Tag Archive for: Award

Dan Sanders Wins Groundsman Award

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Dan Sanders Wins Groundsman Award: Westfields groundsman Dan Sanders has been crowned the Midland Football League Premier Division Groundsman of the Year.

Sanders, from Clehonger, looks after all the main pitch and other pitches as allpay.park.

He also finished runner-up overall in the Midland Football League to Brockton Football Club as Groundsman of the Year.

His certificate was presented by Midland Football League representative Gary Foxall at the home match versus Sporting Khalsa on Saturday.

Westfields’ Chief Executive Andy Morris said: “Dan Sanders is a superb groundsman and has been our groundsman since we took occupation at allpay.park in 2003.

“He has transformed what was an old unused recreational field into a first-class football ground, not only our main stadium pitch but also all the other pitches which are used by our junior, youth and the reserve team in addition to the pitches used by the Hereford Sixth Form College.

“His work and attention to detail has earned him this award for which we are delighted for him as he and his father over the years have spent many hours looking after the ground and getting it in playable condition when other pitches in the area have been waterlogged.

“The award is really well deserved and congratulations to Dan Sanders.”

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BALI Award For John O’Conner

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BALI Award For John O’Conner: Award sponsors Toro and Reesink Turfcare, an official UK Toro distributor, are delighted to announce that John O’Conner Grounds Maintenance are the principle award winners for their sponsored Grounds Maintenance – Limited Public Access category, at the British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) National Landscape Awards.

John O’Conner were announced as the winners at a ceremony held at London’s Grosvenor House on 7 December, for its work at Emergency Planning College (EPC), The Hawkhills, a leading provider of high-quality training for public, private and voluntary organisations.

BALI Award For John O’Conner

John O’Conner received the award with its client Serco after an adjudicator visited the college and reviewed the grounds to see first-hand the excellent management employed and the work of the on-site staff at the 240-acre estate, which includes landscaped gardens, woods and natural parklands.

Managing Director at John O’Conner, Matt O’Conner, who coincidentally happens to be the BALI chairman, says: “We’re delighted that EPC has been awarded the principle award in its category at the BALI National Landscape Awards. This is the result of a strong partnership with our client and shows what can be achieved when you work hand-in-hand to improve standards.

“Credit must of course go to our on-site staff who have worked so hard to deliver exemplary standards on this prestigious site. It is a great example of the high level of service that we deliver for our customers day in and day out.”

With tough competition for the award, the project impressed the judges with the level of skill and professionalism displayed. One of the judges declared: “The contractor has done a great deal to improve standards in the grounds of this important venue. Client satisfaction is high, and they are aware that as standards increase, staffing and budgets must follow to maintain the overall look of the site. Regardless, this is a very impressive scheme and a credit to the efforts of the contractor’s on-site staff.”

The award was presented to John O’Conner by Reesink Turfcare’s Alastair Rowell, in front of an audience of over 1000 BALI members and guests at the 42nd annual awards. The runner-up and fellow national award winner in the category, announced in September, was Gavin Jones for Brompton Barracks – Royal School of Military Engineers.

Alastair Rowell, Reesink accounts manager for grounds concludes: “We are very proud to sponsor this award with Toro and have the opportunity to commend the most exciting and progressive landscaping projects. As Toro is renowned for its innovation in groundscare equipment, we have a keen interest in helping to shape the future of the turfcare and landscaping industry. We are thrilled to have seen John O’Conner win this award and congratulate all those involved with this year’s winning project.”

For more information, visit: reesinkturfcare.co.uk

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GreenFields Pitch Scoops Award

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GreenFields Pitch Scoops Award: The GreenFields pitch at Scotstoun Stadium, home to top rugby union side, Glasgow Warriors has been crowned ‘Best Managed Artificial Surface’ at this year’s prestigious Institute of Groundsmanship (IOG) Awards.

Celebrating their 10th anniversary, the industry awards recognise the expertise, dedication, passion and innovation of the grounds profession and surface standards. Glasgow Warriors’ Senior Groundsman, Patrick Ferrie was presented with the accolade at last month’s awards ceremony for his expert maintenance of the woven GreenFields surface at Scotstoun.

GreenFields Pitch Scoops Award

Colin Young, Director of R & D at the TenCate Grass Group commented on the maintenance benefits of a woven artificial system: “Due to the unique woven technology and matrix yarn composition of GreenFields MX, the yarn fibres remain upright and the infill stays mobile making maintenance quicker and easier than with traditional tufted systems.”

The high-tech product, GreenFields MX, is manufactured using patented woven technology resulting in an extremely high tuft bind. This allows the fibres to retain their vertical memory providing a more natural playing experience and aesthetic appearance. The elite woven surface is also in situ at a number of other professional Scottish clubs including Hamilton Academical FC, Falkirk FC, Celtic FC Academy and the National Performance Centre for Sport and excelled recently in an independent survey on pitches, PitchRater, commissioned by the Scottish FA and the Professional Footballer’s Association (PFA). The R & D department at Sports Labs led the project to acquire player feedback on 42 grounds in Scotland. With 3,593 responses, the only artificial surface ranked in the top ten was GreenFields MX which was also placed in three out of the top four positions in the artificial pitch specific rankings.

