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Presented in partnership with
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Abundant rewards
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The GCSAA/Golf Digest Environmental Leaders in Golf Awards are a great way to gain recognition for the environmental efforts at your facility. Winners of ELGAs, presented in partnership with Syngenta Professional Products and Rain Bird, Golf Division, receive recognition not only in GCM and Golf Digest, but also at the 2008 GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show. Applications are now available online at www.gcsaa.org/resources/awards/elga/elga.asp and are due Oct. 13.
The ELGAs focus on five basic categories: Resource Conservation, Water Quality Management, Integrated Pest Management, Wildlife/Habitat Management and Education/Outreach. The application asks superintendents to provide detailed answers on these topics directly in the space provided on the application form.
Submitting your application doesn’t have to be the only use of this information, however. While you are putting the information and your thoughts together for the application, think about other ways you can use this information to communicate your environmental efforts to your facility owner, board, golfers and your
community.
Instead of putting your thoughts directly into the online application, draft your application in a word document and then cut and paste it into the application. Not only does this preserve your answers in case of computer issues, but it also provides you with an easy, already written source of material for providing information on your facility’s environmental stewardship. You can then take this information and use it in a variety of ways:
• Craft it into an outline for a presentation to your green committee on the benefits of environmental stewardship
• Use the material as notes for a tour for local schools
• Build a PowerPoint presentation around your information and have it play in the clubhouse for avid golfers to see
• Repackage the material into an article for your facility newsletter, Web site or state golf association publication
• Create a press release for your local media on your facility’s environmental friendliness, with your application information as the starting point
It’s no secret that the superintendent’s profession is one that can be time consuming, and efficiency is a key to any operation. So why not be efficient with your communications efforts? Compiling information for your ELGA application and then using it for outreach is a great way to be rewarded for your environmental work and increase your communication efforts at the same time. For more information about the ELGAs or other ways to communicate your environmental efforts, contact the GCSAA communications department at 800-472-7878, or visit www.gcsaa.org.
Think the employment or independent contractor agreements crafted by your club’s board of directors are long-winded? An attorney who recently worked with the board of directors at Winged Foot GC says they’re not nearly thorough enough. Robert M. Fields, a legal expert who recently drafted an agreement for Winged Foot, says changes over the last five to 10 years have made customary two- to four-page-long agreements outdated and inadequate. All agreements for new hires and existing employees should outline a clear set of duties, rights and responsibilities between all parties, compensation, payments upon termination of agreement, restrictions on use of logos and other intellectual property, compliance with Section 409A of the internal revenue code and covenant not to solicit employees, Fields says. Profile Products LLC recently hired Keith Rose as a territory manager for New Jersey. Rose, a Class A GCSAA member, will sell, prepare and manage the company’s DryJect aeration service contracts. A former superintendent, Rose, a 12-year GCSAA member, previously worked for Madison (N.J.) GC and as an assistant superintendent at Echo Lake CC in Westfield, N.J. His experience includes two PGA events and a USGA national tournament. |
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