Royal Dornoch Community Fund
Royal Dornoch has made its donations for 2019 and this year they totalled £11,000 and helped 25 different worthy causes. Since 2015 we have donated money to over 80 different projects, helping 38 different causes and brings the total amount to be donated in the community to an enormous £40,000.
Organisations based within the IV25 postcode can apply for donations of up to £500 with payments determined by a four-strong committee, including the club Captain and the two immediate predecessors, as well as a nominee from Dornoch Area Community Council. The overriding criterion is that awards must be used for the purpose of contributing to the common good of the local community.
We are only able to continue donating back to the community with the income generated from our visiting golfers and each year the club donates up to one per cent of the club’s green fee income to the community fund. Neil Hampton, Royal Dornoch Golf Club’s general manager, said: “We are very proud members of our community and feel privileged to be in a position to help other organisations which contribute to community life.”
Dornoch Dementia Café who received funds to help with the
hire of the hall for their monthly get togethers
Dornoch Golf Memories Group & Dornoch Carers Group
Recently, at Royal Dornoch, our staff took part in a session, hosted by Alzheimer’s Scotland, to become Dementia Friends. Our staff now have a better awareness of what Dementia means and how we can help those we encounter who are living with Dementia.
Dornoch is a small community with an ageing population and it has become more apparent in recent years that we have members and people within our immediate community that live with dementia. We are always actively looking for different ways we can improve ourselves and our community relationships and working with Alzheimer’s Scotland seemed like a great opportunity to do just that.
As Dementia Friends, we have teamed up with Alzheimer’s Scotland to host a get together, once a month, where people with Dementia can pop in and join us for a coffee in a warm and welcoming atmosphere and relive all of Dornoch’s golfing memories. There is also a support group, for carers, that runs alongside the Dornoch Memories group, which will be hosted by representatives from Alzheimer’s Scotland.
For more information on our Golf Memories Group or if you would like to attend, please contact the club office on 01862 810219 Ext 1. Or if you would like to become a Dementia Friend too then please visit https://www.dementiafriendsscotland.org/
Saltmarsh Regeneration
Saltmarshes provide important habitat for a wide range of wildlife and helps protect costal land from flooding and erosion. However, shoreline degradation and climate change are increasingly placing these grassland areas under threat. A number of gaps in the saltmarsh habitat in the Dornoch Firth means part of the Royal Dornoch’s Struie Course is vulnerable to flooding and even being lost to the power of the waves.
Royal Dornoch, since 2018, has committed to providing £10,000 a year, for 3 years towards a project of restoring the saltmarshes. This project is being organised and promoted by Dr Clare Maynard, a research scientist at St Andrews University and Chair of the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology. Dr Maynard said “Saltmarshes absorb wave energy. When we studied the Eden Estuary it was clear that land behind saltmarshes was in pretty good shape and far less likely to be eroded or flooded, whereas areas where there were no saltmarshes were clearly getting pounded by the waves and were at risk.”
So, with the help of Dr Maynard’s Team, our Greenkeeping staff, community volunteers and the Dornoch Academy students, we have begun transplanting the saltmarsh plants around the 10th hole. This work will continue for the next 2 years and we hope this will help to safeguard the Struie course and allow it to remain playable for years to come.
For more information on this project please click here (https://synergy.st-andrews.ac.uk/serg/projects/greenshores/ )
(Shore side of the 10th Fairway - Struie Course)
GEO Certified®
Royal Dornoch has been awarded the GEO Certified® ecolabel, an international symbol of ‘great golf environments’. This recognises clubs that have met high standards for performance in nature conservation, water and energy efficiency, ethical and environmental supply chain, pollution control and community engagement.
Scott Aitchison, our Deputy Course Manager, helped drive forward this project and which led to the accreditation of GEO. He said “We are a rural site of stunning beauty, thriving with flora and fauna. We are responsible for a massive area of land which in itself is diverse. We have everything from grass airstrips, fields for grazing through sports turf to dune land. We are "links" and we encapsulate the very essence of joining the sea to the farmland. We are managing this diverse range of land as a members club who are active in supporting our community. We are consciously changing the mind-set of a large staff to think about the impact we have on the environment in each task we perform which amounts to our footprint as a business. Our recent, Global Environment Organisation (GEO) accreditation suggests we are doing things with the right attitude. We are new to this but feel we've come a long way in a short time.”
