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I just wanted to reminded everyone that there will be a work party this Saturday April 5th from 8am-3pm.  Feel free to show up any time during these hours.

As always, the course will be CLOSED during the work party.  This allows the people who are taking the time to volunteer to work on the course, the freedom to work on the course without fear of getting hit by a disc.  We will open the course after the work party at 3pm.

If you are unable to make next Saturday, remember we will now be having regular work parties on the first Saturday of even numbered months. Thus we will have the our next work party on June 7th.  But I am getting ahead of myself…..

See everyone out there next Saturday.

Hi everyone,

I wanted to remind everyone that we have our bi-monthly work party this coming Saturday.  This is an especially important work party as for the first time we will be working with a city employee who will be help us work on the course.  This is our first opportunity to really demonstrate to the city the amount of support we have for disc golf in San Francisco.  The ability of the club to get people to come out on a saturday and volunteer will demonstrate to the city that we are very committed to disc golf in San Francisco.  This ability to show our passion and commitment to disc golf is key if we hope to see further expansion of disc golf in San Francisco.

Areas we will be working on:

Planting (200 plants)
Installing sleeve for practice basket
Clearing of debris from the big storm in January
Back filling in front of tee pads
Removing of weeds that the Parks Department asked for
Chipping

We will be starting around 8am and will be working till at least all the plants have been planted.  This will be completely dependent on the level of turnout.  If you can’t make it out in the morning, please come for whatever time you can.

As always, the course will be CLOSED during the work party.

We will be providing LUNCH for all the morning workers.

This is an exciting time for the club and disc golf in San Francisco.  We have a chance on Saturday to take a very big step toward seeing disc golf further expand in San Francisco, so I hope to see everyone there.

Thanks,
Jeffery Bowling
SFDGC President

As 2008 begins, there is plenty of news from the San Francisco Disc Golf Club. Here’s an update on some of the things that are happening and what we have coming up.

BAG TAG CHALLENGE
The year 2008 started with a bang for the San Francisco Disc Golf Club. On the first Sunday of the year, the SFDGC hosted our first ever bag tag challenge. Over 120 club members came out to the course to renew their membership for 2008. We also had a good number of people become members for the first time. We sold close to $1500 in discs as well, which brought our one-day total to just under $7000. Even after we paid for food, beer, bag tags and discs, we brought in over $5000 for the club. This is an amazing one-day total, and a huge thanks goes out to everyone who came out and made this event a huge success. This money is a great start for the fundraising we will need to do to see a second course in San Francisco.

I also would like to thank Orion Sylvester, Peter Black, Jon Toby & Rob Lavender for all their help in organizing the event. Rob’s company “Grateful Dent” also provided the beer for the event, so if you have a dent you need to take care of, see Rob.

If you were unable to make the bag tag challenge, you can still renew or join for 2008. If you were a previous member and want to renew, simply find your name on the Members page and click the renew link by your name. If you have never been a member, now is a great time to join. You can sign up at the SFDGC Join Page.

CITY WALKTHROUGH
In early December, we had our first official walkthrough with the city since the course has opened. It was a very positive meeting with a few items worth noting. We now have permission to install a practice basket. We will be installing the basket at our Feb. work party (see below for more details.) We also made a request to receive more regular shipments of wood chips. If you have been out on the course lately, you’ll notice we’ve been receiving these. (A huge thanks to all those who have been taking the time to distribute these out on the course.) Finally, we made arrangements to receive 200 plants from the city to be planted at the Feb. work party.

CLUB MEETING
We will be having a club meeting on January 24th at 7pm. The meeting will be at the Zephyr Cafe (3643 Balboa Street @37th Street). Everyone is welcome to attend and if you are interested in getting involved with disc golf in San Francisco, here is your chance. We have lots of items to cover at this meeting:

-Course work party
-Planting of plants from the city
-Bag Tag Tournament recap
-2008 Safari planning (It’s important that we start on this now.)
-A second course in San Francisco

If you have any other items you would like to discuss, please come to the meeting and there will be a chance for people to bring up other issues. I hope that we will see many of you there next Thursday.

