Germinal appoints sales representative

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Germinal appoints sales representative: Germinal has recruited Stuart Tait as its new Amenity Technical Sales Representative for Scotland and the North East of England.

Based from his home in East Lothian, Stuart will provide technical sales support to Germinal’s customers throughout Scotland and North East England, and will be responsible for promoting the company’s popular range of Grade-A sports and amenity grass seed mixtures to golf course greenkeepers, turf growers, sports groundsmen and landscapers.

Germinal appoints sales representative

Germinal appoints sales representative

Stuart will also be responsible for promoting Germinal’s specialist amenity fertiliser range which includes conventional compound products as well as liquid and phased-release fertilisers and specialist sward conditioners. He will also promote Germinal’s range of regional and general landscaping wildflower seed mixtures.

Stuart joins Germinal with 17-years’ worth of experience within the turf industry: he started his career as a trainee greenkeeper at Gullane Golf Club (No.1 course) in East Lothian before working his way up from assistant greenkeeper to head greenkeeper at The Renaissance Club, North Berwick. For the past three and half years he has worked in sales orientated roles, initially spending a year with Sherriff Groundcare before joining Reesink Turfcare as the company’s area sales manager for the Lothians, Borders and Fife where he has been selling Toro equipment to customers in the golf and groundcare sectors.

“Stuart is a very experienced turf care specialist with a huge amount of experience not only in terms of golf course maintenance, but also within the wider sports ground and landscaping sectors,” says Richard Brown, Germinal Amenity Sales Manager. “He is also well known to many within Scotland’s golf and turfgrass sectors and as such is well positioned to promote Germinal’s wide range of specialist grass seed and wildflower mixtures throughout his sales territory.”

Stuart can be contacted via the following:

Mobile: 07887 578802

Email: stuart.tait@germinal.com

Web: www.germinalamenity.com

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Second Jacobsen Eclipse for Brora GC

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Second Jacobsen Eclipse for Brora GC: Brora GC in Sutherland has had twelve months like no other in its 130-year history. 

In common with many golf clubs, last March, it experienced the lows of the pandemic and the harsh reality of a much-reduced income. “We were flying high with consistently good visitor numbers and then it all stopped dead,” said head greenkeeper, James MacBeath.

Second Jacobsen Eclipse for Brora GC

Second Jacobsen Eclipse for Brora GC

However, what happened next took everyone by surprise.

Resourceful enterprise from within the club, saw Brora launch a local membership campaign which ended up with global interest. Golfers from across the world rallied for the club that has Tom Watson, five  times Open Champion, as an honorary member. Astonishingly, membership climbed from 500 to 700, which took in over £280,000 and the online sales in the shop reeling in over £40,000.

“It was just great that our plea was heard, and we were so grateful for such instant response,” continued James MacBeath.

But more good news was to follow. In March this year, after a four year initiative, the club became the landowner of its own links.  For just the small sum of £70,000, including a £20,000 grant from the Trustees of local Kilbraur Windfarm, it was able to purchase the land on which it stands, from landowners Sutherland Estates.

“It’s all transformed so quickly. We continue to operate with two furloughed staff on rotation until September, so there are just three of us making sure the visitor experience is still as worthwhile.  It’s hard going but we will come through. Once the club can move beyond all restrictions, we will be in good place,” said James MacBeath.

One of the upshots of a little more financial stability and an increased membership, was to bring in some additional equipment. While decisive about the machine required, the financial ups and downs meant it was essential to secure excellent terms. James MacBeath, in conversation with his opposite number, Muir Ross, at neighbouring Golspie GC, found out that both clubs wanted a Jacobsen Eclipse 322 greens mower in the same timescales, from dealer Fairways GM at Inverness.

“Talking it through with Muir, it made sense to buy these together to benefit from economies of scale and look for the best deal long term. John Morton, Area Manager at Fairways was happy to oblige especially as it was a second Eclipse for both clubs and he knew us both well.

“Now it’s here, it’s gone straight into use with the original one, bought in 2011, still going strong. Currently we’re out every morning at 5.30am five days a week and by mid June that will be up to seven days.  Quality is always the determining factor for me when I choose a machine. The units on the Eclipse still beat all others in the market. It’s got to be to the required standard every time. A clean and professional finish is essential.

“However, it says a lot for both our clubs – that they have gone above and beyond to back their greenkeeping teams with machinery investments at the appropriate time. We’ve also been well served by the team at Fairways GM and they always make an effort to attend to us quickly.”

John Morton said: “Brora and Golspie’s arrangement to buy in tandem was a useful way to do business as they are just six miles apart. It’s testimony to the Eclipse’s quality of cut that they both decided to go for the same machine again.  They are not alone choosing to upgrade their Eclipses but still retaining their older ones for the fleet.”

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New recruitment in BASIS team

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New recruitment in BASIS team: BASIS has expanded its workforce with the recruitment of two new employees.

Jade Prince and Tanya Kesterton join the team to take on two new roles as business development executive and head of digital learning, respectively.

New recruitment in BASIS team

New recruitment in BASIS team

Jade has a background in environmental science and is FACTS qualified.

“My role centres around promoting the courses, boosting membership and building the network around BASIS’ target audience”.

