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JCB serves up 10,000 meals

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JCB serves up 10,000 meals: JCB’s ‘Food for our Communities’ initiative today served up a major milestone as the 10,000th meal was despatched from the company’s kitchens for those in need in Staffordshire.

Since the launch of the scheme  – the idea of Carole Bamford, wife of JCB Chairman Lord Bamford –  catering staff at the World HQ in Rocester have been busily preparing cottage pies, macaroni cheese and bolognese dishes for disadvantaged families and individuals across the region during the Coronavirus crisis.

JCB serves up 10,000 meals

JCB serves up 10,000 meals

Today the 10,000th meal was cooked and despatched from the JCB kitchen – just a month after the initiative started. So far, the team has used around two tonnes of potatoes, more than one tonne of minced beef and almost half a tonne of both pasta and onions to prepare the dishes.

In India – where JCB has factories in Delhi, Pune and Jaipur – the scale of the initiative is even greater and staff there have now prepared a staggering 100,000 meals.

Carole Bamford, wife of JCB Chairman Lord Bamford, said: “I’m very proud of all the work the teams in the UK and India are undertaking. Their efforts are making a real difference to the lives of so many people in our communities.”

Thousands of the meals made in Staffordshire are being distributed across Stoke-on-Trent by the Burslem-based Hubb Foundation, to children and families in need across the city.

Founder Carol Shanahan said: “You cannot underestimate the impact the JCB ‘Food for our Communities’ initiative is having on families in our city. Those receiving the food are just so very grateful that companies like JCB are stepping in to help at this time. It’s simply amazing.”

Since launch, the project has been expanded to include sandwiches and so far, more than 2,000 have been made for distribution to the homeless in Stoke-on-Trent and for inclusion in food parcels for vulnerable people in the Uttoxeter area. JCB is also supplying St. Michael’s Church Support Group in Rocester with 100 meals a week for villagers who are in need.

JCB Chef Alastair Rowe said: “It is very rewarding for the whole team to be involved in this project. We have had some wonderful feedback which shows our communities really do appreciate what JCB is doing at this time.”

As well as providing thousands of meals, JCB has also donated vital PPE to front line workers and JCB and its employees have volunteered to produce facemasks for the NHS. Inspired by these efforts,  JCB-sponsored athletes, slalom canoeist Adam Burgess and triple jumper Ben Williams, took on a marathon weight lifting challenge and have so far raised more than £2,400 for the Royal Stoke Hospital.

JCB’s kitchens in Staffordshire are being supported with the provision of food from organic farms at Daylesford in Gloucestershire. Daylesford – founded by Carole Bamford – has supplied organic beef mince to the project, with staff working seven days a week to support the food aid initiative.

In the UK, JCB is also working with Stoke-on-Trent City Council, which is distributing JCB meals to vulnerable adults and children across the city.

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The Worker Is King: GKB Sandfiller

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The Worker Is King: GKB Sandfiller: GKB Machines, the company behind sustainable, reliable and robust maintenance machinery for natural, synthetic and hybrid turf are offering the possibility to remove organic matter and sand-fill in just one simple and efficient operation, thanks to the GKB Sandfiller.

Understanding the primary target and aspiration of greenkeepers is to achieve perfection from tee to green, the GKB Sandfiller helps fulfil this aspiration. Combining scarifying and sand-filling in one hassle free operation, this impressive machine takes a 6-person job and allows this working method to be executed by one person. Scarifying and sand-filling in this way means the surface always remains stable and improves the drainage system.

The Worker Is King: GKB Sandfiller

The Worker Is King: GKB Sandfiller

From the foundations of the reliable and much-praised GKB Combinator, the GKB Sandfiller encompasses its robust and effectiveness to provide the ultimate renovation tool. The GKB Sandfiller features a slitting rotor which is provided with carbide scarifying blades, these blades and a unique paddle attachment create wind to lift the removed material off the surface. Offering different thicknesses of 2, 3 and 4mm blades depending on the amount of organic matter that is needing to be removed and sand to be injected. The 1.2 metre working width of the machine allows jobs to be carried out quickly and efficiently with sand being injected every 4cms’ by the sand coulters.

The scarifying blades allow the removal of organic matter up to a depth of 4cm and the sideways-tipping hopper enables the immediate removal of the scarified material. Consequently, there’s no need to remove excess material from the surface. Once the hopper has been emptied, simply refill the separate sand hopper with drainage sand.

For more on GKB Machines and their reliable and robust range of machinery for natural, hybrid and synthetic turf, please visit www.gkbmachines.com or contact Tom Shinkins on 07495 883617 to enquire about the GKB Sandfiller to help give you the best playing surfaces possible.

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Bobcat dealer resurrects M-600D loader

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Bobcat dealer resurrects M-600D loader: Kono, the Riga-based Authorised Dealer for the Bobcat range in Latvia, has completed a project to renovate a very rare and historic Bobcat M-600D skid-steer loader that is around 50 years old and now fully working again.

