Captain 2023 Ian Strandberg
I was born many, many years ago, and raised in Worcester where much time was spent at New Road watching Worcestershire Cricket team. After attending the Royal Grammar School, I spent three very happy years at Exeter University obtaining a degree in history and playing a lot of sport especially football.
I then commenced working in insurance and very early on in my career I moved to Chester and liked the place so much that I never moved away despite opportunities to do so. Sport played a big part outside work and I played football in the local leagues and also squash at Chester Rugby Club where I played for their teams in the North West Counties Leagues.
I met a local Chester girl, Pauline and we married and had two daughters both of whom have now moved away, to Nottingham and Essex, and settled down with their partners.
I never really played much golf before joining Eaton some twenty years ago. I always had a set of golf clubs and would play, badly, whenever an opportunity arose and I even played at the old Eaton course although all that I can remember of it was that there were plenty of trees! My younger daughter started to play golf following an introduction to it at junior school and eventually we both joined Eaton. My golf has improved over the years, it could hardly have got worse. I have even managed to have my name engraved on three trophies at the club although I have to admit that they are as part of a pair or team, no individual triumph! When I retired from work, I became more involved with helping at the club and have been both Seniors Chairman and Secretary and served on a number of committees.
I am looking forward to my year as Captain and hopefully raising money for my chosen charity, “Hearing Dogs for Deaf People”. Whilst not as well-known as Guide Dogs the organisation provides dogs for deaf people to enable them to lead as normal a life as possible. The cost of providing one dog over the course of its lifetime is approximately £40,000 and I hope that during my year of office, I can raise enough to pay for at least the tail and a leg of a dog.
Ian Strandberg
Lady Captain 2023 Margaret Steward
I was born in South West Birmingham near the Worcestershire Border.
I spent my early youth as an enthusiastic amateur ice skater, spending many hours each weekend at Silver Blades ice rink. Moving into my early teens, my interests spread to other sports which were encouraged at school, tennis, netball, hockey, cross country running and indeed anything to keep me out of the classroom.
I attended a progressive girls’ school which allowed girls to study technical drawing. This led me into my early profession, studying architecture. However, this only lasted for two years then I changed direction completely. My favourite subject at school was mathematics. I gave up my studies of Architecture and embarked on a career as a management trainee within a large insurance company, studying within their actuarial department and qualifying some five years later.
I met my husband, Tim, in South Birmingham in 1972. We married in 1973 and moved to live in Droitwich, Worcestershire for a number of years.
After embarking on a career with a multi-national company in their pensions department, I ultimately became responsible for their UK and European operations whilst also travelling to North America and Canada. Then in 1981 came the call from Tim’s employer to move to the North West of England, which we did in 1982, living in Frodsham for a few years before moving to Mouldsworth where we currently reside.
Originally Tim worked in Liverpool and I worked in Manchester then visa versa with my job taking me to Liverpool and Tim’s to Manchester. It was a topsy turvy life style but fun and full of challenges. I set up our company in 1984 and Tim joined two years later. The business grew to become one of the largest independent pensions administration companies in the UK. The business was eventually sold some 20 years later which then allowed me to concentrate on golf as well as put “something back into the community”.
I helped to raise funds, initially for the Macmillan Nurses and then for both “The Hospice of The Good Shepherd” and the Countess of Chester hospital by way of assistance with raising funds for the Ursula Keyes Breast Cancer Unit. At the same time, I spent 13 years on the Council at the University of Chester, as the Chairman of the Audit and Risk Committee. It was hard work but also very rewarding and fulfilling to see what was a teaching College turn into a fully fledged and innovative University.
Since selling the business, Tim and I have enjoyed travelling the world by means of cruises, hence the “SS Eaton” on the tee at my drive-in!
Once again, I now have the opportunity to “give something back “. I am very pleased to nominate and support my charity “The Hospice of The Good Shepherd”.
Margaret Steward
Eaton