Burhill Team News February 2022
Colin Mayes Chief Executive I am delighted to report to everyone that the group has had a good start to the year with January performing slightly ahead of expectations and we are hoping the same can be said for February. Two down and ten to go now, it is just amazing how quickly time flies by when you are busy!!! Just to help everyone’s understanding of why we are doing well at the moment, it is primarily due to the following reasons. 1. Golf Club memberships are at an all-time high 2. The number of golf rounds played by both members and independent golfers are also ahead of what we expected 3. The above is due in the main because of the incredibly mild weather experienced for most of January and in the first part of February 4. Our Adventure Leisure business has been performing really well along with our two indoor Ninja Warrior UK venues at Southampton and Sheffield 5. In February we opened our new Ninja Warrior UK venue in Milton Keynes so have the benefit of this business’ trading from then. You will all have been affected one way or another by the recent storms that have been impacting the country. On Friday 18th February the whole southern part of the country was almost closed down because of the record high winds / rainfall. I am sure we will have a few stories
about that day. I was at Burhill, and I have never seen so much carnage caused by the winds, our greenkeeping and estates team literally spent the whole day clearing trees and tidying up damaged caused. A great job done by them all! The team at Burhill that day, including myself, moved our cars around the car park to ensure we dodged the very large number of branches (some of them pretty big ones) that were flying about!!! Sadly, a number of our businesses were quite badly affected with driving range fencing and support towers being damaged which alone will probably cost us well over 60,000 to replace and repair. It just goes to show that just when you think things are starting to go well there is nearly always something that literally comes out of left field or rather a major westerly storm from across the Atlantic Ocean!!! This has meant the weekend of the 19th & 20th of February saw a major clean-up operation for many of our golf teams which will no doubt take a lot of time to clean up given the amount of debris that has fallen onto our golf courses, car parks and our outdoor adventure golf venues. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody that has helped with this, many people have all done a few more hours and volunteering their services to ensure we got back to normal asap. A great team effort well done to all and particularly our greenkeeping teams who have taken the brunt of the storms and all the work that goes into clearing up afterwards. Now onto some good news … this month we held our awards event for 2021 to celebrate the successes of last year and to ensure everybody was thanked for their hard work and commitment to our business. Our largest function room in the group at Aldwickbury Park Golf Club, Harpenden can only accommodate up to 180 people and
CEO Update we had it almost full to the rafters for the night including all our General Managers from each of our businesses together with some of their team members. Within this newsletter you will see many of the great pictures / awards from the night and everybody that attended seemed to have a great time. Also joining us was our Chairman, Edward Clive and Lord Iveagh helping me present all the prizes. Also attending was Michelle Ward another one of our directors and all of them thoroughly enjoyed the evening. We had a great atmosphere throughout the evening with many tears of joy / celebration. It was a pleasure to host the event given that Covid caused us to cancel our celebrations in 2021 and getting the chance to celebrate with so many of our great people was a real treat for us all. Congratulations to all the prize winners and particularly to our Employee of the Year at all our venues. What a huge honour it is to be named an Employee of the Year, you should all be very, very proud of yourselves just as we are of you. Our team at Aldwickbury did us all proud and looked after us all extremely well and served a wonderful meal on the night. A really wonderful tip top performance from them all. Thank you. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of you that couldn’t attend due to the restriction on numbers and the fact that we need to keep our businesses open for our customers to enjoy. 2020 and 2021 have been especially hard for all of us within the hospitality business. Thankfully we have fared better than most, we have been able to retain most of our great people who have helped us get through probably the most difficult period the company has ever faced. We are starting to hopefully come through the worst of the pandemic, we still need to be on our guard as this pesky virus is still not fully under control, so it is right for all of us still to be cautious. An example of this caution is this week, we are getting all the General Managers together for a business session together with all the Head Greenkeepers at Thornbury Golf Club. Everybody attending is being asked to do a LFT before attending the meeting. A sensible precaution hopefully for the benefit of all. One of the major subjects for discussion at the meeting is how can all of businesses contribute more to our environmental and sustainability programme. To assist us we have a number of external experts joining the meeting to help us make even more
of a difference in 2022 and beyond, to all our businesses.
