Tag Archive for: Unveils

BIGGA unveils new outdoor festival

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BIGGA unveils new outdoor festival: The British & International Golf Greenkeepers Association has unveiled a brand new outdoor festival and exhibition, taking place in June 2021.

The event, called the Festival of Turf, will bring together the greenkeeping and turf management industry for two days of innovation, exhibition and entertainment.

BIGGA unveils new outdoor festival

BIGGA unveils new outdoor festival

Taking place in the COVID-secure setting of the Warwickshire Event Centre on 8 & 9 June 2021, the Festival of Turf will feature two full exhibition days with a wide range of trade stalls and opportunities to interact with vendors and meet face-to-face with industry peers for the first time since before the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

The Warwickshire Event Centre is located on the outskirts of Leamington Spa, close to Coventry. Centrally-located, the venue enjoys easy access to all transport networks, along with 2,000 free parking spaces.

The Warwickshire Event Centre can accommodate up to 200 exhibitors and is capable of welcoming 3,000 visitors a day through its doors. Set in a 30-acre site with both indoor and outdoor exhibition areas, the venue provides countless opportunities to make the Festival of Turf an innovative and exciting new event for the greenkeeping and amenity turf management industry.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic BIGGA has been in regular conversation with regulators, golf’s governing bodies and central government and there is widespread confidence that a successful event can take place in June 2021. Importantly, there is also a keen desire among commercial partners and industry professionals to provide an event that enables the industry to move forward and begin the process of rebuilding so many key relationships that have been eroded through the distance imposed by the coronavirus pandemic.

BTME, BIGGA’s annual trade exhibition that was due to be held in January 2021, has been cancelled due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the Association remains proud that the event’s spiritual home, the Harrogate Convention Centre, continues to be utilised as an NHS Nightingale Hospital.

BIGGA’s world-renowned education programme, Continue to Learn, has moved to an entirely-online format and will be held across two weeks during January 2021. More information can be found on the BIGGA website.

BIGGA CEO Jim Croxton said: “I’m excited that BIGGA is finally able to launch the Festival of Turf to the industry and bring some much-needed hope for a brighter future. The Festival of Turf is a hugely welcome opportunity to reunite our industry, which will have been forcibly separated by the global pandemic for nearly 18 months by the time this event takes place.

“The industry has survived brilliantly despite all the challenges it has faced, due in no small part to the resilience and adaptability of BIGGA members and the network of commercial partners and who have supported us all throughout the pandemic. There has been a clear groundswell of opinion that members, other turf professionals and commercial supporters want the opportunity to celebrate our achievements and put this whole terrible ordeal behind us – and that’s where the Festival of Turf comes in. The event will be an opportunity to reconnect at a time when personal connections have never been more vital.”

For more information about the Festival of Turf, head to the BIGGA website, www.bigga.co.uk

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BIGGA unveils largest-ever learning programme

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BIGGA unveils largest-ever learning programme: The British & International Golf Greenkeepers Association (BIGGA) has unveiled its programme of education for January 2021, with members offered access to BIGGA’s world-renowned Continue to Learn via an entirely-online platform for the first time ever.

With the cancellation of BTME 2021 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the continued use of the Harrogate Convention Centre as an NHS Nightingale Hospital, BIGGA’s Learning & Development team, alongside lead supporter The R&A, has put together an incredible two weeks of online learning, available to members of the sports turf profession wherever in the world they may be based.

BIGGA unveils largest-ever learning programme

BIGGA unveils largest-ever learning programme

Continue to Learn 2021 is testament to BIGGA’s commitment to enabling members of the association to continue their professional development despite the difficult global situation that has had a negative impact on the lives of so many.

The education programme will be split into two distinct sections, with Continue to Learn: Conference taking place from 19 to 21 January 2021 and Continue to Learn: Classes being held from 25 to 29 January 2021.

The Conference will feature three days of sessions on a wide variety of topics relating to all things turf management and professional development. Among the key note speakers will be Dr Frank Rossi of Cornell University and world-renowned golf architect Augustin Pizá of Pizá Golf.

The 24 Classes being offered by the association will enable BIGGA members to focus on an individual topic of interest with a wide range on offer, from developing personal confidence to the control of leatherjackets and other pests or the writing of reports and proposals.

Full details of the education programme, include more information about speakers and a special Golf Course 2030 session that will be taking place during the event, head to the BIGGA website, www.bigga.org.uk.

Continue to Learn usually takes place in the week of BTME, beginning the Sunday before the trade exhibition and featuring a range of workshops, seminars and major conference events. With 3,000 delegates attending the education programme in a normal year, Continue to Learn is hugely influential in shaping the direction and future of the golf greenkeeping and wider golf industry.

Continue to Learn 2021 follows a summer of online learning opportunities provided by the association, with the regular Continue to Learn Extra webinar series held since the start of the first Full Lockdown in March and featuring guest speakers who count among the most influential names in the industry. Turf professionals have also been able to access most of this learning in an audio format via the Green Room Golf Course Podcast, hosted by BIGGA and available on most podcast platforms, while BIGGA’s website also provides a vast library of exclusive learning opportunities.

In November, BIGGA hosted its first entirely online education event, called the National Regional Conference, which brought together the association’s regular regional conference sessions into a single day of learning. The event was widely praised and gave encouragement to BIGGA’s Learning & Development team that they could pull of an event as ambitious in scale as Continue to Learn 2021.

Registration for the programme is on three levels – individual, team or group – and BIGGA hopes that members utilise the excellent discounts on offer by clubbing together with their peers. For example, a group of 10 greenkeepers can experience the entire conference and have access to all of the content online for three months for less than £100 per person.

