How we plan to develop education and CPD

What does the future look like for education AND THE GCMA?

When we think of education, what comes to mind? Hours spent looking at whiteboards? A classroom environment? Tests and exams? Perhaps it brings back memories of schooldays. Perhaps the prospect of putting yourself through learning programmes doesn’t appeal. But if these kinds of feelings have held you back from developing your skills and knowledge, it’s time to reassess.

For Continued Professional Development (CPD) couldn’t be more important and, in these strange times, maintaining and enhancing what you can offer to your club, members and visitors is vital.

CPD keeps you up to date. It educates you about the latest trends in the management profession as well as helping you to stay ahead. This was never more seen clearly than during lockdown when GCMA webinars with industry experts gave managers crucial help, advice and information on what to do when the club doors were closed and how to prepare for their reopening. While the Covid-19 crisis is far from over, our Professional Development Manager Gavin Robinson is pressing ahead – evaluating and developing the Association’s offering to ensure it continues to maximise its impact.

It’s been a frantic time for Robinson, who came into post in February and quickly found himself reacting to an unprecedented situation.

But while dealing with the pandemic, he’s also been busy looking at what the GCMA already offers in terms of professional development – in particular the Principles in Golf Club Management and Diploma in Golf Club Management qualifications – and how they can move forward.

We caught up with him to get an idea of what could be coming in the near future…

Professional development is obviously a key part of the GCMA’s ethos and you’ve been doing a lot of work in the short time you’ve been at the Association. How has that gone? The first six months were a question of looking at the existing portfolio of products the GCMA had before I arrived and evaluating whether that was sufficient going forward.

It was looking at whether there were individual products that needed developing or if new products needed to be added to make sure we were meeting the needs of professional development.

Our main course is the Principles of Golf Club Management and it is well recognised within the industry.

It’s a great starting point but I recognised that it needed to be developed and modernised. That process is almost complete and we now have a fantastic new online version which is proving very popular.

We did the first of those at the end of July and the beginning of August and we’ve received really good feedback from both delegates and presenters.

It’s different. It’s more convenient for a lot of people. It may never replace a face-to-face education experience but it’s certainly a good option to have going forward.

When you talked about ways you might develop the Principles course, what did you have in mind? We have brought in a couple of new modules and have given the course more structure and clearly defined purpose. GCMA have always had a very clear idea of what skills and knowledge are required for the role but that develops and changes over time.

We have worked closely with Colt Mackenzie McNair, who are at the vanguard of golf industry recruitment, in order to determine what the key areas of professional and personal development for Golf Club GMs are and to be able to offer that within the Principles Course.

With that in mind and given the current situation, we’ve brought in Wellbeing as a module within the Principles course and, hopefully going forward, into the Diploma as well. We believe that we are the first of the Professional Associations to do this and it highlights our commitment to the subject. We are very excited to have a complete module devoted to psychological wellbeing, understanding what it is and how

The way the Association provides learning opportunities to members is changing and these are exciting times for Professional Development Manager Gavin Robinson

it relates to the role of a Golf Club GM. It considers a lot of issues, such as social responsibility, dealing with an ageing population and spreading knowledge of the subject within the golf club and into the local community. It’s a big subject, a modern subject, and we aim to equip our golf managers with the tools to make a positive impact in combatting any negative effects it may have.

Turning to the Diploma, the gold standard qualification for golf club management, would you be looking at similar developments? The Diploma has developed along the Ofqual guidelines. It is an accredited Level 5 Diploma and, through that, you have the guarantee of quality of knowledge.

It does have to go through quite rigorous requirements to make sure of that guarantee and there is not that much flexibility in its current shape and form.

We want to work with our partners – the PGA and BIGGA – to continually monitor, review and develop the Diploma and try and make it as user friendly as possible.

with a combination of face-to-face opportunities, which take the form of workshops, and distance learning.

The next induction day is October 28 and that will be held virtually. For me, that was almost a barrier to entering the course (previously) – having to actually physically go to an induction day.

There are good reasons for doing that but we want to make that course as accessible and easy to complete as possible – without diluting the academic content and the quality of the qualification.

It can be developed and improved. I think we can certainly market it a lot better and help it receive the industry recognition it deserves. An area of opportunity could be the further development of CPD courses for managers who have done, or don’t want to do, the Principles and Diploma courses… This is going to be a major area of our focus going forward. It’s those bite-sized chunks we talk about – where people recognise they may be lacking certain knowledge or skills – and we need to have the short courses available to fill those gaps.

General managers are busy people. It is currently blended learning

They have busy weeks, a lot of people to talk to in their day-to-day role, and we are conscious of that.

We want to make it as flexible and accessible as possible to help them get the knowledge they need.

This would ensure their professional development becomes continuous. It almost becomes part of the normal weekly, monthly, and yearly pattern that is built into their schedules.

We’re in discussions with a number of third party training providers who provide an extremely broad range of high quality professional development packages, which can mostly be delivered online.

You’ve been travelling down this path to an extent already, for example with the weekly webinars that were held during lockdown… That’s correct. The weekly webinars during lockdown were responding to the needs of the members at a certain time. It was a time of crisis really, where managers were pretty much left alone in the golf clubs.

There was a real need at that time for accurate and up-to-date information: best practice, knowing what’s going on in other clubs and what solutions other managers had, and getting that information out to them as quickly as possible.

We would hope to develop that going forward and get the current topics out to managers in that accessible format. We’ve started a regional professional development webinar series, which has been developed with Chris Mills of Manchester Metropolitan University and England Golf. The subject matter is “Member retention – the pathway to Volunteer” and it is research done by Chris as part of his Phd.

It is a time when golf clubs have got a lot of new members and

we’re very conscious as an industry that we want to hold on to those members wherever it is possible.

We know there are redundancies coming but if we understand the journey of a new member, and integrate them into the golf club as quickly and thoroughly as possible, there’s a better chance that we are going to keep them long term. Four of our regions - Scotland, Northern Ireland, Norfolk and London & Home Counties -

have already had the opportunity to view the presentation and the other 12 counties should see it before the end of September. We would hope to repeat it later in the year and hopefully bring it to a National audience of GMs.

What’s the overall aim for professional development? The overall aim is to provide our members with an industry leading CPD programme which will enable our General Managers to meet the continually changing needs of the role by engaging with us in a variety of different delivery formats to suit their resources and time constraints. This, in turn, will hopefully place our members at the pivotal person within their clubs and an important influence in the wider community. We are confident that we can achieve this and aim to improve that offering on an ongoing basis.