WORK PARTY FEB. 9TH
We will be having a work party on Feb. 9th starting at 8am. This will be a huge work party, as we will be working with one of the city gardeners to get 200 plants planted. We will also be installing the pin for the practice basket, as well as dealing with numerous other small issues that need to be addressed on the course.

As always, the course will be CLOSED during the work party. This allows the people who are taking the time to volunteer the freedom to work on the course without fear of getting hit by a disc. We will open the course after the work party, which may be late in the afternoon because of all the planting that needs to be done.

If you are unable to make next Saturday, remember we will now be having regular work parties on the first Saturday of even numbered months. This means the next work party will be April 5th.

Once again I want to thank everyone who has already become a 2008 member.

Thanks,
Jeffery Bowling
SFDGC President

On Sunday January 6th, had our most successful fund raising day in our history. With over 125 playing in our bag tag challenge we were able to raise over $5000 to help maintain the course and to start saving for a second course in San Francisco.

Even if you were unable to make it out to the 1st Annual Bag Tag Challenge you can still get a Bag Tag by supporting the San Francisco Disc Golf Club by becoming a Member. By becoming a Member or renewing your Membership you will receive a 2008 Bag Tag. More importantly you will be supporting the maintenance of the Golden Gate course and helping build the funds to get a second course in San Francisco.

You can sign up on-line right now!

If you were a previous Member and want to renew, simply locate your name on the members list and click the renew link by your name. If you have never been a member now is a good time to join and help support disc golf in San Francisco.

Go to this link to sign up: Join SFDGC

The sooner you sign up the lower number Bag Tag you get, so sign up now!!!

Thanks in advance for becoming a 2008 SFDGC Member and supporting Disc Golf in San Francisco.

I just wanted to reminded everyone that there will be a work party on Saturday Dec. 1st from 8am-1pm.  We are hoping to have a few shipments of wood chips by then so we will need as much help as we can get.  Feel free to show up any time during these hours.

As always, the course will be CLOSED during the work party.  This allows the people who are taking the time to volunteer to work on the course, the freedom to work on the course without fear of getting hit by a disc.  We will open the course after the work party at 1pm.

If you are unable to make next Saturday, remember we will now be having regular work parties on the first Saturday of even numbered months but of course there will be a few exceptions and Feb. will be one of them due to the Bezerkeley Best Pairs Bash.  We will have the Feb. work party on Feb. 9th.  But I am getting ahead of myself…..

See everyone out there next Saturday.

SFDGC Meeting
Nov 13th. 2007

6 Month Walkthrough with the city
Will contact city for Walkthrough ASAP
Items to discuss with city at walkthrough:

• Plants
• Practice basket
• Sign on hole 2 (explaining this is a volunteer effort, pack your trash, etc.)
• Erosion prevention on 11, 12 & 14
• Regular woodchips

Course Maintenance Issues
Regular Work Parties

1st Saturday of even months 8am-1pm

Regular Work Parties

• 1st Saturday of even months 8am-1pm
• Course will be closed
• Club will meet 2 weeks prior to discuss issues to be addressed at work party

We also discussed numerous specifics on areas of concern with the course, including using tree screens in other areas on the course.

2008 Memberships
$40 for 2008 Membership

• Includes $2 off plastic for the 2008 calendar year
• 2008 bag tag

Bag Tag Tournament:

• Sunday Jan 6th
• Start between 8:30-11:00 am
• Peter Black & Orion Sylvester are TD’s
• BBQ to follow around 2pm
• Weekly Ace poll will roll into as well as $1 from entry
• Entry $40 membership
• No payouts only bag tags
• Will mail bag tags to those who can’t stay

Outreach
Pat Walsh will continue to explore different outreach opportunities. Pat will also contact Ross and get demo items and donate some of these materials to George Washington High School PE dept

Disc Sales
Been doing well and have a good inventory of discs currently.
Discussed other ways to offer discs: Boat House; approach convenient stores close to course.

2008 Safari
We will begin to plan the 2008 Safari near the beginning of the year. Need to get more commitments from club members to help organize the Safari.

McLaren
It was discussed and agreed we could raise the money and get the manpower to build McLaren. Jeffery agreed to work on putting together an MOU to take to the city around the 1st of the year.

