2012 PRO AWARDS: Report and pictures of the glittering Industry Awards, incorporating Dealer of the Year Awards and Turf Pro Awards, held on the first evening of SALTEX
SALTEX 2012: Show review and new products on show at the leading turfcare exhibition
FEATURE: Compact Tractors: What's new in the compact tractor market
DEALER PROFILE: Winchester Garden Machinery, winner of the 2012 Garden Machinery Dealer of the Year Award
COURSE REVIEW: Sundridge Park Golf Club, a hidden gem seven miles from the centre of London
PRODUCT FEATURE: Wiedenmann launch a new line up of machines in Germany
PLUS: NEWS, VIEWS, COMMENT . . . AND JIM GREEN
Click the button above, email your name, company details and address - and we'll send you a complimentary sample issue of Turf Pro and Service Dealer plus details on how to get the magazine regularly
TURF PRO AND SERVICE DEALER Best of both magazines in combined title
Turf Pro October 2012
THE bringing together of Service Dealer and Turf Pro magazines is really only a return to where it all started.
In June 1988, Chris Biddle published the first issue of a trade magazine, Garden Machinery Retailer. Ten years later in 1998, with the volume of news and information on the professional turfcare industry increasing, he took the decision to launch a magazine aimed at the end-user. The first few issues were named Golf and Groundscare, later renamed Turf Professional (known universally as Turf Pro).
The titles, then Service Dealer and Turf Professional, complemented themselves ideally - and were both commercially successful.
In recent years, however, not only has there been consolidation in the number of suppliers and manufacturers, but methods of reaching and communicating with the trade has changed resulting in a much small ‘pool’ of potential advertisers to support a monthly magazine distributed to a trade-only audience.
At the same time, this weekly E-Newsletter was launched providing up-to-date news and feedback, together with direct communication links. In the past two years, Service Dealer Update published each Friday at noon, has resulted in one of the highest ‘opening rates’ in the e-mail industry according to our partners in the project, Cork-based Newsweaver.
This changed the dynamics of Service Dealer. Much of the news content which readers looked forward to reading in the magazine, had already been delivered to them electronically.
That said, there is still a strong demand for a traditional printed magazine - but times are changing Established print newspapers and magazines, Evening Standard and Time Out, are now being given away to commuters in London, and The Times has spent millions to accommodate the I-Pad generation.
So in discussion with Scott MacCallum, our advertising sales agency and others, it was decided to combine Turf Pro with Service Dealer, combining the best of both magazines into single title that would bring together the interests of owner, end-user, operator and specifier with those within the industry who supply and service the equipment on which they rely.
For regular readers of Service Dealer, virtually all the popular elements such as dealer and supplier profiles, industry news, Chris Biddle’s column and Jim Green remain - alongside the features on the turfcare industry that has been well-cover in Turf Pro over the years.
Having decided to take a back-seat, Chris Biddle has licenced the production of the magazine to editor Scott MaCallum (for 17 years the editor of Greenkeeper International) and designer Tim Moat who was in at the launch of Greenkeeper International and was its first design and production editor, a post he held for several years. They will be working together with George Miller of Cabbell Publishing who is responsible for advertising sales - as well as a number of freelance contributors including Chris Biddle and Mike Beardall (formerly editor of The Groundsman)
And next week, a new website will be launched to support the magazine which we'll preview in next Friday's newsletter.
Chris Biddle, will continue to edit and produce the weekly Service Dealer Update E-Mail, which continue to reflect on news and developments within the the whole of the land-based engineering sector from farm machinery, garden and professsional turfcare machinery, ATV/Quad, forestry and outdoor power equipment.
Chris says “I am excited and highly impressed with the look and content of the first issues of the combined magazine. Nobody particularly likes change, but the re-design takes the magazine to a new level and will surely establish itself as a must-read publication for anyone involved in the turfcare industry".
All existing subscribers to Service Dealer will receive the magazine as usual, and a revised and improved subscription package will be announced before the end of the year