As part of her role, Jade wants to focus on raising awareness of the courses that BASIS offers to the younger generation. “I am already working to develop the business through recruitment of new members, creation of new relationships and networking with other industry organisations.”

Reflecting a move towards delivering more digital courses, Tanya Kesterton joins the BASIS team as head of digital learning. With a strong background in education and IT, Tanya is looking forward to building BASIS’ digital education capability.

“I want to look at supporting the current members and work on reaching a wider audience through our digital platforms,” she says.

New recruitment in BASIS team

New recruitment in BASIS team

“BASIS has a really strong vision for what they want to do and where they want to go, and I’m delighted to be part of this journey.”

For more information, or to get in touch with Jade or Tanya, please visit https://www.basis-reg.co.uk/team.

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Toro involved in many key milestones

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Toro involved in many key milestones: Toro dealer Cheshire Turf Machinery, based in Stockport near Manchester, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

Toro, and its UK distributor, have been involved with Cheshire Turf Machinery for at least the last quarter of a century and some time before that, as managing director, Steve Halley explains: “Initially set up as Cheshire Light Tractors in 1956 selling garden machinery and turf equipment, the company was bought by Flymo in 1980, before we took the business back into private ownership in 1996. At that point, Toro was already a staple part of the business and Lely supported us, particularly with demo equipment when we took over. We changed the name to better suit the ethos of the business in the supply and servicing of professional turf equipment and set our focus on a mainly sports based portfolio of customers.

Toro involved in many key milestones

Toro involved in many key milestones

“The company has been through many changes, but one thing that has remained the same is our relationship with Toro and its UK distributor Lely, then Reesink.”

Toro excels at creating enduring relationships, built on reliability, productivity and quality; many of its relationships with customers are 25 years and counting – and the same relationship longevity applies to its dealers too.

Steve says: “Toro has been involved in so many milestones over the last quarter of a century. Toro was our first machine sold and our 1,000th, and when we decided to branch out into the market sector of councils and landscape contractors in 2013, becoming agents for the Toro Groundscare range enabled us to do that.”

In addition, Toro has also helped in the company’s expansion and as a result of continued sales growth Toro awarded Cheshire Turf Machinery with extra sales and service territory for its commercial golf mowers and equipment, primarily to cover South Yorkshire, culminating in the formation its sales division, Yorkshire Turf Machinery.

Steve says: “We’re very lucky to have had and to continue to have Toro and Reesink on board, having their names associated to ours has benefitted us greatly in building up the business. There’s a very good reason why 70 percent of our product portfolio consists of Toro machinery and that’s because of its quality. I believe that if we do our job properly when we sell that first Toro, we’ll have a customer for life.”

And that leads nicely on to the other major contributing factor to the company’s success and that is the experienced team, says Steve. “Our staff are good at thinking on their feet, thinking laterally to solve our customer’s problems. It was really highlighted in 2020 just how much they care, and I can’t thank them enough for that as well as all their hard work over the years.”

Excellent staff retention means the company can call on over 200 years of industry experience. Special mention goes to company secretary, Bob Smithson. Steve says his wisdom and business acumen has helped guide the company from inception to present and his influence cannot be overstated: “Bob has been instrumental in the success of the business.”

Also key, has been the company’s ability to tailor flexible finance packages to specifically meet customer requirements.

While golf provides the company’s largest customer base, other company highlights include the successful relationships forged with football clubs such as Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool, as well as Preston, Blackburn, Blackpool, and Oldham.

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Reduce the effects of exhaust emissions

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Reduce the effects of exhaust emissions: You may think that if you’re operating petrol-powered equipment, particularly in poorly ventilated spaces, that exposure to harmful hydrocarbons is largely unavoidable.

Benzene is just one of the many hydrocarbons found in conventional pump fuel and exhaust emissions, often considered the substance most dangerous to human health. However, there is an alternative in the form of Aspen Alkylate petrol – switching to which can reduce benzene emissions by up to 108 times!

Reduce the effects of exhaust emissions

Reduce the effects of exhaust emissions

The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH) regulations advise against benzene exposure completely, but where this cannot be reasonably achieved, there are steps that can be taken to adequately control exposure as far as is reasonably practicable – and certainly below the workplace exposure limit (WEL) assigned for benzene of part per million (ppm) of air averaged over an 8-hour period. One way of doing this could be switching from traditional pump fuel to Aspen.

An Alkylate petrol, Aspen is made using only the cleanest Alkylate components that occur when oil is refined. This process involves combining excess gases from the distillation of crude oil and from the cracking plant, resulting in a liquid alkylate. Once some additional components are mixed in, the result is a finished fuel which is significantly purer than traditional petrol, with content of harmful aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene and polyaromatics (PAH) close to zero.

Being virtually free from benzene, as well as sulphur and many other harmful substances, using Aspen Alkylate petrol improves the health and performance of your equipment, the working conditions for the operator and significantly reduces the harmful impact your machinery makes on the environment. Aspen is also ethanol-free, which improves reliability, maintains engine performance and preserves the life of component parts which can be susceptible to failure when running on conventional pump fuel, especially if it has been left for any extended period of time in storage.

Aspen is available in a range of unit sizes (5L, 25L, 60L and 200L) and in both pre-mixed 2-stroke and 4-stroke varieties.

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