The Women’s Golf Leadership Group is part of the GCMA’s commitment to achieving greater gender equality in the GCMA community
By Bob Williams
As I announced at our Conference in November, I’m pleased to confirm the GCMA will launch the Women’s Golf Leadership Group in 2018, as part of our commitment to achieve a more inclusive culture within golf.
The Women’s G
olf Leadership Group, which will meet for the first time at three locations around the UK in the New Year, is part of our commitment to achieving greater gender equality in the GCMA community.
The group reflects the overall aspiration for golf club management to be genuinely inclusive and embrace gender diversity in the broadest sense.
It recognises that to achieve this aspiration there needs to
be a cultural shift that properly enables women to flourish at all levels of the industry. The GCMA has seen a big rise in female members over the last couple of years – almost 100% increase since 2012, and with nearly 20% of our members now women, it’s clear there is a fundamental shift in the demographics of our membership.
The group will exist initially to bring like-minded people together to share the challenges they have faced, and provide a forum to look specifically at what barriers exist within the current culture of golf club management. The vision for the group is to develop best practice and create consistent opportunities to advance gender balance throughout 2018, with a view to developing a wider programme of events and initiatives in 2019.
It should also be noted that three of the last four GCMA Golf Club Manager of the Year winners have been female, and the group will also champion the achievements of women in the industry. The key themes of the Women’s Golf Leadership Group are to embrace diversity, ensure inclusive leadership, encourage collaboration and be proactive in addressing the under representation of female golf club managers with innovative plans and strategies.
The first step towards achieving this objective is to identify key priorities for change to enable all those who have a stake in the future of our industry to get behind clearly defined calls to action. The group will be launched in February and March.
Key leading women from our industry, the PGA and BIGGA will be invited to join female members of the GCMA for thought leadership presentations and facilitated networking.
All female members will receive an invitation to attend and participate in an open and frank discussion about the current challenges. This will then serve to identify the nature and scope of work required with owners, boards, committees, golf club members and others within the golf club management community. The first meetings will be held on February 1, Fairhaven Golf Club, North West; February 27, Enville Golf Club, Midland; March 21, Foxhills Club and Resort, London
& Home Counties. I would like to thank Fairhaven, Enville and Foxhills for agreeing to host. If you would like to attend or send key female staff from your organisation please email [email protected] or call 01275 391153.
