1-26-20

The past couple of weeks have involved me taking some time off work to deal with some personal items.  I’m very happy to see things are moving in a very positive direction with all family members.  Sometimes you don’t know what you have until life is almost taken away from you and your family.  I have experienced some life changing moments already in the great year 2020.

Our daily fee bag tags have arrived at the golf course.  Again, these tags will be given to the golfing public upon check in prior to their round.  The tag will be applied to the correct side of the golf cart and visible to employees and others on the course.  The tags are numbered, will be dated, signed, and colors changed on a daily basis.  This will help us control individuals who fail to check in and pay their daily fees.

The season pass bag tags are still in the preliminary stages.  The company should have a proof sent early this coming week.  These tags will be granted to all season pass holders and will be displayed on their golf bags and be visible to staff at all times.  We will also be issuing cart stickers upon payment of storage fees for the 2020 season.

This past week I renewed our water permit with the Iowa DNR.  This water permit allows us to irrigate our golf course April 1 through the month of October.  The water permit is not a free for all water an unlimited amount every day.  We are allowed to pump 81 acre feet of water out of our well and 121.5 acre feet of water out of our pond during this time.  An acre foot = 326,00 gallons of water which is less than one night of full irrigation.  The past three years we have not been close to hitting our water limit due to above normal rainfall.

There are a lot of things to consider when we have above normal rainfall at the golf course.  The areas of the golf course that are not irrigated require mowing multiple times each week.  A dry season will amount to 450 hours on a rough mower and the past few seasons have averaged 750 hours on a rough mower.  More man hours, more equipment hours, more fuel, more maintenance repairs, and less golfers.  It makes for a difficult situation.

The golf board has approved the first annual 2020 “Membership” Drive at the muni.  This event will be held on March 28 at the clubhouse.  There will be raffle drawings for gift certificates to the SMGC for individuals purchasing season passes for the 2020 season.  The season pass must be paid in full by this date or you have it automatically withdrawn from your checking account.  Junior passes are not eligible for the drawing.

 Season Pass Drive

 2020 rate sheet

 

Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns.  Enjoy the remainder of your weekend.

1-11-2020

Good Morning,

The past three years I have worked way too many hours on these repairs.  Troubleshooting is the most time consuming part of the repair process.  Over the last two weeks I have explored options to eliminate the electrical issues with our irrigation system.  There have been conversations with the contractor as well as the sales branch in Kansas City.

During these conversations we have all agreed the piping, valves, and irrigation heads are all in working order.  The main issue is electrical.  The system is 20 years old whether it be decoder issues, tubing issues, splicing issues, or lightning, these components can fail after that length of time.  All of these issues are time consuming to diagnose and repair and create situations where the system will not work until the repairs are completed.

Rainbird will be sending me a cost estimate for materials to replace our decoders with the IC System.  The IC System will continue to function even if there is an electrical issue or lightning strike.  It consists of a unit at every valve location, lightning protection, and a new interface in the office.  This option will give us the opportunity to have some very good discussions moving forward with the system.

The new daily fee bag tags have been ordered.  These tags will be used for daily fees and cart rentals paid.  Tags will be attached to the roof bar and remain visible to golf course staff.  The color will change on a daily basis and each tag is numbered.  The customer name, date, and fees paid will be written in Sharpie.  This will allow us to easily track daily customers.

Season pass bag tags have also been ordered.  These tags will have a picture of the golf course on one side with the year and name also written in Sharpie.  These tags will be attached to the golf bag and remain visible to golf course staff.  Both of these new systems will make it easier to monitor our golfers and stop all individuals not having the proper credentials following check in at the clubhouse.

Spencer Municipal Golf Course board members have developed a “Membership Drive” for the golf course.  This event will be held on March 28.  I have attached the flyer below.  If golf board members see any corrections or information that needs to be included please let me know.

 Season Pass Drive

 2020 rate sheet

Street Division staff was also on site to help with a couple of projects.  The light poles surrounding the clubhouse were repaired and are back doing what they are supposed to be doing.  They also addressed the new tile area around #16 green.  Some of the material was leveled but most of it was frozen and unable to be moved.  This project will be completed in the Spring.

Please get in touch with me if you have questions, comments, or concerns.