A Message from the Captain

Ladies,

I hope I find you all in good health and coping in this extraordinary time. I hope we will be back to golf soon, but as we know it will not immediately be in the format which will allow the County to hold all our usual competitions.

Gail, Jane and I have had a few meetings (via Zoom) with Scottish Golf and the East of Scotland Captains. Karin Sharpe is the new Chief Operating Officer of Scottish Golf and is managing all decisions being made by them. We had a very insightful and informative meeting with her. Scottish Golf had cancelled all the competitions they manage a long time ago. Many of us suggested they had made this call too soon, but as things have progressed this has been the right decision for them.

The meeting with the East of Scotland Captains, again made a few changes for us. The Jamboree has been cancelled. I have informed the squad players, and this is obviously a disappointment. The captains of Fife and Stirling & Clackmannanshire have only just come on board and so they feel that as they have not experienced any golf this year, they are prepared to commit to a further two years Captaincy. The Midlothian Captain is going to commit to one more year. The decision has been made to roll forward all the competitions we have between us to next year. So in 2021 Midlothian will still be holding the Jamboree at Kingsnowe and Fife will hold the East of Scotland (EoS) Championships. Gail and I have decided we are not repeating any years and we will exchange our roles as per usual at the AGM in November. Some clever person had worked out a system where the County Captain does not have to manage any major competition in their first year. This now alters with these changes mentioned above. In fact it means that our Captain will be hosting the Jamboree in their first year. We discussed this with the ELLCGA Committee and felt that this would not be too big a problem. We have a strong, supportive Committee and membership, so all the help that would be required to run a Jamboree would be available. If competitive golf returns before the end of this season, then Fife will still run the EoS Championship at St Andrews, and also next year. Let’s hope this can happen.

The other counties have cancelled all their competitions for the rest of the season. We are not doing that at this stage, though we have taken the decision to cancel the Commonwealth Spoons on 21 May and the Summer Meeting on 15 June. Golf is returning and changes are happening so I am still optimistic that we may have some form of competitive golf this year, maybe on different dates, but hopefully we will have something to organise for you all.

The 5-a-sides have been cancelled however. Gail has sent an email to the Club Captains to let them know.

The East Lothian Junior League, have also not yet cancelled all their events. These continue to be cancelled as time goes on, with the hope that some may be played. The Cuthbertson Cup was due to be played at Kilspindie this year on 27th September, we will still host it next year so I have asked for it to be changed to the 26th September 2021. The East of Scotland Junior spring, summer and autumn meetings are still under discussion and we will all be advised when those decisions are made.

The opening date for entry for the Babe Zaharias has been moved to July at the earliest. We will let you know if there are any alterations to this event.

My thanks to Jane and Gail for attending all these Zoom meetings and to Lesley for keeping the website updated with the news as it happens. Also thanks to Katie McNicoll for running our quizzes. I hope you are enjoying it and congratulations to Liz McLelland and Lucy Hall who seem to be the scratch quizzers in the county.

Keep safe and I hope to be able to see you all at a competition soon.

Best regards
Jenni