This month we have opened our third Ninja Warrior site in Milton Keynes located in one of the busiest shopping / leisure areas of Milton Keynes (MK) next to the MK Dons Football Stadium, the largest ASDA superstore in the UK and on the other side one of the largest Ikea stores in the country. In this issue you will find all the details of the new opening and our invited guests from all over the MK district had a wonderful time and were very well looked after by Wayne’s team (our GM) ably assisted on the night by Christine & some of her team from our MK Mulligans venue and Sophie, Lauren, Bridget, Claire, Bala, Victor and Andy from the support office. A great time was had by all. I visited the site this Saturday to check on progress along with bringing my son and his young family to try it all out for themselves. Well, they all loved it, the youngest Luchia 3 years old, just spent her time bouncing about on the huge inflatable area. Theo, 6 years old, just loved climbing up the first two walls and never quite made it to the top of the third, but he is pretty determined to keep going back until he can do it!! The third, Tallulah 11 years old, who is quite a gymnast, also loved all the swing challenges. She also gave me quite a shock on Friday night when I got a call to say “Grandpops, can I bring my boyfriend along?!!!” Not sure I had a girlfriend at 11?? So that led to a few interesting discussions on what age was your first boyfriend / girlfriend??? Yet just another little example of life moving on for us all or should I say for myself!!! Life is really just one big learning experience, given that we are all really only just passing through for a relatively short time, where you can thankfully be surprised almost every single day. We all only have one go at this life, so my message is simple, just make the most of it every single day. I have to say I came away
CEO Update from our business at MK on Saturday with three exhausted grandchildren plus the boyfriend Leo, all of which nearly feel asleep while ending the day with a pizza and ice cream.
We have some exciting plans, and I am delighted to say that we will be back employing over 1,050 people by the end of the month and hopefully in excess of 1,200 by the time we reach summer.
I was very proud of the whole team at MK Ninja Warrior UK, all of whom were working very hard servicing our customers attending to all the birthday parties that were booked etc, etc. The place was absolutely buzzing with everybody having a smile on their face and having a fun time. None of that happens by accident, our management team have spent weeks planning the opening, training the team and whilst we have certainly done well, we will still need to review / adapt and improve a number of things in the weeks, months ahead if we want to become the number one leisure attraction in MK, which is our goal.
On the subject of employment, I am sorry to announce the departure of our General Manager Dubravka Griffiths at the end of February. Dubravka has led the Burhill Golf Club business now for over 5 years and she is furthering her career with a move to a Private Members Club slightly closer to home at Woking Golf Club, we wish her every success in her new role.
On a personal note, I am delighted to say I am back training hard in the swimming pool trying to get a qualifying time for the GB National Masters Championships being held this year in Aberdeen in June. Kirstie my better half has just competed in the Tunbridge Wells half marathon this weekend Our next Ninja Warrior UK opening will be and has even started swim training with me with the in Swansea very close to our indoor Bunkers! Triathlon Club on a Thursday night and Saturday adventure golf business and yet another morning at 6.45am!!! Even at my tender age, I am a opportunity to open a second trading business great believer in keeping as active as possible. One in what could be considered the second most thing that I hope the Covid Situation has taught us all important city in Wales. I am also delighted to is the importance of trying to keep ourselves in the say we are also in further talks to open more sites, best possible condition both in mind and body. The news of which we will announce very soon. quote below I think is very apt for us all given the We are all looking forward to the slightly lighter times we are in and recently experienced. evenings as we enter March and it is only just over a month away from the start of the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, USA which is really the start of the UK golf season. We have been investing in all our golf businesses again this year and are confident that as long as we have what I refer to as normal weather conditions our golf business is set to have another excellent year. Next month we will bring you some stories of what has been happening within the golf division and introducing some of the great personalities we have working with & I am looking forward to saying hello as I visit the joining us. various businesses throughout March. The first two months of the year have really flown Stay safe all and thank you all for your efforts and hard work as we begin to build for what hopefully by and whilst the recent storms have been a real is going to be a very busy Spring and Easter trading pain to deal with and in some areas have really given us some quite serious issues to resolve, we period. are as a business performing well and I believe Warmest regards we can all look to the future with a spring in our step. As we have all learnt, we can never be quite Colin sure what the future holds, but I am confident that given normal or near normal trading conditions our business will continue to grow and flourish again throughout 2022.
BGL Awards FINALLY Arrived Cast you minds back to 13th February 2020 and many of you will remember getting those glamorous dresses, James Bond like Tuxedos and reaching for the bubbles as we embarked on the annual BGL Awards at Aldwickbury Park. Greeted by a red carpet “Our annual awards night is always a great event and a fantastic opportunity to shine a spotlight on the hard work and dedication of our employees and reward some of the exceptional work being done at our venues across the country,” commented Colin Mayes, BGL CEO. “It’s one of the rare chances we get to bring all of our staff together under one roof to have a thoroughly enjoyable night and celebrate our colleagues’ successes.”
General Manager of the year awards are always difficult, there are so many factors when awarding this coverted acalade. This year the General Manager of the Year awards went too Theresa Plimmer at Ramsdale Park and Tim Flint at Mr Mulligans Tonbridge. Well done to the both of you.
