002 - Nathan Gilpin - Perranporth Golf Club

Which experiences from those different elements, whether it be university, whether it be working at those three prestigious clubs we talked about, whether it be working for a governing body, have most shaped your leadership style as a general manager or golf club secretary? That's a good question.

I mean, I always have two answers with this one.

I always say to anybody that the best individual that I ever worked for was Austin Gravestock.

And I remember this one day that it was horrendous weather and I'm talking 40, 50 mile an hour wind, heavy rain.

And we had a big corporate day at the London club and the team were We were fed up.

We were soaked through.

And we were sat there when I think everybody was out on the golf course or something like that.

And we were sat in the break room trying to have some food, which the club fortunately obviously provided for all of us, but it was delayed.

So we were still sat there and we were all a bit grumpy.

And Austin came down and I don't know whether he came down because he knew that we were all feeling bad or he just came down because he wanted to see the team.

And he had a way of talking with us and a personality that changed everybody from being moany groany to laughing, smiling, and actually wanting to go back and do do the job for him and obviously because it was a big corporate day for the club and I obviously at the time didn't really think much of that but obviously as I've kind of gone on in the industry I look back at that and go how the hell has he done this to motivate a team that are pretty much at a point of, we don't want to be here anymore.

We want to go home.

We've had way, way too much of this.

And he's walked in a room and he's made us kind of be inspired to go back out and do it.

I don't know whether he did it intentionally or not, but he just had that personality and that way about him that when I think about events that we run here at Power & Porth, and we're under the cosh and we're stressed, how can I make it that everybody else is feeling super happy, relaxed? How can I show them the support that maybe an Austin showed to us that means that they want to work for you like we wanted to work for him? And that's life.

So there's that in one aspect, and that always stays with me to this day.

And then the other bit is actually the variety of people that you meet.

Working in these different kind of clubs and obviously working in the governing body.

I mean, you've got a West Sussex, which is very much a private members club that people are so, so proud to be associated.

And there's a long waiting list.

And if a member does come in, it's a huge joining fee and huge yearly fees.

how they expect their golf club to be to them when you go to somewhere like, again, like the London Club where everybody's either a corporate client or someone's got a corporate ticket or someone that has got a member, they put it through their business anyway.

So it is kind of a corporate thing.

And it's the ability to kind of read the room and understand how you interact with those different individuals.

I'm now seeing that more and more here as Paramporth continues on its growth journey where we will have our members and for the first time in the club's history, we're ever full.