Teenage Groundsman Wins Volunteer Award

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Teenage Groundsman Wins Volunteer Award: A volunteer groundsman at Redditch Cricket Club has been named ‘young volunteer of the year’ at a prestigious sports awards.

Jacob Ottley, 17, won the accolade at the annual Herefordshire and Worcestershire Sports Awards at Sixways Stadium in Worcester on Thursday, November 23.

Teenage Groundsman Wins Volunteer Award

He only began volunteering at the club as part of his Duke of Edinburgh award, but has since completed a groundsman course to become an “integral” part of the club’s staff.

Club secretary Gary Fisher said: “I was very shocked and surprised but delighted that he has won it.

“You are going up against a big area and it is not just cricket, it is across all sports, so it is a very big honour for not only Jacob but for the cricket club as well.

“He has been integral in doing groundwork throughout the season which helped up win the Worcestershire league.

“He has become a massive part of the club not only as a young sportsman but as a member of the groundstaff.

“There is a lot of work on doing groundwork but he has got that knack about him to observe and take things in.

“It is fantastic news. It is great for a youngster to do what he is doing.”

The awards are organised by Herefordshire & Worcestershire Sports Partnership and have been running for 16 years.

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FA Take Advice From City Groundsmen

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FA Take Advice From City Groundsmen: Sports bodies across the UK are taking advice from Gloucester.

More than 18 months after the city council agreed to commit to improve pitches across Gloucester, council bosses say there has been a major improvement.

FA Take Advice From City Groundsman

And there has been input from some of the nation’s greatest groundsmen at the most high-profile grounds.

The RFU, FA, and England and Wales Cricket Board have held pitch improvement workshops with clubs and groundsmen here in Gloucester, including an event at Kingsholm Stadium, which was led by the head groundsman of Twickenham stadium, Keith Kent.

In January 2016, the council agreed to undertake a new playing pitch strategy to turn their pitches around.

Since then they claim they have seen a 40 per cent improvement.

The report added that with commitment from city council officers, and representation with sporting interest groups such as Sport England, Active Gloucestershire and Aspire Sport and Cultural Trust, now the Football Association is developing a national case study based on Gloucester’s approach.

Gloucester City Council’s cabinet recently approved a report which stated that more people in the county are getting involved in playing sport.

Councillor Lise Noakes (C, Barnwood) said: “It’s exciting the progress that we’re making.”

Adam Gooch, principal planning officer at Gloucester City Council, said in a report: “The delivery of the playing pitch strategy is having a positive effect on sustainability in Gloucester, providing a framework for the protection, enhancement and provision on playing pitches and ancillary facilities in the city over the next 10 years.

“It will also set a good foundation for the ongoing consideration of playing pitches through future updates to the strategies.”

Terry Haines is a member of the Gloucestershire Playing Fields Association.

He said: “My impression is that things have improved but there’s a challenge to maintain them when the [council’s] resources have been reduced to almost nothing.”

He added the future of the pitches depends on “people doing something” to make sure the pitches are suitable for playing on.

But Martin Townsend, who is director of rugby for Old Centralians RFC at Saintbridge Road – which is maintained by White Horse Federation on behalf of Gloucestershire County Council – said his pitch needs improvement.

He said the pitch gets flooded when it rains, and if the team is playing when that happens, the pitch is out of use for four weeks.

“The standard of the pitch is terrible. When the school got moved here the White Horse Federation were supposed to have provided us with a decent playing facility,” he said.

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Winners Of SALTEX Innovation Award

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Winners Of SALTEX Innovation Award: The best in brand new grounds care technology was celebrated in the very first SALTEX Innovation Award at the NEC, Birmingham on 1 and 2 November 2017.

Making its debut, the Innovation Award attracted a number of high-quality entries from various exhibitors from across the globe. There were 24 entries in total spanning a wide variety of products, services and equipment.

Winners Of SALTEX Innovation Award

The entries were judged by an independent panel of industry experts who based their decisions on a number of factors including what the entry offers the industry and how it makes life easier for the person using it.

The standard was incredibly high, resulting in a tie for first place.

Backed by unanimous support by all judges, during the first day of the exhibition, Rigby Taylor’s Intelligent One autonomous robotic line marker and Fleet Line Markers’ MAQA line marking machine were announced as joint winners of the SALTEX Innovation Award 2017.

The Intelligent One (iO) is said to be the world’s first fully autonomous robotic line marker. It can mark out a standard sized football pitch in 35 minutes, using just 3.3 litres of ready to use Impact XP paint. The iO eliminates the task of stringing out for the first markings and operates hands-free. Once the pitch template has been entered into the supplied tablet, the iO is placed at the corner of the pitch and will mark out all the outside and inside straight lines, the ‘D’, centre circle, corner angles and penalty spot without any direct operator involvement.

The MAQA line marking machine uses GNSS technology to reduce the time it takes to mark by a massive 75 per cent. Initial marking that might have taken two men up to four hours can now be completed by one person in 20 minutes.

Winners Of SALTEX Innovation Award

The standard of all Innovation Award entries were of such high calibre that the judges chose to award second and third place awards as well.

Second place went to Oregon’s Gator Speedload, which judges said was a quick and simple device which negated the need to dismantle the head each time to re-load/wrap new strimmer cord. Third place went to the Etesia Hydro 80 MKHP4 E-Connect, due to its ability to set up multiple users and record data – allowing organisations or clubs to monitor the amount of use and user’s ability.

For more information visit www.iogsaltex.com

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