We had a first for the Support Office award, this year it was awarded to a ‘Team’. Without this team, we would not have been paid and for those on Furlough wouldn’t have been paid either during the most difficult period in our life times. Well done to team PAYROLL!
Congratulations to the Class of 2021 Golf Division
Barry Heard Abbey Hill
Martin Peck Aldwickbury Park
Enrico Laurato Hoebridge
Graham Newton Burhill Golf Club
Adam Larkin Redbourn
Spencer Jones Ramsdale Park
Donna Smith The Shropshire
Lorenzo Fumasoni Birchwood Park
Robin Cheney Thornbury
Mark Henley Wycombe Heights
Congratulations to the Class of 2021 Adventure Leisure
Julie Eggleton Basildon
Martin Connor Birmingham
Ruby Way Bournemouth
Geordyn Fowler Cheltenham
Amanda Johnson Milton Keynes
William Skye Newcastle
Ioana Freed Sidcup
William Cant Stevenage
Jake Hughes Swansea
Ninja Leisure
Mark Dowd Tonbridge
Andrew Bainbridge Sheffield
Reggie English Southampton
We all had a great time!
Ninja Fever at Milton Keynes The latest Ninja Warrior UK venue has opened in Milton Keynes! Friday 11th Feb saw the VIP opening of BGL’s third Ninja Warrior UK Adventure Park in Milton Keynes. The ninja crew led by General Manager, Wayne Davies and Assistant General Manager, Kit Jones welcomed over 250 invited VIP guests and 50 competition winners visit the venue to tackle the ninja inflatable courses and ninja obstacle runs. Plus, extra special VIP & Football legend, Chris Kamara “Kammy” was on hand to add that extra special bit of commentary and greet guests. Even the Mayor of Milton Keynes got stuck in to the action! The night was a complete success with glowing feedback from guests: Awesome team of staff to offer guidance and advice throughout the various courses - great layout with choice of levels suitable for a wide age range and ability, super cafe area and seating on viewing platform too. Amazing inflatable area fun too! We had an awesome time, big thumbs up and can’t wait to come back. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for the latest Ninja Warrior UK venue!
Q&A with Martin Goodwin Welcome to the Employee Spotlight section. This month we talked to Martin Goodwin, General Manager, Ninja Warrior UK Sheffield.
BGL: What’s your current role and how long have you been with BGL? MARTIN: General Manager - Since May 2021. BGL: What was the journey to where you are now? Previous roles? MARTIN: I started out as a Personal Trainer, then became a Gym Manager which followed into Operations and Events management at the English institute of Sport. I was also a Regional Manager for a cluster of Leisure centres across Yorkshire before all of this. BGL: In 3 words describe your job? MARTIN: Busy, exciting, rewarding! BGL: What’s your favourite part about working in the BGL Group? MARTIN: The people! BGL: What is your typical day like at Ninja Warrior UK? MARTIN: Active, first thing is to check equipment and any ware & tear, make sure we are all good to go, then its on to emails
and calls to and from customers, and potential bookings. When the doors open its ensuring safety comes first along with enjoyment for those taking part, this being led by the court staff plus your standard back of house admin. BGL: If you had to describe the Ninja Warrior UK Course in one sentence, what would it be? MARTIN: Varied, a great variety of obstacles and challenges for all. BGL: What’s the best thing you have achieved since being here? MARTIN: Assisting and helping with Ninja Warrior UK venues, especially launches like MK! BGL: What are some of your hobbies outside of work? MARTIN: I boulder (indoor climbing) and hike a lot in my spare time and occasionally play Rugby and field Hockey. BGL: What would your “death row meal” be? Starter, Main and Dessert? MARTIN: Starter - Prawn cocktail. Main - BIG Steak and chips. Dessert - Crème Brûlée.
