Welcome to Seaham Golf Club

Dear Member,

As a management committee it is always a difficult task when it comes to deciding on how much we charge for our membership fees and this year has been one of the most difficult yet.

Seaham Golf Club is a non-profit making organisation and our aim every year is to provide our members with the best possible services without making a loss. 2023 has been a challenging year financially for everyone and the Golf Club running costs have increased significantly, as can be seen in the annual accounts which will be available before the AGM. For example;

Greenkeeper wages and NI - 14.6% increase

Bar staff wages and NI - 14% increase

Sand and fertiliser - 14.6% increase

Heat and light - 28.4% increase

Insurance - 26% increase

It is also true that in 2023 our golf course has been in the best condition it has been in for many years. This is as a result of providing our green staff with all of the tools and machinery required to maintain our course to this high standard. This includes purchasing a new Greens Machine, Fairway Cutter, Rough Cutter as well as various other items of machinery. As you can imagine these machines are expensive, each costing on the region of £40-50k.

In the last 2 years our green staff have replaced all winter tees. Reshaped and relevelled 10 summer tee boxes with another 4 scheduled this winter. We've constructed 6 new temporary/ winter greens for use in frozen or waterlogged conditions whilst endeavouring to retain the yardage of the course. We've planted hundreds of young trees with donations and help from "Greenscape ". In the future we'll be looking at improving our current drainage system so we can remain open when other courses are closed.

A number of steps have also been taken to ‘future proof’ our Golf Club including the installation of Solar panels at a cost of £30k. These panels should save us approximately £5k per year going forward. We have also invested £130k of the Taylor Wimpey compensation money which again will help us to stay financially stable in the future.

It may also be true that in the past when setting our membership fees, we have under sold our ‘product’, which meant for a number of years we did not increase our fees in an attempt to be competitive. It is also true that we currently have one of the best courses in the county and that we should be proud of what we as a club, have achieved.

We know that members of all clubs across the County are facing the prospect of increased fees for the 2024/25 Season and we need to be fair and realistic when setting the increase for our own members.

With this in mind the Management committee have decided that Subscription fees for 2024/25 will increase by 13.5%. To help ease the increase we will also be extending the length of time standing order payers can make payments from 8 months to 10 months. With this increase, which equates to less than £2 per week we are still comfortably in line with the average membership fee across the county.

Our promise to members is that we will continue to maintain the high standards set this year and look forward to make further improvements year on year.

Please see breakdown of 2024/25 Subscription fees below.