How does it look this spring?

This is the question, the one we all have been getting. From Superintendents and Assistants to the Golf Pro and GM. How do the greens look? Not that this is not a normal spring question, but this year it is more than the passing comment. With the 2014 golf season that never was still fresh in so many golfers memories it is with great trepidation that this question is being asked this year.

So far from what I have heard is minimal damage across the state, especially in the hard hit Metro Detroit area. Some damage that in most years would likely not be noticed or talked about as the usual winter hits. But this year under the winter kill microscope it is front and center. Every off color patch of grass is documented and reported. I am very glad to hear the results as they come in from all corners, I do not think the members of our chapter could sustain another spring and summer of recovery.

As I have said in post on this topic before, no matter how long a member has been at a club, or how much the dues they pay are there is not a single person on the property... on the earth who was more distraught with the results of the polar vortex of 2014 than the Golf Course Superintendent. Also there is not a single person who was more relived than the Superintendent when the greens came out alive this spring. Not because it was too much work to get them back, or they were afraid of the amount of effort needed again this year. MiGCSA Members have work and effort to spare. It is the soul crushing feeling of helplessness that comes with the damage of a long winter that takes the toll.

As we all know we are not out of the woods yet, the potential for crown hydration injury still persists. Fingers and toes crossed we can get a nice warm spring green up without winter trying for one last blast this spring.

Michigan Turf Conference

Hopefully everyone knew that this week was the 2015 Michigan Turfgrass Conference in East Lansing. I also hope that everyone who could attend did, if not you missed the best conference I have seen to date, and the best deal in turf education going. For $150 for three days of jam packed current topics and speakers from Bradley Klien of Golfweek to the entire MSU Turf Team and other professors from around the country to Superintendent project presentations for $6.25 an hour! Less than minimum wage, if your employer can not approve this expense then I am not sure of any they would. The vendor show on Tuesday was packed and had a light social atmosphere with great food and enough beverage stations to ensure a good time for all.

The MiGCSA does not produce this show, we offer our assistance at any time but the Michigan Turfgrass Foundation (MTF) is the driving force behind this every year. Gordie LaFontaine is the Executive Director of the MTF and Becky Schoch is the Executive Secretary. Brain Schweihofer is the MTF President and Amy Fouty is the Education Chair who works closely with Dr. Kevin Frank and the MSU Turf Team. I want to personally thank them all for a great week, you should too when you see them. And if the price is not enough, or the education please remember this. All oft he proceeds from this conference go directly to the MTF to fund the world class turf research at MSU! The MTF funds the University with $120,000+ a year which is often matched from other groups and the University to double, triple and quadruple this number all in a effort to make discoveries that make your job easier and more efficient. 

We have a great thing going here in Michigan, many of us (including me) can easily take it for granted, many of us have not known anything else. However now that I am exposed to so many other areas of the country I can tell you we could not have it any better any where else. Our member numbers are up, we are investing money for the chapter and our donation to the MTF was more than $18,500 this year along with $7,000 in scholarships. I am happy to be a part of this great turf state and I hope all of our members are too, congratulations to all of you for your part be it big or small it is not possible without every one of you. 

MTESP 2.0

I hope many of you are already aware of this but I have taken the lead with the Michigan Turfgrass Environmental Stewardship Program (MTESP) and we have launched a new MTESP 2.0 website last month. The hope for this site is to revitalize the MTESP and to provide turf managers with a real time live website that can help them identify areas of environmental risk. We are asking anyone who manages turf to please register their facility at www.mtesp.org this winter regardless of your plans for certification, we need registered users to help secure continued funding for the program. So please when you have a minute this winter go get registered, it is really easy. 

Wait a minute you may say, I do not want to do that I know we are our of compliance with so many areas why would I want to tell anyone about it? I know we can't afford to update our shop/fuel storage/mix load pad etc. so why should I document our lack of compliance and open us up to more risk? 

I understand this line of thought however I would argue that you are not opening yourself up to more risk, the risk is there and inherent regardless of your documentation. I can also say that the recognition of the risks by you and the communication to your facility decision makers is an important insurance policy for you personally and for the facility. Ignorance is not a reasonable excuse when it comes to fines or possible environmental accidents. However a clear documentation and assessment of your risks is a powerful tool when it comes to inspections and possible fines. I can tell you without any hesitation that the MDARD and DEQ look very favorably upon facilities that have made a clear and honest assessment of their environmental risk regardless of the facilities ability to properly mitigate that risk. The specific facility information in the MTESP is not available to anyone but myself, Dr. Kevin Frank and the Stewardship Specialists John Johnson and Kathy Antaya. The state departments are not interested in facility specific information, just the total number of facilities and if the facility is utilizing the program or not. So please go to the website and get your facility registered this winter. Thank you for your support of this very important program. 

Opportunity Knocks

In this day of lightning fast communication through Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Webinars and a litany of great fast easy education it can be a very tough sell to spend the time and money to travel to a conference. I have been there, with a 2 year old at home it is becoming harder and harder to find the time to get away. We are heading full on into conference season and the time to register is now to get the early rate and good hotels but I know the drill many of you are waiting to see how the budget, weather, family etc pan out before your decision. The closer it gets the easier it is to just skip. This is not isolated to just you or to Michigan or to the MiGCSA it is a nation wide question, is it really worth it?

Of course I have to say yes, it is part of my job to travel to these various conferences and represent the MiGCSA and our members interests. But why is it important to our members when so much of this information that is presented at the conference is available for free at you leisure from the comfort of your office and a computer device? In my opinion it is not about the topics or the presenter. Those are great reasons to go but in today's age not the main reason. There is no information to be gleaned that can not be found online.

