The GIS show in Orlando, Florida took place earlier this month and proved to be a great success. Total attendance was 11,000, up 69% from the previous year. There were almost 450 exhibitors, many of which were machinery dealers and manufacturers from the turf maintenance industry. It was nice to see some of the machinery companies getting involved with sponsoring the conference and its events. The GCSAA Golf Championships was presented by Toro while John Deere was in partnership with the GCSAA in holding the annual GCSAA Turf Bowl, a unique team event that tests the knowledge of students studying turf management in college.
Sponsoring events and organisations is so important for our industry. Many organisations in Ireland, such as the Association of landscape Contractors of Ireland (ALCI), the Association of Turfgrass Professionals Ireland (ATPI) and the Irish Links Initiative (ILI) are run by volunteers. They run many events throughout the year for their members. Most of these events are educational and involve a lot of the committee’s free time to organise. Many of our professional customers are members of one or more of these organisations. They benefit hugely by being a member as it gives them opportunities to improve their knowledge of their profession, and earn valuable CPD points. These events cost a lot of money to organise. Membership and entrance fees will not be enough to cover the costs.
We must not forget that their industry is our industry as well so anything that helps them will, in the long term, help us too. An educated and informed customer is a valuable customer. If you have the means to sponsor an organisation that is running an event, especially in your region you should take the opportunity to help them out. I know running a business is not cheap or easy. We only have to look at our energy bills to see how much they have skyrocketed over the past twelve months.
In the past I was a former Vice President of the ATPI (then known as the Golf Course Superintendents Association of Ireland). I remember getting involved with organising educational seminars and we needed sponsors to cover the costs of running them. In the end we managed to get enough companies on board to run a successful seminar but it was hard work. Many of the businesses we approached would ask “what’s in it for us?”. Our reply would be “you would be supporting our organisation and help with the education of our members” but some would decline as they perhaps didn’t see that this was an important reason to sponsor the event and there would be no immediate financial gain for them.
Those companies that did sponsor us did benefit indirectly. Some of the people that attended those seminars would have been groundstaff or greenkeepers who would later become head groundsmen/greenkeepers or may have started their own landscaping business. Some of them even got top jobs abroad. They would remember that being a member of a national organisation helped their career. They would also remember the companies that helped fund those educational events.