We are having our next club meeting on Tuesday Nov. 13th at 7pm at the Zephyr Cafe (3643 Balboa Street @37th Street). I realize this is short notice but there are a few issues that need to be addressed ASAP. Everyone is welcome and if you are interested in getting involved with Disc Golf in San Francisco, here is your chance.

Some of the items we will cover:

Course Maintenance Issues
6 month walkthrough with the city
Planting of plants from the city
2008 Memberships
Bag Tag Tournament
Disc Sales
2008 Safari

If you have any other items you would like to discuss, please come to the meeting and there will be a chance for people to bring up other issues.

Hope to see many of you there next Tuesday,
Jeffery Bowling
SFDGC President

Hello everyone,

I wanted to give everyone an update on the club and what we have planned for the next few months. As many of you know, I have been working on finishing up my Master’s thesis these past few months and that is why there has not been as much disc golf chatter coming from me. I am near the end of my thesis, so I am once again excited to start focusing on disc golf in SF.

The Past 6 Months:

Course Opened: Obviously the course opening has been a huge success. We have a few issues out there that we still need to address, but the design of the course has held up amazingly well considering all the traffic it has seen. We have made some minor improvements, such as the tee location marks on each sign, as well as some erosion control measures on the hill between 11, 12 & 14. There is still a good amount of work to be done, but for the most part the course is holding up pretty well in the first 6 months.

The Club: The popularity of the course over the summer was amazing and it has been awesome to see so many new faces playing disc golf. Obviously, with so many new players there have been some growing pains but generally the club has done an amazing job with the first 6 months of the GGPDGC. The club has over 300 paid members for the 2007 year and we are still adding new members almost daily. We have had numerous people step up and take more active roles in club leadership, disc sales, weekly TD’s, work party organizers, etc. I am really excited about the number of people who are now actively involved with the club.

San Francisco Safari: The club took over running the Safari this year and it was a huge success from all accounts. We had almost 200 participants playing 72 holes of golf over the weekend. We had some awesome discs, t-shirts and various other schwag. (We still have some Safari stamp discs if you did not get one.) While we had a few issues, this is to be expected as this was the first time for many of us hosting a tournament of this size. We learned a lot this year and the future looks bright for the 2008 Safari.

Disc Sales & Treasury: We have sold a LOT of plastic since the course has opened. We have seen 11 new club stamps since opening day and have sold more discs than I can count. We have had numerous people step forward and help us sell discs and we have even gotten some of our custom discs into a local shop. Between disc sales and membership, we have been able to build our treasury back up to a reasonable level after being in the red from the construction of the course. We will continue to build the treasury for maintenance of the GGP course as well as to start saving for a new course. (see below)

The Next 6 Months:

GGPDGC: We will be scheduling our first walkthrough with the city in the next month. We are scheduled to do a walkthrough with the city every six months to discuss ways we can improve the course. We will need to schedule a work party before the walkthrough to get the course looking its best. Items we will be approaching the city about will be a practice basket and some plants to use for erosion control. We will also be discussing ways to prevent further erosion on the hillside between 11, 12 & 14.

McLaren: This by far is the one question I get asked the most: “When are we going to start on McLaren?” Well, that is a complicated question without an easy answer. My current thinking is that we need to continue to raise money to have enough to fund the McLaren project. The GGP course cost $60,000 and there is no reason to assume that McLaren will be any cheaper. This means that we need to continue to raise money before we can even think of starting out at McLaren. The second issue is the amount of work that will be involved in the construction of a second course. As those of you who were involved with the GGP course construction know, the amount of work that goes into a course construction is huge. GGP had over 4,440 work hours and once again there is no reason to assume McLaren would require any less. This means before we can move forward with McLaren, we need a core group of people to step forward and commit to spending a considerable amount of weekends working on the course construction. I am willing to move forward with this to the city if we have a commitment from people who want to be in charge of the construction. In other words, McLaren needs a Les & Anne to step forward and say they are willing to work their asses off to see this happen.

Well, that’s the update for now. Look for a work party in the next few weeks and hope to see everyone out on the course soon.

-Jeffery Bowling
SFDGC President

Just a reminder that the course will be closed from Oct 4th till Oct9th. This is due to the ‘Hardly Strickly Bluegrass Festival’ that occurs in the three meadows that surround the course.