MiGCSA Strategic Planning

Steve Randall leads the board on their s.c.o.r results

This week on Tuesday and Wednesday the MiGCSA Board gathered at the Hancock Turfgrass Research Center for a two day Strategic Planning session with John Miller and Steve Randall from the GCSAA. John is the field staff for the Great Lakes and Steve is the Senior Field Staff for the GCSAA and was instrumental in the early formation of the MiGCSA.

We last had a meeting like this in 2009, but with the changes within the MiGCSA and golf in in Michigan we thought it would be a great time to re visit our direction. Many of the board members in attendance were also there for the last meeting, but for some of the newly elected members this was the first meeting.

The day started at noon with Steve Randal handing out a s.c.o.r. analysis. This is meant to identify the strengths, challenges, opportunities and risks. Everyone completed this analysis and read the results aloud and Steve wrote them down. Once everyone had the results on the whiteboard they were all ranked from 1 to 3 in level of importance.

This was followed by looking at the MiGCSA Mission statement. The original was “To provide leadership for Golf Course Superintendents and other golf industry partners on the economic, environmental and recreational vitality of golf in Michigan.” This was a great original mission but we thought we needed to start in a new direction; we made a change to “The MiGCSA is dedicated to providing value to our members through programs and services that enhance our profession.” We all felt this more accurately represented where the MiGCSA is and where we are going. We also added a new set of visions for the association. These are as follows.

Michigan Golf Course Superintendents Association members will be consistently recognized as:

• A community of professionals networking and supporting one another to enhance their position in the golf industry 
• Supporters of scholarships, education and research efforts to benefit our members
• Professionals working to enhance environmental stewardship
• Leaders on initiatives to grow the game of golf
• Crucial to the economic vitality of golf
• Actively participating in the betterment of their communities

Using these new tools the board was able to set action items for the immediate and long term future. It is an exciting time for the MiGCSA as we move from a maintenance mode into an improvement direction.