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Murray’s charity golf day with Zoë’s Place!

By September 23, 2022No Comments

Our charity golf day!

We were extremely happy to host our charity golf day on September 15th at Brocket Hall, in aid of the brilliant Zoë’s Place. They are a baby hospice based in Coventry, with other branches throughout the UK that provide palliative, respite and end-of-life care to babies and infants between the ages of 0-5, with life-limiting or life-threatening diseases. We at Murray are privileged to work with a charity that offers such unbelievable support.




The day began with player registration and a light breakfast for those that wanted to fuel up for a challenging round! With goody bags in tow and tee times to hand, they then headed out for some practice in the form of a putting competition and access to the excellent driving range. For those that needed a last minute confidence boost, the resident golf professional Mark Laskey, was on hand to offer expert tips and advice.

The action...

For those that don’t know, several films have been shot at Brocket Hall, including Johnny English Reborn! The first tee is overshadowed by the impressive Brocket Hall building itself so in line with this prestigious venue, we thought it was only right that every player had a special introduction to their round. Our colleague Cat stepped up and was MC for the morning grabbing the mic to do the honours. I’m not sure if it helped me personally, as my ball headed dangerously close to the water shortly after being introduced!

As early as the 2nd hole, we had organised a ‘beat the pro’ challenge for all golfers whereby Mark took a shot over the water to the par 3 green and quite simply, we had to beat his score. May I quickly add that he was generous to give us all 1 shot! From the 30 golfers who took part, a pretty impressive 9 did actually beat him. The tenacious 9 were put into a draw later to win a prize.

We were keen to give as many opportunities for golfers to win something so as well as the team event, there were other prize holes: Nearest the pin to win an Odyssey 2 ball putter, the longest drive to win a Titleist golf bag and the person nearest in two shots won a Ping wedge.

As well as the challenging course to contend with, players also experienced our film crew taking footage of their shots on a few occasions. Let’s just say some coped with that better than others! With non-playing Murray staff observing play at the same time, us hackers were not entirely used to it! But credit to everyone who played in the spirit it was meant and as a result, the videos that were produced were first class!

To keep players going strong throughout the day we had a refreshment buggy circling the course, driven by our roving Sales expert, Ken. Not that unusual you may say, but this particular buggy was a petrol fuelled vehicle which sounded like a tank, something you could hear on the next fairway! It then proceeded to break down where the Brocket Hall ‘AA’ stepped in and provided a new one for him.

Our Head of Customer Care & Account Management Verity joined him and then both proceeded to get lost, on the other golf course! After 45 mins and a few WhatsApp messages later, both were doing a sterling job in handing out much needed beers to us struggling golfers on the Melbourne course. Great work guys!

After a brilliant day of golf, our team hosted players for a three-course meal which incorporated prize giving and our fundraising activities. This was the perfect time for everyone in the room to hear from the charity to understand what great work they do with support they offer to families. Ian Carr, Head of Fundraising for the Coventry branch shared information and showed a video case study with everyone, regarding a family that benefited from the tremendous care and support the hospice provides using specialist nurses.

The meal was also an opportunity for guests to network and revisit their golfing high (or low) lights of the day – the ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda’ moments’! The atmosphere was excellent which all helped to get people in the fundraising mood.

Those who wished to stay on were welcomed to stay on for some evening drinks after dinner for further networking.

Here at Murray, we are very much relationship driven and value our time with clients and new acquaintances. It is never a hard sell with us and offer plenty of insightful and perspective outlooks to everyone.

Fundraising

We want to thank each and every company that donated prizes for our charity raffle. We had a variety of amazing prizes to encourage guests to take part and as a result, we had plenty of tickets sold. We held three separate raffles throughout the evening; one for our putting competition, one for the beat the pro challenge and then the main raffle.

For the putting competition, golfers would pay to enter for each attempt. If they managed to get the ball either in the hole or in the circle surrounding it they were entered into the draw to win prizes. It turned out to be a tough challenge as only a handful of golfers made it through to draw stage. The winner won an amazing box of Titleist ProV1x golf balls and a Murray Tech pack.

Our second prize draw was for our beat the pro challenge. As mentioned earlier, all golfers took part and those who were successful entered the draw to win another box of Titleist ProV1x golf balls and a Murray Tech pack.

To conclude the day’s proceedings, we held our main raffle of the day. We sold over 1000 tickets to attendees and had a vast variety of prizes to be won, some of which were shopping vouchers, RayBan designer sunglasses, cameras and even flights!

In addition to the above, our colleague Andrew held a silent auction for a one-night dinner, bed and breakfast stay for two at the beautiful Coombe Abbey! We began the bidding before the meal started and made sure to update everyone on the current winning bid amount between courses. A huge thank you to everyone who put in their bids, we raised over £360 alone for Zoë’s Place.

 

In summary

It was great to get current clients and new friends together for a wonderful day out, to raise funds for a brilliant charity. There were various comments that we heard which related to the power of networking face to face and was this absolutely evident within the relaxed atmosphere at Brocket Hall.

A total of £1,904.50 was raised on the day – a massive thanks to all involved.

For more information on the work that Zoe’s Place do, click here – https://www.zoes-place.org.uk/coventry/default.aspx

To view our action on the day – on course action!