Now that Wimbledon is over, the hospitality marquees have been packed in to the back of the lorries and transported to Ayrshire, ready for the 138th Open Championship at Turnberry. This year together with the Pros, five HowDidiDo members will compete for the most famous trophy in golf.

140,000 golfers have now joined our social network, that’s a 40% increase since April. All are members of golf clubs, like yours, using CLUB2000 software. This newsletter is just a short update for club managers, administrators and committee members to keep you abreast of what we are doing here at Club Systems.

Central Database of Handicaps

As I’m sure you will all know the GUI and ILGU in Ireland introduced a central database some years ago. It allows club administrators to check on the validity of handicaps, for instance, before players participate in open competitions. Amongst other things it also helps the national and regional unions keep track of their golfers and track improvement. The English Golf Union have been working with Club Systems and other software suppliers to produce a similar system in England. This is now ready for its second stage of beta testing (involving 100 more clubs) and we are inviting you to apply to take part. More information and the link to apply is available on the Club Systems Website by clicking here

The Scottish and Welsh Unions have chosen to develop their own separate system and have commissioned a Danish company to design and construct it. Regrettably we have no further information to pass on regarding their plans.

Handicap Certificate Printing

This great new feature, introduced in April has now been taken up by 329 clubs. Thousands of users have now taken the opportunity to print out their own CONGU certificates directly from the MyGolf section on HowDidiDo. We do check to make sure they are who they say they are beforehand and of course this is only allowed if you authorise it first. You can do that at anytime by logging on to the new ClubAdmin section of the site and switching on ‘Member Verification Online’. To do that now, click here and if you haven’t done do already, register using the clubs email address as your log in.

Once enabled, we will check that the data each member has provided to HowDidiDo matches that at the club, verified golfers will be able to Print their Handicap Certificate and book in to Competitions online! To find out how we verify members click here.

Club Forums

More and more clubs are now using the club forums on HowDidiDo to communicate with their members. Often used to discuss informal topics, it’s a great FREE way to test member opinion on subjects such as course condition or improvements, social events and team matches. As a Club Administrator, why not start a subject now and see what responses you get. It might me an idea to email your members afterwards and ask them to log on and participate (a feature that will soon be automatic within the Club Admin section). Click here to log in and start communicating.

Well I hope you have found this newsletter informative, please feel free to give us your feedback via the contact us page on the HowDidiDo site. We hope you enjoy your golf, but if not, switch on BBC1 next Thursday and enjoy someone else’s.
Regards
HDID Webmaster