AGM & Prizegiving

AGM & Prizegiving - 21 March 2025

Club Secretary, John Dunn Snr, opened the AGM and, after offering apologies for absence, presented his report beginning with membership numbers, welcoming Kenny Roy and Iain Williamson who had joined as new members since our previous AGM. No members had left and so our Club membership now stands at a healthy number of 56.

John then reported on the Club Outings last year - Spring Outing at Royal Musselburgh won by Iain Harkness; Summer Outing at Dunbar won by Stephen Graham; Autumn Outing at Pitfirrane / Dunfermline won by Ian Jackson. In addition we had 1-off special outing to Muirfield arranged by our former member, Colin Hutchison, who is now on the staff at Muirfield. 8 golfers took up the opportunity to play this Open venue and Stephen Graham won the day with an excellent 38 stableford points.

John also reported Graeme Stark's win in the Iain Martin Putting competition thus retaining the trophy from 2023 AND 2024.

To close the summer season we held a Captain's Pie & Pint Texas Scramble at Mortonhall G.C. when 6 teams of 3 players entered, together with a guest appearance from the Assistant Pro at MGC who played 3 holes with each team to try to boost their scores. The winning team that day was Murray Sykes, Ian Jackson and Billy Young. Thanks go to Steven Graham / Breadstix for sponsoring the event with some bottles of wine.

Our Secretary then ended his report by thanking Bob Jackman for keeping everyone up to date with the Club's website with special reference to the site's News page keeping us abreast of our members' achievements far and wide, especially Sean Black and Martin Hunter!

Match Secretary, Sean Black, then presented his report by first thanking all those members who enthusiastically took part in all the internal knock-out matchplay competitors as well as thanking Bob Jackman for keeping the draws fully updated with results on the Club website.

Sean detailed the 2 pools fielded by the Club for the Sivewright Quaich. Although his team fell at the 2nd round, the Captain’s team went on to win the trophy for BGC for the FOURTH time.  In the final the Club was represented by Murray Sykes and Martin Hunter, John Dunn and John Notman but thanks was expressed to all who represented the Club in the earlier rounds.

The Match Secretary then listed the winners of our matchplay competitions over the past year and congratulated all the winners. Sean then advised the members present that the draws for this year's competitions would be unveiled later that evening in the MGC clubhouse and soon afterwards on the Club website.

A new trophy was needed to replace that for the Summer Foursomes and the old trophy was presented to Graeme Anderson whose name was one of the first and last to appear on that trophy. 

Our new Treasurer (back for a return stint), John Christie, presented the Club's accounts and reported a healthy financial position with no change to the annual subscription of £20. John advised that, going forward, our Accounts no longer need a formal Audit, rather it will be an informal review of our books by someone independent of our Committee. As John Masterton, our Auditor for many years, is on committee, he will stand down. The Captain then presented JM with a small gift as a token of the Club’s appreciation.

The Captain, in his report, repeated Sean's thanks to everyone who had represented the Club in the past year e.g. in the Lothians team Competition, our Club and Plate Champions who took part in the Lothian Champion of Champions and Handicap Matchplay, and the Match Secretary's and Captain's teams who participated in the Sivewright Quaich Tournament. 

Murray then updated members of our Outings for 2025: Spring - Balbirnie (Markinch); Summer - Dunbar; Autumn - Auchterarder. 

The Captain thanked John Dunn Snr for his meticulous planning and hard work as Secretary in the past year and also thanked Ian Hall who was standing down after 5 years on the committee serving as Assistant Match Secretary. Ian was presented with a token of the Club's appreciation for his services.

The Captain thanked the current committee for their work and also thanked Bob Jackman for his work with the Club website, essential for keeping members informed. Bob was presented with a gift as a token of gratitude.

Then followed the annual presentation of prizes. The full list of prizewinners may be found by using the link: List of Prizewinners.

To complete the formal proceedings, our Secretary  / committee proposed that Roy Miller be elected on to the committee and this was met with approval. 

The Secretary / committee then proposed a change to the Constitution, namely that there would be a new category of Club membership - "Non Playing". Such membership would be at the discretion of the Committee; Non Playing members would not be expected to pay any future subscriptions . This motion was passed by general acclaim.

There being no AOCB, Richard Duncan was invited to give the customary Vote of Thanks to the committee, to Ian Hall for saying Grace, and to MGC's catering staff to end a very enjoyable evening.

Photos of the evening may be seen by selecting: Prizegiving Gallery 2025