Finalisation of Management Agreement – as noted previously the Club terminated its contract with Magenta Shores Golf Management Pty Limited (the Manager) as of 31 March 2025. Since that date all of the former golf employees of the Manager have become employees of the Club, and the Board has acquired new point of sale machines and software and new telephone equipment and has generally done the things necessary to assume management of our Club.
This week we executed a final Deed of Settlement whereby all remaining financial matters were resolved. All amounts paid and received by each of the Manager and the Club for the benefit of the other have been adjusted, and releases have been executed so that the Club is now wholly separated from the Manager. The Club has also retained an amount to ensure that unpaid overtime due by the Manager to employees can be paid to them.
In addition, yesterday the Club signed a deed of transfer of the community landscaping contract from the Manager to the Club, so that the Club will now conduct the landscaping contract, which has a further 15 months to run, and for that purpose has employed the 3 members of the community landscape team and acquired all the equipment used to fulfill that contract. This transaction has the benefit of being self funding while providing additional support to our course maintenance team on an ad-hoc basis.
All staff have been incredibly supportive of the separation, and while such an event of its nature can bring uncertainty for employees, they have shown great faith in the future of the Club and its management. We are pleased to report that as of Tuesday this week the Club is now entirely independently self-managed.
The Club office will relocate in the near future from the Pebble Beach Avenue building (and more recently the Members’ Lounge) to the Pellos meeting room behind the tennis court on Magenta Drive, for which we are finalising a formal lease with the Accor Pullman Hotel, and we are grateful to Jody Redman, GM of the Hotel, for assisting in bringing the move to fruition.
We are now in the process of completing our year end financial statements. This year they will be a reflection of hybrid operations, being 9 months under the Management Agreement and 3 months under self management. Many Members may have questions about our situation, and may have heard rumours suggesting the Club is in some financial difficulty. Those rumours are unfounded. The Club is financially sound and is not in financial difficulty. The annual report will demonstrate this quite clearly.
Membership – interest shown by people wishing to become Members of Magenta Shores continues quite strongly. At this month’s Board meeting we approved the admission of 17 new Members as follows: Individual – Andrew Gardiner; Intermediate – Noah Wharton, Nicholas Shearman, Blake Pennings, Max Anderson, Rob Spinks; Junior – Harry Haydon, Sam Cameron; Lifestyle – Timothy Woodham, Thomas Perret, Stephen Doherty, Jennifer Doherty, Nicholas Chung, Arun Aggarwal (welcome back!), Terry Kennedy, Trent Mullen and Peter Henry. Welcome to all these new Members.
GA Connect – you may have heard that Golf Australia is introducing a replacement for GolfLink to be known as GA Connect. As part of that process golf clubs have been asked to provide personal details of members (including, for example, date of birth). Your Board is of the view there are data safety and privacy concerns associated with doing so and, in common with several major clubs in Sydney and Melbourne, is making representation to Golf Australia that the Club should not be required to give out personal information of its members unless the members individually consent to its doing so. Golf Australia may however make provision of the personal information a condition of access to the handicapping system. One option may be for each Member to signify their agreement to the information being shared (which can be done by visiting https://www.golf.org.au/member/account), but we remain of the view that such information is not vital to the business of providing a handicapping service similar to GolfLink. Acknowledging that many clubs have already agreed to provide such personally identifiable information we will pursue the matter and keep Magenta Shores Members updated on developments.
Course Improvements – while we have been separating from the Manager we took the decision to defer any further course improvements in the near term preferring instead to stabilise our operations and develop a greater level of assuredness on our operational capability. Progress has been very good and we expect to continue course development activity probably in the first half of 2026.
In the meantime you may have noticed some small Husqvarna electric robotic lawnmowers around the practice and warm-up areas. We are considering whether these GPS controlled devices can be used more widely around the course, for example, as mowers across the first cut of rough throughout the property, and there could be financial benefits in doing so. Course superintendent James Newell is carefully assessing the performance of these new lawnmowers.
Member Survey – former Director Ron Latham has kindly offered again to manage the Member survey that he has managed over the past 7 or so years, and the Board feels the right time for the next survey will be around April 2026 by which time we will be one year into self management and Members will perhaps have a better feel for what is important for the betterment of the Club and all Members.
On behalf of the Board
Peter Gaydon
Chairman
