President's Report - September 2015

Collaboration: the action of working with someone to produce or create something.

Just by definition, the word collaboration shows us the power of producing an end result through the work of many. When you think about the work of the Environmental Advocacy Committee and its collaboration with all the main partners on the Pesticide issue, collaboration was the key to creating an outcome that will help the Golf and Sportsturf management industry move forward in a positive and professional manner.

With the recent focus on water usage, we are once again, as an industry and individually, under scrutiny as to what we do and what our practices are, with regard to the use of water. Collaboration again, must be our approach to dealing with this topic. As with the pesticide issue, we have to be very aware that there is no one organization speaking for everyone on these issues as not everyone in the golf or turfgrass business is a member of an industry organization.

Educating our own members on pesticide and water use has to be a big part of our mandate. The creation and adherence to guidelines through continuous education must become the focal point of our organization if we are to stay pertinent and forward thinking when it comes to these very important issues.

No one organization can tackle these issues on their own and so we must find ways to come together in order to produce results that show not only the general public the value of a well educated strategy but the members of those associations, the value of collaboration and a collective goal.      

Sincerely,

Trevor Smith
President, Western Canada Turfgrass Association