Claire Boulden
Group Head of People & Culture
Your Thoughts Survey “ …and how are things with you?” When I joined the business in October last year, I very much appreciated the warm welcome and enthusiasm for HR to now be in the business and clearly many of you are used to an in-house HR function from previous employment. The sheer volume of calls and emails I have received with your questions, issues and problems has been overwhelming and very enlightening. The last 22 months have been so difficult in hospitality, and it has been tough. How do we keep ourselves going? This is a great business but like many, it is not perfect. Are there things we could do better or differently? Absolutely. Can we make changes to try to be a better employer? Of course, but we can’t do that without your input. Your thoughts, feelings, concerns, worries, frustrations, successes, motivations are what make up a unique workforce and I would like to hear about them. For me to influence change in both our culture and working practices I need your help. This month will see your email inbox receive a questionnaire from me, a survey if you like entitled ‘Your Thoughts’. I need your total and absolute honesty in your responses – without all the information I can’t make the right decisions for you or indeed, try to influence the changes you seek. This information is going to be strictly confidential; I am the only person who will see your responses and when I present the content back to the business, I will protect everyone’s identity. By doing so I hope I am reassuring you to be completely honest and there will be no comeback on you or your comments. By making that assurance I will ask you to
remember to present your responses in a professional and objective manner. Provide evidence with examples where you can but be aware if the example makes you identifiable – even without your name - to others that will see the results. I am aware that previous surveys did not always bring about a response or change as requested so I need to manage your expectations of what this survey can and will do. The volume of information these surveys always bring is enormous and there is no point promising you the world as that is not going to happen. What I will promise is that where I can see a real need for change, I will be your voice and present it back to the business. I pick my battles to win the proverbial war and I will not be able to address everything; some elements of your responses will need to be passed to other departments for their perusal and attention for them to agree and plan action for change or improvement. Along with the not so good stuff, I want to hear about what we do well. What you enjoy about working here and the positives about a business that has really come out fighting during a very testing time. Tell me about you, what’s important to you and what you like and don’t like about work. Be realistic with your responses; are you asking me for a dream I can’t deliver, or could it be a reality I perhaps can? I will thank you now for the time you will give in completing what is a lengthy survey but hope you will contribute as much as possible to bring about the changes you are already telling me you want and that you believe we need. With warmest regards Claire
Janice Moore
Learning & Development Manager
We are a growing company, and with that comes opportunities. It makes sense to ensure that you have the skills needed to take advantage of those opportunities when they arise. But whether career progression is on your agenda or not, at some level we all want to experience a sense of fulfilment and happiness from the work we do. The difficulty is that because we are all individuals, there is no pre-prepared plan on how to achieve that fulfilment. But fear not - support is at hand! - Your line manager is there to help. Tell them you would like to discuss creating a Performance Development Plan (PDP). - In The Academy there is a resource that will guide you through the process of drafting your own PDP. Within it you will find a stepby-step process, supported by a template and instructions, and by the end of this you will come away with a thoughtful and wellconsidered roadmap that you can use to reach your goals. Go to The Academy>Content Library and search ‘Employee Performance Development Plan’.
Already created your PDP for 2022? Now you need to manage yourself in such a way to make sure that you stick to it. Here are some tips to help you do this: 1. Keep your PDP visible and handy. 2. Use a To-Do list and put action steps from your PDP onto it. 3. Make a commitment to yourself and to your Manager that you will do something related to your PDP every day/week/month. Put ‘PDP’ on the agenda of the regular review/ catch-up meetings that you have with your Manager. 4. Let your friends and colleagues know about your goals and keep them informed of your progress. 5. Reward yourself along the way! Remember that your PDP is a ‘working document’ and is as dynamic as you are. As your circumstances change, you may need to adjust it to keep it relevant. Warmest regards, Janice
Latest News her especially her sight, she is registered as visually impared and was the youngest person in UK to ever get a guide dog. Hannah is amazing and is so inspirational to many people. She has massively got into Blogging and runs a Facebook page called Blind Mum VS The World and is currently starting to spread her wings into instagram and TikTok.
Hannah Burgess 24, Abbey Hill Golf Centre. Hannah has been working at Abbey Hill since the summer of 2021 as a F&B Assistant and does an amazing job working with a disability. Hannah was born with Albinism which severely impacted
Wycome Heights Make Over Opens Soon... ‘We are all very excited to be able to reopen the bar in March, and make the most of the new area ready for the start of the golfing season. ‘
Recently Hannah posted that she has been nominated as a finalist with the RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People) for an Award at their See Differently Awards – her nomination is for BEST SOCIAL MEDIA IMPACT of the Year. Visit her page: https://www.facebook.com/ BlindMumVsTheWorld.x
Our focus will be on increasing casual food and beverage revenue and the bar has been designed to ensure the furniture works for this. Looking forward to see it.
Congratulations We’d like to say a huge congratulations & thank you to our amazing BGL team members who are celebrating 5+ years with us this February 2022. It wouldn’t be the same without you. Jerzy Cychowski, Abbey Hill GC, 15 years Lloyd Edwards, Birchwood Park GC, 12 years Ian McDowell, Aldwickbury Park GC, 11 years Stephen Lee, Birchwood Park, 10 years Tessa Stanbridge, Redbourn GC, 8 years Brian Farr, Aldwickbury Park GC, 7 years
Aprille Wildgust, Ramsdale Park GC, 6 years Andrew Mcnamara, Support Office, 6 years Lawrence Moore, Birchwood Park GC, 5 years Lukas Kemeza, Wycombe Heights GC, 5 years Victoria Hodder, Birchwood Park GC, 5 years Alexander Nock, Thornbury GC, 5 years
Special mention to Amanda Johnson who in December 2021 celebrated 9 years!