But what you can not find on Twitter or on a blog is the face to face interaction with your piers. The conversations started by a presentation or a presenter. The networking with so many that walk in your shoes on a different part of the state or country. The shared communal experience that is so unique and specific to us as Golf Course Superintendents. There is no way to duplicate this experience online or anywhere else.

It can be so hard to justify attendance to whomever needs the justification. There is no guarantee for this investment to be a good return for the facility, but I can not imagine anyone going to a conference about their industry and not coming back with a new idea or a contact that has the potential to pay incredible dividends for the facility and for the individual.

In the next two months there are some really great opportunities to test my theory. The Michigan Golf Course Owners, Golf Business Conference is December 1-3 you can see more info here. Just to our south in Sandusky the Ohio Turfgrass Foundation has a great lineup at a new family friendly venue at Kalahari Resort, you can see the OTF offerings by clicking here. Of course there is the must see event in Michigan in January the Michigan Turfgrass Conference that is built by the Michigan Turfgrass Foundation at the Kellogg Conference Center in East Lansing. The MTF has really put together a fantastic show this year packed with great topics and speakers you can go to www.mtfconference.org to see the opportunities and registration information.

Winter

This is the topic for most of the blogs I have read lately and for good reason. The winter of 2014 was one for the record books and one we hope not to repeat or break anytime soon.

The MiGCSA is doing all we can to help provide direction and support for our members on this issue. It started in the Spring with the Ice & Recovery Seminar at Oakland Hills and will bookend with the Winter Preparation Seminar at Franklin Hills next week on October 23rd. This summer the Michigan Turfgrass Foundation (MTF) purchased a cold weather growth chamber that should be installed this fall. The MSU Turf Team will now be able to conduct research all year in a controlled environment and hopefully find some best practices to prevent or mitigate the damage from ice over. Dr Emily Merewitz has started a crowd funding campaign for individuals to help fund research on this issue as well, a great example of the forward thinking from MSU and the commitment of the Turf Team to researching this problem. If you want to donate to this research you can go to https://experiment.com/projects/research-to-improve-turfgrass-survival-of-winterkill-damage.

We all hope for a mild winter with beautiful turf in the spring and a summer of normal maintenance. But please know there are many people working together in Michigan to find solutions to this issue so when the winter turns on us again we will have some ways to fight. Thank you to all who have supported the MiGCSA this year by attending our fundraisers, meetings and by being members. You have helped support a great community dedicated to providing value to our members through programs and services that enhance and promote our profession.

Finish Strong

As we wind into the fall of what was one of the easiest or toughest seasons our members have had depending on the level of winter damage at your facility we are also looking to this winter. The MiGCSA hosts 3 fundraisers every year starting with Arcadia Bluffs in June. Our second was at Battle Creek Country Club on the 10th of September and our final is at Tam-O-Shanter C.C. on October 6th.

After the Arcadai record breaking attendance we were running $13,000 ahead of last year in revenue. However with a low turnout at the Western event we lost some ground. If we can have good attendance at Tam-O-Shanter in two weeks we can hopefully present a much larger check to the Michigan Turfgrass Foundation in January.

Please come out and help us finish this year with a great event and support the turf research that now includes a cold weather growth chamber to hopefully come up with some BMP's for winter survival. You can register for this event here http://www.migcsa.org/index.php?catid=5&flat=1&month=10&day=6&year=2014 and remember this is open to anyone so please bring your neighbors and friends to help us sell this event out! 

The 2013 Fundraisers raised $14,021.18 we are hoping to come close to doubling that amount this year.

The Future...

The MiGCSA is often best looked at as a new start up business for me, we started in 2008 and have seen many bumps in the road. But since this is a new business there is just not a lot of history to compare ourselves to.

Right now we are in a position of growth of both membership and financial. At some point we will hit a ceiling of some sort, or at least a leveling off. The key for the MiGCSA is to continue to improve and adapt to the needs of our members. The easiest way to do this is to listen very carefully to what they want and to see what they do, then in the simplest of terms do that.

What is the future of the MiGCSA? I have a few ideas, but I would really love to hear what you think. Are we doing all we can for our members? No, I hope we can never say that, if we do then there is no room for improvement and that leads to stagnation. We need to be a nimble group and business constantly adapting to the environment, member needs and support. This is easy to say and much harder to do. The gains we have made in our first 5 1/2 years were primarily the low hanging fruit, the gains in the next 5 1/2 will be substantially more difficult but can also be the most dynamic.

What does a GCSAA Affiliated Chapter look like in the future, again I have some ideas but I do know this for sure: it does not look like the one we have now. That does not mean we are doing anything wrong now per say although I am sure there are a few things. It means that we need to manage for what is coming not for what we did, do not simply keep doing what you do well because it worked yesterday. If you look at your life or business how many things that you did 5, 10, 15 years ago apply to today? If you say most of it I would caution you to take a very hard and honest look at some new ideas. Ask Kodak if what has worked in the past is good enough, once one of the largest companies in the world, now gone because they did not adapt soon enough or look at what is next while business was good.

The best time to plan for the future is when things are good, whether it be profits or members or course conditions. It is markedly harder when those things are not good to try to implement new ideas and techniques. Make mistakes they are the kindling for innovation. If you are mistake free you are not trying enough new ideas, learn from them and grow from them. As always please let us know where you think we can improve even if it does not end up working at least we know we tried. Thank you all for your support of the MiGCSA.