The M-600D was first introduced to the Bobcat range in 1967 and what makes this refurbished M-600D such an incredibly rare find is that it was not manufactured at Bobcat’s traditional base in North Dakota in the USA, but instead under licence by Scheid Maschinenfabrik GmbH in Germany in the early 1970s. The M-600D could have been lost for all time, but was found by Ivars Gailums, a Director at Kono, buried on the internet, where it was being offered for sale by a used equipment supplier in Berlin.

Bobcat dealer resurrects M-600D loader

Bobcat dealer resurrects M-600D loader

In 2018, Bobcat celebrated the 60th Anniversary of the compact loader and a sixty year legacy second to none in the worldwide construction equipment market. After its introduction in 1967, the M-600D model was a popular model and Bobcat carried on producing it until 1975.

Bobcat Loader Manufactured in Germany in the Early 1970s

Several challenges had to be overcome to transfer the M-600D from Berlin to Riga and Ivars Gailums has paid great credit to the truck driver who finally brought the machine to Kono about two years ago, when work began on rebuilding the unit. Ivars Gailums commented: “Thanks to the efforts of the driver, we now had this M-600D delivered and it was my goal to rebuild it as authentically as we could, to keep its original parts intact as much as possible. Shortly after the M-600D arrived, I contacted Robby Bosch, who has recently retired from Bobcat in EMEA after nearly 40 years of service, hoping that his experience and knowledge would be of great use, which of course it has been.”

Calling on Expert Advice

In the EMEA region, there can be no better person to ask than Robby, who has carried out similar refurbishments himself. Prior to joining Bobcat as a Field Sales Trainer in 1981, Robby already had six years of experience as a Service Manager with a Bobcat dealer in his native Netherlands, where he worked with several customers with M-600Ds.

Ivars Gailums continued: “The first thing Robby asked me was whether or not the rear counterweight was still present, as this tends to be the first component that disappears. Fortunately it was still in place. Over the last two years, Robby has generously continued to provide valuable advice, as has Jurgen Gremez, Bobcat Institute Director for Doosan Bobcat at the EMEA headquarters in Dobris in the Czech Republic.”

The biggest challenge has been obtaining specific parts, which because of the age of the machine are obviously no longer available to order. It was also a challenge to find out what the M-600D really looked like, as there were several engine variations that affected how the overall machine appeared.

Ivars Gailums added: “I have focused on every aspect – even whether the bottom of the seat was one piece or sewn together, as well as the colour of the bucket, they are all important to me. On the internet, the book published to celebrate Bobcat’s 50th anniversary had pictures of machines with buckets painted white. Again, thanks to Robby Bosch, who was able to answer questions like this about the M-600D.”

Refurbishing in Busy Times

The duration of the project has been just over two years, but it could have been shorter except for the last winter season, when it was much busier than usual at Kono and this delayed the renovation process.

Ivars Gailums continued: “Because we were busy, we changed our plans and speeded up the process. The M-600D when it was disassembled into many parts, tended to take up a lot of space so we had to take account of this so it didn’t cause problems in our workshop. The work on the machine was mainly done by a team of three of our service engineers.

“The team was led by our most experienced engineer, Juris Gailitis. The Deutz engine was brought back to life by our youngest service engineer, Davis Graustins, who can be assigned the finest and most accurate work tasks. Last but not least, the third member of the team was Dzintars Lorencs, who performed welding and repair work on the steel components.

“Demonstrating Bobcat’s ‘One Tough Animal’ motto, several components such as the chaincase and chain had survived the years of service in pretty good condition. But the engine cooler on the Deutz engine presented a real problem as the original was heavily corroded and it was not available as a spare part. But we managed to get it from Deutz, where it was also one of the last parts of its type in their stock.

“Sandblasting and powder coating services were outsourced and the leather seat was restored by a company which specializes in restoring old motor vehicles and rebuilding expensive modern cars. I also involved family members to get some unique spare parts – including a shaft, the air filter cap and authentic Melroe Bobcat and Clark stickers from the USA. In the period when our M-600D went into service, it would have carried stickers for Melroe Manufacturing Company, the forerunner to Bobcat Company, the Bobcat ‘animal’ logo as it was then and the logo for Clark Equipment, who bought the rights in 1968 to sell Bobcat loaders outside the USA.”

Jaroslav Fišer, Product Line Director for the Bobcat compact loader range in EMEA, added: “We are very proud of what Ivars and the team at Kono have achieved with the refurbished M-600D. It is yet another episode in our story, which began over 60 years ago in North Dakota in 1958 when Melroe introduced its first compact front-end loader, with a commitment to outstanding quality, workmanship and innovation that is even stronger today. It is another tribute to the longevity and durability of the Bobcat loader range, which has seen us pass the production milestone of one million Bobcat loaders in 2014 and to strengthen our market leadership, so that one in every two skid-steer loaders sold today is a Bobcat machine.

