SPOTLIGHT ON ROB MCLEAN

1. Your name, your club and your position.

Rob McLean, Moore Park Golf Club, Sydney, NSW (since May 2019, only a few months into the new role)

2. What is your biggest or has been your biggest challenge with the club and your role?

Membership retention, although we are 3% up this year and have attracted over 45 members since I have started in early May to achieve our highest membership of 686 in over 5 years. Members have played over 21,000 competition rounds a year (we are “renters” of tee time with the arrangement with have with the Centenary Trust at Moore Park).

3. What has been some of your achievements or highlights since being at the club?

Membership engagement and retention has been improved by providing a person and front of the business for all members to have their say, whatever that may be. My predecessor Andrew McCrory has moved back on to the Board of Directors as Treasurer and returned to his corporate career, so the 6 months absence in this role was an early challenge.  Members just need to have their voice heard sometimes.

4. Is there a piece of advice or something compelling you have learnt that you can pass on to our readers and up and coming managers.

Yes, be accessible to your members / customers, and never make promises you can’t keep. It just burns your integrity and lessens the faith your members have in the business. I almost always take my laptop out to the members lounge and work from there so they can come and chat whenever it suits them. I seldom sit behind a door in an office.

5. Outside of the club and your role there, do you have any hobbies or passions… tell us a bit about you?

Travel, golf, movies, and sleep!

6. Do you have any claims to fame? e.g. someone famous has visited the club, you served a celebrity?

Well, a long, long time ago, had the NSW record-holder for solving a Rubik’s cube, 47 seconds (which is about 30 seconds behind the world record!)