2020 Year-End Member Update

On behalf of the WCTA Board and staff, we appreciate your continued involvement and confidence in our efforts to support turf management professionals in western Canada.  This summary report reflects the past 12 months of association accomplishments, industry activities and of course, impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on our membership and the association itself.

Given the way 2020 has unfolded, our February conference at the River Rock Casino Resort held just 10 months ago, feels like a distant memory.  Fortunately, our flagship event went very well with another sold out trade show, over 500 in attendance and tied with River Rock 2018 for best performing conference in the past 7 years.

While no COVID-19 cases had been reported at the River Rock, the entire resort decided to shut down one month later, a sign of things to come.  Since February, I’ve been asked many times if we were glad the show went off well prior to COVID-19, the answer being, “Yes, of course!”  

By end-March there were a lot more questions than answers in the midst of a declared state of emergency.  On the golf side, many mild weather courses on the coast and island were still open but with the season looming and many courses preparing to come out of hibernation, no one knew what to expect or how to proceed.  It wasn’t any simpler for sportsfield managers getting ready to gear up for another busy season who were now being told, with little or no warning, to start closing many outdoor recreation facilities.

At this point, the WCTA became intensely involved with the creation of two sets of best management operations practices, one for golf operations and the other for sportsfields.  The biggest hurdle was writing a set of recommendations for a quickly moving target without clear direction and not knowing what mandates would be coming from the respective Provincial Health Offices.  The BMP strategy  became simply to write the best possible guidance for turf managers whether facilities were mandated to shut down entirely, allowed to remain open or somewhere in between, ie. minimal maintenance, partial closures.

It took a month but on April 29 and May 1 respectively, ‘COVID-19 Protection - Best Practices for Responsible Operation of BC Golf Courses’ and ‘Best Practice Guidelines for Responsible Operation of Sportsfield Facilities’ documents were published.  Here’s my comment from that release:

“The amount of effort put in by everyone involved to complete these resources was impressive.  We were fortunate AGA-BC took the lead role on the golf side and that we had an opportunity to be a major part of the process.  It would have been much more difficult for us to produce the sportsfield BMP’s without a template.”

Meanwhile, recognizing a need for quantitative feedback regarding the COVID-19 outbreak, the WCTA initiated a brief anonymous survey targeted toward golf course superintendents.  Unfortunately we didn’t have contact information for all 300 courses in BC and portions of our list were out of date but with some quick work, we contacted nearly 2/3 of the provinces golf facilities and received over 100 responses.  A key finding was:

Q1. Please indicate your position on the opening of golf courses during the COVID-19 outbreak.
     • 70% in favour of opening golf courses
     • 15% against opening golf courses
     • 14% undecided
     • 1% no position

At end May, the BC Ministry of Environment held a stakeholder meeting to discuss pesticide certificates.  We were told anyone whose certificate expired in April or May were granted 6 month extensions since ServiceBC locations had temporarily suspended exam invigilation.  The bad news, there was no plan for further extensions even though exams remained unavailable.  Despite weeks of our best lobby efforts, June and beyond expirees were not provided the same extension even though exams didn’t resume until later in July.

By now, event and meeting cancellation notices from all industry associations were commonplace including the inaugural Canadian Golf Industry Show planned for Vancouver in November and of course our own ‘58th Annual WCTA Conference and Trade Show’ that was scheduled for February 9-11, 2021 at the Penticton Lakeside Resort.  Also, programs like First Green were postponed indefinitely and the serious work of contemplating new ways to move forward became top priority.

To start, and as part of our member service and education delivery ‘re-tooling’, the WCTA Online Webinar Series or ‘WOW’ for short, was created and includes 5 individual webinars starting October 29th and running over the winter months.  The main focus is delivering CEC points for those who would normally attend the conference however some sessions will focus on non-CEC topics.

We’ve also launched a new online auction fundraiser scheduled to begin once 50 items are contributed and open to all bidders.  Former WCTA Director Nik Wall from Premier Pacific Seeds did the original legwork looking at all the different platforms, and we are now ready to go!

Over the past 2 months, Leslie and I have been working with the developer on final tweaks and training on our new CEC tracking software.  The much anticipated program has been in the works for several years but was put on hold due to other initiatives.  Early spring is the timeline to have our powerful new software fully functional.

Contemplation about future member service and education delivery is ongoing.  There are lots of ideas on the table and exhaustive behind-the-scenes work looking at feasibility of things like a virtual trade show, expanded summer events next year and other possibilities.  If you have thoughts, ideas or suggestions on any of the association’s functions, now is a great time to let us know.

I hope you’ve stayed safe and healthy during 2020 and here’s hoping for a much more normal 2021!

Jerry Rousseau
Executive Director Western Canada Turfgrass Association
www.wcta-online.com
(604) 869-WCTA (9282)
E-mail

Housekeeping

If you missed submitting 2020 dues, please give Leslie a call at (604) 372-3530.
2021 dues invoices will be emailed early November, please take care of these as soon as you can.  Less admin = better member services.  If you have any contact information changes, let us know.