During the 2015/16 rugby season Glasgow Warriors were unable to play three matches at Scotstoun and a fourth game was postponed which brought on the need for a high-spec artificial surface. Following the installation of the woven 3G pitch with World Rugby professional certification, Jonathan Humphreys, Forwards Coach at Glasgow Warriors spoke recently to Scottish Rugby: “Without a quick, firm surface we would not have been able to play the brand of rugby we wanted to last term which ultimately led us to the semi-finals of the Guinness PRO14.” Beaversbrook Sports Facility, Swindon was named as runner up of the award at this year’s sell-out event attended by more than 650 of the UK’s and Europe’s leading groundscare experts along with dignitaries from the governing bodies of sport.

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Award For Rotherham Grounds Team

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Award For Rotherham Grounds Team: More than any footballer could ever hope to Rotherham United head groundsman Dave Fellowes covers every blade of grass, suggesting he can clock up 100 miles a week on the pitch at AESSEAL New York Stadium.

Up and down, across and back, up and down, across and back.

Dave Fellowes reckons he can clock up 100 miles a week on the pitch at AESSEAL New York Stadium as head groundsman of Rotherham United.

“There’s no such thing as an average week,” he says. “Everything changes depending on what’s going on at the stadium or up at the training ground. In the summer we can be cutting the grass anything up to eight times a week.”

Such dedication has earned him and his team yet another prestigious honour. Fellowes, New York assistant Mykel Parkin and Roundwood man with the mower Dave Burton have been named the Institute of Groundsmanship’s Grounds Team of the Year.

“It’s down to hard work. It’s a great joint effort,” Fellowes says. “I wouldn’t ask any of the lads to do a job I wouldn’t do. It’s not one individual.

“It’s just old-fashioned hard work, looking at the elements and reacting in the right way to that with the tools that you have.”

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Sherriff Scoop Innovation Award

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Sherriff Scoop Innovation Award: On day one of SALTEX 2018 at the NEC, Sherriff Amenity’s ground-breaking new app, PrecisionPro, was announced as the winner of the second, annual SALTEX Innovation Award.

Established at the show in 2017, the SALTEX Innovation Award was created to encourage innovation excellence and celebrate the best products within the groundscare industry. The award is bestowed on projects that have a significant impact and ultimately make life easier for the person using them.

Sherriff Scoop Innovation Award

This year’s award received a record number of high quality entries from across the UK and beyond – spanning a wide variety of products, services and equipment. With the entries submitted and rigorously evaluated by an independent panel of judges, it was decided that there were three stand-out innovations – the Toro Outcross 9060 from Reesink Turfcare, PrecisionPro from Sherriff Amenity and the ROBOCUT from McConnel.

The three finalists were given a final opportunity to impress the judges as they took to the stage in the all new Innovation Hub. Representatives from each company delivered a product presentation in front of a packed audience causing the judges much deliberation before making their final decision.

Sherriff Amenity’s PrecisionPro was pronounced the overall winner. Second place went to the Toro Outcross 9060; a super-duty utility vehicle, designed specifically to simplify the groundsman’s day-to-day turf maintenance jobs. Third place went to the McConnel ROBOCUT; an all-terrain remote-control work platform that boosts safety, productivity and efficiency.

The winning innovation, PrecisionPro, is a dedicated app for sports turf to measure any area, guide the operator in calibrating a spreader for any granular product and also help apply fertilisers accurately.

According to Sherriff Amenity, PrecisionPro was created due to the common issue of turf managers misjudging green/sport surface size which often results in problems such as over applying or under applying fertilisers – both of which can have a negative effect on turf performance, disease and budget.

PrecisionPro allows turf managers to have an accurate measured area by simply opening the app and walking the perimeter of the area. Calibrating spreaders has always been a difficult task but with the Calibrate feature in the PrecisionPro app, users are guided through each step of the process. Furthermore, its advanced GPS functionality informs the user when to start and stop the calibration process.

The app also features a function to ensure that every operator walks at the same speed – if someone is walking too fast or too slow then they are alerted by colour coded screens. As well as calculating the g/m2 and the operator’s walking speed, the Apply feature ultimately ensures that the exact amount of nutrition is being applied to the turf.

Commenting on the award, Karl Parry, Sherriff Amenity’s PrecisionPro developer, said:

“We are really excited to win this award. PrecisionPro has been a long time in the making but it has all been made worthwhile now. SALTEX was the official launch of the app and after we won the award people kept coming onto the stand to find out more about it, so the word definitely got round at the show.

“I’m really proud of the whole team because it has been a big collaborative effort.”

For more information visit www.iogsaltex.com

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