The Dennis and SISIS bowling green maintenance seminars finished in style for the year at BP Llandarcy Bowls Club in South Wales; with demand for tickets resulting in an extra day’s seminar being required to cater for the overwhelming number of greenkeepers wanting to attend.
Held last month in Neath, the seminars were attended by close to 100 greenkeepers. Jason Briggs, area sales manager for Dennis and SISIS, got the event underway with a welcome and introduction to the day’s proceedings. This was followed by a practical demonstration with attendees seeing a number of Dennis and SISIS machines in action and focusing on the benefits scarification, aeration, verticutting, brushing and cutting can bring to a bowling green.
“The seminar is really about attendees getting as much information as they can and making the day enjoyable. They can go away with some excellent knowledge which they can then put into practice on their own greens,” said Jason.
Following lunch, Alan Lewis – an independent sports turf consultant, gave a fantastic insight into the renovation of bowling greens. Alan provides mentoring services to greenkeepers and groundsmen and offers advice on the maintenance of all sports surfaces. Speed to bowlers is extremely important and in the seminar Alan looked at various grass types, reduction of thatch, aeration and firmness of the greens. His aim was to give the people who attend the course some science behind why they can use turf maintenance equipment.
“Today has been a great success and the turn-out has been excellent. There’s been some great questions and feedback and hopefully I’ve got some of my knowledge over to the people here which will help them to improve their greens,” said Alan.
It appears that many of the attendees left with some great advice and knowledge.
“Today has been very informative in as much as we’ve learnt some new techniques. We’ve learnt what we need for our green like fertilising and scarifying. A course like this has put a lot of ideas into our heads which have been very practical,” said Lyn Guttridge from the Prince of Wales Bowling Club in Porthcawl.
Lyn’s views were echoed by fellow attendee, David Cooper from Bryn-Welfare Bowling Club.
“We wanted to find out the best things to use such as fertilisers and grasses; overall we found it very useful and practical,” said David.
The seminars concluded with the ever popular ‘Turf Clinic’ which gives all attendees the opportunity to ask questions to the experts. And although they signalled the end of 2014 proceedings, there will be more seminars to look forward to next year.
“We’ve had a fantastic response from everybody and everyone has enjoyed the day. It’s been a great educational day and the attendees have found the practical demonstrations very useful. We are already looking forward to doing more seminars again next year,” commented Jason.
Further educational seminars will be planned throughout 2015. Further information about the range of bowls maintenance products available can be found by visiting www.dennisuk.com / www.sisis.com.
For more news, reviews and insightful views, you can follow Dennis on Twitter @DennisMowers and SISIS @SISISMachinery. You can like the Facebook page –www.facebook.com/DennisMowersUK and www.facebook.com/SISISMachinery. You can also view the latest Dennis videos by visiting www.youtube.com/DennisMowers and www.youtube.com/SISISMachinery
