few years the boards have seen less and less traffic.  Along with building a new website we have installed a new forum for our members.  We have tried to set it up so it will get maximum use once again!

We have set it up so anyone can come onto the forum and read through the topics.  Only members who register can start topics or reply to an existing topic.

We have set up three categories to make things easier.
1. General
2. Find a partner
3. Buy, sell, trade

So come on over to the forum at http://www.sfmensclub.com/forum/. If you are a member, please register. 

Remember the Board of Governors is always seeking out feedback from our members.  Feel free to utilize our feedback form (http://sfmensclub.com/feedback.html) or post a topic for discussion on the forum.

Tags: Members, Website by CarlGregorio
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It is well known that we update our event results on a consistent basis.  But for 2009 there is even more information we will provide on a regular basis.

The first is our monthly Board of Governors Meeting Minutes.  We have never made these available to the membership before.  Now we have a web page that displays all of our minutes going back to beginning of 2008.  New minutes will be posted each month.

The second is the handicap index’s of each of our members for each revision.  We now provide a pdf document that shows all of our members handicap index by both alphabetical listing as well as by index (lowest to highest).  This is a great way to see where you stand in our club as well as if you are improving or not.  The new membership index’s will be posted after each revision.

Tags: Members, Website by CarlGregorio
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One topic I did not discuss from the previous post is “timely updates” of results on the website.  This has been a hot topic for years!  This year we are striving to provide more timely updates on the website.

First I would like to say what it will not be.  We will not have a “live” leaderboard displaying the immediate results of our members.

For our normal weekend events there are some logistics that must take place. 

1. On Monday morning the pro-shop takes down our score sheets.
2. Usually they will score our weekend event between Monday and Thursday.
3. They will create a Word document of the results. 
4. They will then post the results on the Bulletin Board outside the pro-shop and send us the results. 

Last year they would fax us the results.  This meant a volunteer would have to re-key everything and then post it to the website.  This year we are hoping to receive an email with the Word document of the results attached. This will make the process smoother and quicker for all of us.  At worst, the results should be posted on our website by Thursday evening.  Hopefully we can start getting the results posted much earlier than this.

For our Special Tournaments, we are going to try to post results even earlier.  Our goal is to have them up on the website by Monday morning.

If you want to volunteer your time in helping the Men’s Club, please email us!  You can find our emails and contact information at: http://www.sfmensclub.com/contact_us.html

Tags: Members, Website by CarlGregorio
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Last year we used a web service that provided the Sterling Farms Men’s Club with a good looking website.  Unfortunately to many of our members it was not user friendly. The Board of Governors heard many complaints about log-in issues, navigation issues and the lack of timely updates.

Over the past few months I have taught myself how to build a website and have re-created our website that can be found at http://www.sfmensclub.com/.  Sean Sullivan has been helping with the administrative side of things. This includes setting up our new web host provider (HostGator), setting up the email system, installing the forum/bulletin board script and installing this blog script (and I’m sure many other things I have forgotten).  Dean Pedon has also helped immensely in our discussions on the direction of the website.

So the three of us have come up with what you can see on our website.  I would like to add that the total costs of everything we have done is less than $120 per year for our entire web/email presence.  This is extraordinarily less than last years costs and approximately 75% less than we have ever spent on our web presence.

So let us know what you think of the work we have accomplished.  On our website we have set up a “Feedback Form”.  Send us the good, bad and ugly comments.  We want to continue to make the website a better tool to communicate with our members.

Tags: Members, Website by CarlGregorio
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This is where the Board of Governors will provide random commentary about golf and Sterling Farms among other things. 

We will also use the blog to archive emails sent to the membership.

Tags: Members, Website by CarlGregorio
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