A couple of weeks ago, I asked if my golf club could promote an idea I had in their newsletter for the members.

It was a book club for our golf club.

Our golf club has different clubs within it for members to socialise. There’s pilates, card games, charity events and lots more….but there’s no book club.

So I thought I’d start one IF there was any interest.

I called it “Birdies, Bogies and Books” and so far, as soon as it was promoted I have now about 12 people interested as well as one who has connections to the book and publishing industry who could provide some great information for us to learn and appreciate.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting people to be interested, so this level of interest is a complete surprise for me.

My plan is to create a WhatsApp Community which is a relatively new function in that app. (Later research led me to create a Group than a Community. Blasted age old question: when do you create one over another?! Simply put, my book club is a GROUP not a community – the golf club is a community which consists of different groups within it. Nevertheless….Argh! Flashbacks of my previous life that I had to immediately stop!!!)

Well anyway, in the newsletter promoting the Book Club, i included a link to a Microsoft Form to capture expressions of interest but of course, the link failed for whatever reason. My extreme disinterest in anything technological now meant that I couldn’t be bothered figuring out the problem and instead just opted to talk to the people as I saw them in the club house.

Besides, word gets around faster through word of mouth (especially if you’re at the bar with a glass of beer or wine in your hands) than any email, text, QR code or whatever.

I just said to people “spread the word” (with drinks in hand) and soon after I had people coming to my table, yelling from across the bar to be included, coming off the golf course and mentioning they want in.

My plan is to run the first meeting where people can discuss themes, books, meeting times and the first book of the club – our inaugural book. I’d like to give out something for our inaugural members – maybe like printed bookmarks or something that melds golf and books/reading together.

After that, anyone’s guess.

I’ve decided I’m not going to plan things out to the nth degree anymore. I simply come up with ideas, put them out there and see what sticks.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this little community builds and the types of books we will read.

Here’s what I wrote as a welcome to the community. I’ve called myself the BBB Caddie and I’ll create a 12 book course for the group to read. 🤣

(Full disclosure: I wanted to see what ChatGPT came up with and here’s some of its words down below – the title is mine though – not bad. I’ve changed some things around as it sounded a bit twee. That’s the end of my AI experimentation as it left me feeling a bit cold)

Photo of Tiger Woods reading: from an Internet search from NextGenGolf. Obviously AI as well but not of my doing.