My Year as President Has Come to an End

By Scott Mitchell

I am happy with the way it went, and what we as a board and as an association have accomplished. We started the year off with a nasty wet spring, in what has become an interesting economic climate for everyone involved in the turf management business.

The climate had most turf managers that I know evaluating every aspect of their budgets and asking themselves am I getting value, or a good return on my investment for the money I am spending, or “Do I really need to be doing this?”. The WCTA was no different than those managers and, over the last few years has done the same process. This has resulted in a few changes, we have managed to cut the directors expenses significantly, along with build some efficiencies into day to day operations, and the conference. I believe we have done this and also increased the value to our members by keeping and increasing the things that are important to them. The quality of the speakers at our show is one example of this. We have put in a lot of effort to provide all of our members with qualified speakers that will appeal to a wide variety of turf managers. Another project that I am proud to say came to fruition during my term is the outsourcing of the Turfline News. Our goal was to provide a quality magazine, without losing its local appeal, while increasing revenues to the association, and freeing up time for our executive director to concentrate on other projects and again improving value to our membership. The biggest project of the year was the pesticide ban issue. This took an enormous amount of time and effort on most of our parts. And while the final decision is yet to be made, whatever is decided, I know that we have done all that is possible to make our voice heard. In closing I would like to thank Jerry Rousseau for all his help and hard work, Dave Duncan for always being there to support me, and the rest of the board for all their support and help as well. I will be here next year to help and advise as best I can, but have all the confidence in the world for your incoming President, Tab Buckner, best of luck in the coming year Tab, I know you will do a fabulous job!

Sincerely Scott Mitchell