BIGGA’s Head of Learning & Development, Sami Strutt, has been involved with the organisation of the Continue to Learn education programme every year since 1994, taking up the management and delivery of the event in 2009.

Sami said: “After what has been for many the toughest year in living memory, the team at BIGGA was unwavering in its commitment to provide our members with an event that instils hope that things will soon get better and so I’m delighted that we’re able to present this extraordinary programme of online learning in January. With fewer job opportunities and increased pressure on greenkeeping teams to present golf courses in excellent condition following the surge in popularity experienced by golf this year, Continuing Professional Development has never been more important for greenkeeping teams, given they are responsible for the presentation of a golf club’s most important asset, the course itself.

“My immense gratitude goes to our headline supporter, The R&A, for their backing of this project and my thanks go out to all the speakers who have taken time out of their own lives to offer these learning opportunities for our members. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everybody’s lives, but events such as Continue to Learn are a reminder of what an incredible, close-knit community this is. I’m excited to meet you online via our virtual conference platform and hope to see you all there.”

For more information about Continue to Learn 2021, head to the BIGGA website, www.bigga.org.uk. If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to contact the BIGGA Learning & Development team by emailing education@bigga.co.uk or by calling (01347) 666 580.

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Spectrum® unveils WatchDog® 3000

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Spectrum® unveils WatchDog® 3000: Spectrum® Technologies Inc., expands its broad product offering with the release of the WatchDog® Wireless ET Weather Station. Through the single station, customers can now receive real-time, site-specific weather data on their smartphone, including temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, wind speed/direction and solar radiation. 

With an LTE CAT-M1/NB-IoT cellular radio, the 3000 Series can monitor the widely dispersed turf areas on a golf course and send data to the SpecConnect™ cloud.  After an overnight rainfall, a turf manager can see which areas of the course received different amounts of rainfall with a separate Wireless Rain Temperature/Relative Humidity Station and adjust irrigation run times accordingly.  The varied microclimates of a golf course are capably tracked, with localized disease pressure warnings available. The all-in-one design with smartphone setup makes installation quick and easy for someone whose real job is not setting up weather stations.

Spectrum® unveils WatchDog® 3000

Spectrum® unveils WatchDog® 3000

“With this new wireless station, you no longer have to rely on local weather services providing inaccurate rainfall and ET data,” says Mike Thurow, president and CEO of Spectrum® Technologies.  “And you can view current weather conditions for your course on your smartphone.  With site-specific rainfall and temperature data through the season, more effective decisions are made, and playing conditions are optimized and consistent.”

Spectrum® Technologies is proud to announce ­­that the WatchDog® 3000 Series Weather Station product line recently received the 2021 AE50 Award from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE). This marks Spectrum®’s 25th AE50 award recognizing the top innovative new products produced in agricultural equipment.

About Spectrum® Technologies

Spectrum® Technologies was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Aurora, Illinois. The company manufactures and distributes affordable, leading-edge, plant-measurement technology to agricultural, horticultural, environmental and turf markets throughout the world, serving more than 14,000 customers in more than 80 countries. Spectrum® Technologies brands include: WatchDog®, FieldScout®, WaterScout®, DataScout®, LightScout® and SpecConnect™. Spectrum has won 25 AE50 Awards from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, which demonstrates the company’s deep commitment to innovation and quality. For more information, call 815-436-4440 or visit www.specmeters.com.

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ECB unveils interim support package

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ECB unveils interim support package: The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) today announced a £61 million package to help cricket withstand the financial impact of COVID-19.

The plans detail a number of measures for the whole sport from elite to grassroots, including the MCC, the First-Class Counties (FCCs) and their County Cricket Boards (CCBs).

Local cricket clubs will also be offered support to see them through the coming months.

In accordance with Government advice the start of the cricket season has been delayed until at least 28 May. A range of options for cricket to begin in June, July or August are currently being modelled.

With revenues impacted across the game – from both cricket and non-cricket activities, the ECB Board today approved plans to expedite payments from a number of areas within its 2020-2021 planned distribution budgets.

Around £40m will be made immediately available through:

  • Early release of three months’ (May-July) county partnership distributions to FCCs and CCBs
  • The immediate availability of two years’ facilities maintenance distribution
    – Funds available unfettered and not restricted to facilities maintenance expenditure
    – A further £5.5m to be made available for counties who are not eligible for 2020-2021 ordinary facilities maintenance distributions
  • Suspension of international staging fees for four months and waiving of international staging fees payable in 2020 if the match is not played as scheduled due to COVID-19

An extra budget of just over £20m will become available to the recreational game through a cricket club support loan scheme, grants through the “Return to Cricket” scheme and a 12-month holiday on loan repayments for recreational clubs.

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Sprayer Unveils Green Credentials

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Sprayer Unveils Green Credentials: As part of a drive towards developing environmentally friendly and sustainable products Cambridgeshire based manufacturer Techneat Engineering offer the Acuspray, a pedestrian sprayer, aimed at the professional grounds-person and keen gardener.

“It’s a major step forward in design technology and one we are justifiably proud of “says Techneat’s Technical Support Manager James English.

Sprayer Unveils Green Credentials

“There’s no battery or engine so the application rate is controlled by a unique wheel driven pump that remains consistent throughout the day and produces zero carbon emissions. The machine’s plastic construction makes it lightweight, durable and completely recyclable.

For operator comfort the Acuspray is an extremely quiet machine with very low decibel noise emissions. Its lightweight construction means it is also very easy to push. Output varies according to forward speed ensuring the correct application rate is always achieved. The Acusprays’ 25l tank enables it to cover up to 625M2 before refilling is required.

For turf care professionals who require precision equipment, and who are also working towards a greener future, it’s the perfect sprayer” he confirms.

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