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