OTF Regional Seminar

Had a great experience with our turf neighbors to the south the last two days. Today I attended the Ohio Turfgrass Foundation Regional seminar at Fifth Third field, home of the Toledo Mudhens. We had a great tour of the field and the operations by Jake Tyler, Field Manager. On Sunday night MiGCSA President Jay Eccleton and I attended a reception at the Park Inn right around the corner from the field. We met many professors and field staff from Ohio State. And we spent a lot of time getting to know the new Executive Director of the OTF Steve Jurick and the Associate Director Brian Laurent. There is a significant opportunity for the MiGCSA to work with the OTF to provide more education opportunities to members, especially those in the southern part of Michigan. Like the event today, .3 GCSAA CEU's and a 1/2 day of great education and discussion with fellow superintendents for no cost to any members. This is another example of why the MiGCSA was formed, to find and foster these relationships with allied associations with the same goal of improving and advance the game of golf.

Website Meeting

Just finished a meeting with Gaslight Media, our website company. We are looking into a major upgrade in how the back end of the website handles membership data. Along with this is a much more custom user interface. It will probably not be complete until this winter or even next spring. It will be in place by membership renewal in October 2012. The goal is to make everything more personal and automated. Membership renewal is like aerification, it is a process that is tough on everyone but it has to be done and the benefits are important. Look for improvements coming soon!

Flint Elks Golf Event

We had a great turnout for the Flint Elks Golf event on the 12th. We had 40 players that competed in a best two of 4 format. And there was an hour of education on conducting an irrigation audit for .1 CEU's from Ian Williams with Rainbird. I did not have a chance to post until now as I was in Detroit for this event and had to head back on Friday for my first wedding shower. I grew up in Clinton Township and still have many family members there. The shower was at Cherry Creek Golf Club and a special thank you to MiGCSA member Superintendent Scott Schellpfeffer who hosted myself, my brother in law, father in law, and nephew to be for 9 holes on Saturday. The course was great and we were able to get in on time to see everyone.

Catching Up

The Presidents of the groups that make up the Michigan
Golf Alliance met with the Speaker of the House Jase Bulger

Went down to Lansing yesterday for a recap meeting from the Michigan Golf Day in Lansing at the MGCOA headquarters. Kate Moore, MGCOA Executive Director will be coming to the Spring Management Meetings next spring to talk about how well organized the day is. It can be intimidating to go into a Representatives office and speak about golf. It is tough to get the members to understand how it is all set up for you, talking points, assignments for visits, and information packets. Once you come to the golf day it is a hard event to skip, we are really starting to make an impression on the Capitol. Hopefully the MiGCSA members will absorb the information and try to attend in 2012.

Grand Rapids

Heading to Grand Rapids today to meet with Kevin Fuchs and Marc McCoy from Harrell's at Egypt Valley. Board member and Egypt Valley Superintendent  Jeff Homles, CGCS will be meeting us as well. This is another chance to speak with one of our valuable Industry Partners. Harrell's has supported the MiGCSA from the start and is an important part of the MiGCSA success. As everyone's budget begins to shrink at the course it in turn decreases the budget for distributors and the amount they can support very worthy causes. The MiGCSA is more than a cause to support however, we are also the most direct line for marketing to Superintendents available. But the real question is how can the MiGCSA help our partners improve their bottom line while they also help us, which in turn helps us to have great member benefits. I ask you as members as I always do to really make sure you look at the companies that support the MiGCSA and when you can please support them as well.

Detroit District Survey

Working on a Detroit District member survey today with the Detroit District Events Committee chaired by Gregg Matthews. We are trying to get the right set of questions for our members. We want to make sure we are doing the best things we can for them and to make the events more popular. In the last few years, even before the MiGCSA came to be attendance in all 4 chapters were slipping. There are many ideas as to why this is happening from cost, to time to venues and I think they are all valid. But we are hoping to get some more concrete evidence as to how we can make the events better. The Detroit District is by far our most populated, but often has the lowest attendance for events. So we are starting there to see what type of response we get. It is short only 5 questions so hopefully we get some responses. I know how tough it is to find time for these things but a little information can go a long way to help all of us.

Legislative Day

Had a great turnout yesterday and the rain held off until after "Lunch at the Turn". In the morning we heard from Dennis Muchmore, Governor Snyder's Chief of Staff on his thought on the State and fielded questions about golf. He used to be a lobbyist for the Golf Course Owners Association, so he is familiar with our industry. We then went out in groups with bags of information and visited the House of Representatives. I paired up with Greg Lyman and John Miller, CGCS from the GCSAA. We had the opportunity to sit with many Representatives or to speak with their staffs. Everyone was invited to "Lunch at the Turn" thanks to Eagle Eye Catering, hot dogs and hamburgers. The tent on the front lawn of the capitol building was packed with Representatives, Senators and their staffs. In the afternoon we visited the Senate. They were still in session so we spoke to their staffs and left information for the Senators. A great day thanks to the newly formed Michigan Golf Alliance.