SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/26719
the old saying, ‘You never know’ that will keep me coming back.” When asked about our chapter’s Vendor Day, Drew Williams with Redexim Turf Prod- ucts said, “It is unique because it is like a local trade show that is free to commercial mem- bers and we get the opportunity to demo our equipment and show off products to a large audience of sports field managers.” Another way we are attempting to reach a larger contingent of our membership is by im- proved communication about upcoming events. For 2010, we lined up our events early in the year and were able to get that informa- tion out so people could mark it on their cal- endars. We use a three-prong approach as far as communicating with our members: One, we send a mailer out early in the year with our membership applications to let them know when the events are and to also let them know what they are getting for their member- ship dues. Second, we email a reminder a cou- ple of weeks before each event just to confirm how many attendees to expect, and third, we put all of our events and sponsors on our chapter website. Keeping our website up to date on chapter events is very important. If a member goes to the site and the information is outdated and there isn’t any new content, they won’t be back to the site. Getting together with other green industry organizations has also been a benefit for our chapter. One of our most successful events over the past 2 years has been a collaboration project with the Missouri Turf and Ornamen- tal Council and the Gateway Irrigation Asso- ciation to put on the Missouri Green Industry Conference. This year’s conference included 1 full day of educational classes with a vendor trade show/expo. On the following day we have our ornamental and turf (Category 3) pesticide applicator recertification program. But probably the most effective way to have a successful local event is to ask the members what they want. Email them, send out surveys, make phone calls but however you need to do it, make sure you are getting feedback and in turn giving the membership information on topics that they want to learn about. Our members told us that while they like the classroom setting and the information they were getting, many wanted to have some “hands on” events too. This past year we were fortunate enough to have a Field Day that combined the two. We teamed up with ex- perts from Beacon Athletics, Toro, and Dia- mond Pro to create a comprehensive learning session that combined hands-on and class- room on field maintenance knowledge. Each chapter is going to be different as to what is pertinent to their membership, but the key is to get chapter members involved. Share the information you gained by attending the National STMA. Use local universities, exten- sion agents, and vendors to help educate. Use emails, phone calls, mailers, Facebook, Twitter or whatever means you can to communicate the information to your members. Network and use your membership to its potential. We all deal with the same issues, so why not use a great resource like your local STMA chapter to help solve those issues. ■ Brian Winka, CSFM is parks maintenance supervisor for Chesterfield, MO and president of the Gateway Chapter of STMA, www.gate waystma.org. www.stma.org SportsTurf 21