As we enter our busiest time of year, we are seeing increased activity at the Scottsdale Private Golf Courses as more familiar faces join us after being away for the holidays. We want to give you an update regarding the Club following the Annual Meeting held in January. First, we want to thank John Roussel who recently completed his appointment as President as his leadership was key to another successful year as a Club as we continued to see growth in the offerings we have as a Club as well as the level of member satisfaction. As was announced at our Annual Meeting, our officers for 2022 will be President Bob Kline, Vice President Rob Maruster and Secretary Rich Baccaro. In addition, David Goldberg will serve as the Treasurer for the coming year. The advisory committee assignments for the Board of Directors at Scottsdale Private Golf Courses are as follows:
Finance – Chair David Goldberg / Vice-Chair Mike Thorell
Golf & Grounds- Chair Rich Baccaro / Vice-Chair David Wigler
House- Chair Cathy Hotchkiss / Vice-Chair Alan Sears
Membership- Chair Rob Maruster / Vice-Chair Doug Ideker
Racquets & Fitness- Chair Doug Ideker
Thank you to all of those who applied to serve on the various Advisory Committees for the year. Your support of the Club, our Staff and our offerings are key to the continued success of the Club. This group also serves as an important training ground for the future as we utilize our Committee system to develop future Directors of the Club as that is the minimum requirement of service on the Board. The more that our members participate to develop a further understanding of the Club as a business, the better prepared they will be successful in serving in that capacity as a Director.
Our interaction with the Club Membership at the Best Country Club in Scottsdale is vital to our future success and the Board, and we recommend that if you have any questions, comments or concerns, to reach out to either of us. As we reviewed at the annual meeting, some of our main goals for 2022 at the Best Country Club in Scottsdale are as follows:
Keep an ongoing line of communication with our Club members to enhance transparency and fully utilize our Advisory Committees to ensure that our members are engaged at all times so that we can continue to improve in all that we do.
Continue to drive improvement in all member-facing areas of the Club by providing the highest level of service possible so that the Country Club at DC Ranch continues to be the finest Club in the Valley including a reputation for service, outstanding facilities, and member satisfaction.
Follow through with the needs as provided in the Master Plan for Improvement of Club Facilities –we are currently looking at options available to complete an update to our Golf Shop this summer as well as enhancing our back-of-the-house areas to better serve the team as in many cases we have outgrown our needs in way of storage, restrooms, and employee dining. We are also looking at taking over the portion of our golf maintenance building that the Ranch Association currently occupies to also add storage, and workspace and to relocate staff parking to alleviate some of the stress that we see currently.
Review & update – with full participation and feedback from every class of membership – the current Strategic Plan. To formally begin not just to look at the now known Golf improvements we look to do in the next five years or so that will coincide with our irrigation system update - but more importantly, to look beyond that, to look to the future. Discerning what you, your families, and the next generation of families and members desire and need through surveys and focus groups, etc.
As we stated at the Annual Meeting, we truly believe that we are in a solid position with an experienced leadership team, a strong financial position, and an engaged and supportive membership which will continue to generate a buzz in the market as we aim to achieve even higher levels in 2022 and beyond.
In Membership news, we continue to have a robust waitlist of prospective members with our current waitlist encompassing roughly 100 approved prospects in all categories which has grown the waitlist time from two to five years depending on the category of membership. This past month alone we received almost twenty new applications. Despite the waitlist in place we continue to see a great deal of interest. At the most recent Board meeting, the Board unanimously approved a recommendation from the Membership Committee to increase the transfer fee for Golf Memberships to $50k effective March 1 st . This will bring our transfer fee more in line with those seen at our surrounding Clubs.
With all this being said, we look forward to a busy next few months at the Best Country Club in Scottsdale and know that you will enjoy all that our team has planned during this time. The calendar is packed with a number of golf, tennis, fitness and social events for your enjoyment so please make it a point to be here as much as possible as the temperatures begin to warm up! It would go without saying that we encourage you all to make advanced reservations as many of your Club favorites will be fully subscribed.