”With the fine work carried out by Kono, their M-600D is far more than a picture in our history books, it is a real working machine again, proudly displayed in the company’s showroom in Riga, where it will be enjoyed for many years to come by visiting customers, admirers and Kono staff alike.”

For more information about Bobcat and Bobcat products, visit the website www.bobcat.com

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Adapting your business to seize this unique opportunity

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Adapting your business to seize this unique opportunity: How a business and a brand adapt to challenging situations will shape their future, and in true British style, now is the time to work hard and make sure that these unprecedented times don’t define you.

The impact of the coronavirus outbreak can be felt across the world and in every industry as it continues to transform the way we live, work and do business. As physical interaction has been suspended, we see digital channels becoming more important than ever to communicate with each other. The UK’s lockdown alone has roughly doubled the UK’s internet usage during the day, according to Virgin Media, which is why it’s even more important to ensure that you’re still actively talking and listening to your audience through the likes of social media and PR. Trade and consumers will be carrying out considered online research and will be identifying the strong, decisive brands that stick with them in a crisis.

Adapting your business to seize this unique opportunity

Adapting your business to seize this unique opportunity

In the same way as consumers are doing, use this time to get your house in order so your brand and business can come out of this crisis faster and stronger than your competition. Your employees are living in uncertain times and positive, impactful changes will give them a new focus and an exciting story to tell when normality resumes. Having a robust growth strategy and plan in place will support your business in minimising the negative impact of the outbreak and will pave the path to recovery. In times of crises such as this, the most successful businesses are those that have a progressive approach with an optimal combination of defence and offence.

Martin Dupree, Managing Director of full service marketing & brand development agency Dupree International, commented: “Since lockdown, the majority of us have allocated more time and effort to communicate with the ones we love and offer them support. At the same time, while it might seem difficult to prioritise the cost of ongoing brand communications, some companies are abandoning customer relationships by simply not talking to them. In peoples’ minds, the strength of their brand relationships can be equally as important as with their best friends – if not more important. These relationships may have taken a great deal of time and effort to build and we may never resurrect them if we suddenly stop.

In contrast, we’ve recently worked with a number of brand teams around the globe to help them re-discover and define the ‘authentic identity’ of their brands. This has helped develop solid, short and long-term strategies to help them cope with the here, now and beyond this challenging climate so they can emerge stronger. Once Coronavirus has been contained, these forward-thinking brands will have stolen a march on their competitors, building upon the relationships that they’ve continued to service.”

With long term thinking in mind, consider:

  • Does your audience know your ‘authentic identity’ and do they understand why they should buy from you and not your competitors?
  • Is your key messaging right for your audience? and where appropriate does it transfer globally
  • Do your team know and understand your core values and are you living them?
  • Is your advertising achieving the results that you’d like?
  • Are your assets such as your website and brochures reflective of your brand and are they working hard enough to change audience perceptions and drive sales?

Long-term strategic planning can often be a challenge for internal teams as they can be too close to the situation, which is why Dupree International are offering free, no commitment video calls with their strategic team to start the process of developing key messaging that aligns with your core values and resonates with your target market to alter perceptions and in turn drive sales.

Learn more about Dupree International via www.dupreeinternational.com. You can also view their e-brochure via goo.gl/v2LLUo.

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NEW Fertilizer From ICL

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NEW Fertilizer From ICL: ICL has announced the launch of SierraformGT CalMag into the UK & Ireland market.

New for 2020, SierraformGT CalMag is a homogenous slow release fertilizer supplying calcium, magnesium and trace elements for turf growth and all-round plant health.

NEW Fertilizer From ICL

NEW Fertilizer From ICL

The product is ideal for fine turf or stadia pitch application through the late spring, summer and early autumn. The nitrogen content is mostly slow release (MU) based to create a sustained release and steady even growth. The new analysis also contains the mineral polyhalite to supply potassium, calcium and magnesium when these are indicated as required from soil testing.  The added SeaMax (soluble seaweed concentrate) in the formulation aims to bring benefits from plant rooting and stress tolerance.

Ed Carter, UK Sales & Development Manager is delighted with this new addition to the SierraformGT range:

“I am delighted that we are launching this new analysis through our dealer network in 2020. The nutrient analysis will really suit both golf course and stadia managers and the addition of SeaMax is a real benefit. Our formulation team have worked hard to create a nitrogen release pattern that will maintain consistently healthy growth through the duration of its 8-week release period. In my opinion this is an outstanding addition to our SierraformGT range.”

Please contact ICL on 01473 237100 or visit www.icl-sf.co.uk.

For more news and insightful views, you can follow ICL on Twitter @ICL_Turf

For the latest industry news visit turfmatters.co.uk/news

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