2007 NZ Turf Conference Review

New Zealand Golf Course Superintendents Association

This report has been prepared by the NZGCSA Administration Officer in his capacity as a member of the 2007 Turf Conference Organising committee.

Conference Venue:
Overall the venue would have to be one of the best we have worked in or attended as a delegate in the last four conferences. Movement both around the venue as well as to and from was easy and had good flow. The only problem we did strike was with some delegates not aware of the split on some combined sessions.

Golf Room:
The Golf room work well with good feedback from our members. They appreciated the fact that they had somewhere that they could base themselves as well as having direct access to NZGCSA Staff as well as a member of the conference committee.

Although overall the AV work very well and the staff provided were excellent we did have a problem when speakers were looking for feedback. It was very difficult for speakers and the audience to hear what was said.

Trade Show:
This appears to have operated very well but with the same problems as past years with the number of food stations and number of delegates being mismatched. We need to get a faster turnover of those getting food.

The lay out of the trade show worked well although it was quite cold down the bottom end. There has been some question over the type of food but is something that come back to personal preference.

Programme
We have had some very good feed back regarding the program, with the key note speakers all very well received.

GCSAA President Ricky D. Heine, CGCS, took the message of American golf course maintenance to another part of the world re­cently as a featured presenter at the biannual New Zealand Turf Con­ference, which took place in mid-July in Wellington, New Zealand.

GCSAA President Travels Down Under
Heine, the General Manager and Director of Grounds at The Golf Club Star Ranch in Austin, Texas, was the all-expenses-paid guest of the New Zealand GCSA. He made a trio of separate pre­sentations during the three-day conference, focusing on current issues and trends in American golf course maintenance, course design in the U.S. and human resource trends facing American Superintendents.

The people of New Zealand are unbelievable, so friendly and car­ing," Heine says. "The people at the conference appreciated the edu­cational opportunities that were offered, and I developed a respect for the professionalism that was exhibited by everyone there."

The conference attracted more than 600 attendees and of­fered targeted sessions for turf managers working in golf, sports fields, cricket, lawn bowling and horse racing. The conference took place at Westpac Stadium, a 34,000-seat facility that hosts soccer, rugby and Australian Rules Football matches in addition to events at its conference facilities.

Heine was invited to take part in the conference by Brett Burgess, the past president of the New Zealand GCSA and Super­intendent at Hutt Golf Club in Wellington. During his stay, Heine visited Burgess and Hutt GC, talking with staff and observing work around the golf course.

Field Trips
It was disappointing to have such a low turn out for the field trip but I think this could be put down to the poor weather on the day as we did have just under our max number booked.

Conference Dinner
This is one area that we have had a number of concerns expressed. Key issues appear to be,

1. Lack of food towards the end.
2. Quality of the food.
3. Sound system being totally inadequate for the venue
4. Time taken with presentation of awards.
5. The cost of the dinner was far to high for the quality of what was provided.

Positives were the MC who did a great job. It was discussed that if the Golf Awards had also been presented then the night would have been a total disaster, as it would have made the event far to long. This is a problem that will need to address before the next conference.

We have had a large number of our members saying that the NZGCSA should hold it’s own dinner as we did this year at future conferences. This is something NZGCSA will have to look at. It may be that the Conference dinner is not the place to present individual sector awards?

Future
Where to next? We have had some interesting suggestions on this one but wherever it is, it should have been sorted before this conference. If we intend to build on the good work that has been done we should have been promoting the next conference at the Wellington Conference. It is time the governance board put in place a long-term plan for the conference so that we know at least which city we will be heading for in the future.

If we are to secure the best of speakers and the best locations we need to be talking to these people now for the next conference not waiting for another 6 months.