End of 2012 season

Wednesday 27 February 2013

What do you do in the Winter?

For the majority of my short illustrious turf career, I’ve worked as a seasonal employee.  The first four years worked nicely because I was a student, finishing high school then completing post secondary.  The next four were also great, as I collected earnings from the great resource we all know as Employment Insurance.

I quickly realized that as my expensive taste in life evolved, my actual income didn’t.  I soon understood the importance of year round employment.  Typically, a position within the management team offered me year round employment, or at least the year round earnings of being on an annual salary.

From general conversation it was my understanding that winter work involved as little work as possible... what??  It was a superintendent that told me this, and I can understand and appreciate what he meant.  Throughout the golfing season and throughout our busy shoulder seasons, we as a turfcare department bust our humps on a daily basis providing a product that generates hundreds of millions of dollars in recreation/tourism revenue each year.  (Sorry about the political plug, but that’s a topic for another discussion)

I assume that most of you with seasonal start ups and shutdowns look forward to that last day when the course is finally put to a well deserved rest for the winter.  But what goes on after that?  I’ve had the opportunity to work year round at three golf courses.  From my experiences, all winter work is similar, in a time varying and weather differentiated kind of way.

At Kananaskis, our off season is approximately 5 months.  Since our last goodbyes to our seasonal employees in October, we’ve continuously monitored both golf courses, checking for melt, ice build up, wildlife damage, river flow, etc..  There were many days when we cleared snow off greens in anticipation of rain and freeze periods.  Once our snow and weather forecast stabilized, we were able to prep, rebuild, customize and place orders on ground supplies and equipment.

PAINTING!!  I am not aware of too many people that enjoy this task?  I am not one of them.  However this luxury isn’t as frustrating and meticulously time consuming than painting your house.  To save a few dollars, we were able to clean, repair and touch up many of our ground supplies like flag poles, cooler containers, ball washers, bunker rakes and other hand tools.  We’ve rebuilt, greased and prepared our rotary fertilizer spreaders to be calibrated closer to the start of our season.  We also offer two left hands when our mechanic needs some help, but for the most part, he is schooling us.

A big part of our off season is staff recruitment.  We typically employ up to 40 individuals throughout the season.  On average we can get about 30% returning staff from the previous year.  For the remainder 70%, we post positions online, through post secondary sites and through word of mouth.  When the floodgates of initial applicants open up, we will sift and decide on potentials that move to the next round, typically an interview.  This process from ad posting to interviews will continue several times until we finally fill our dream team for the season.

The offseason is the much anticipated and welcomed time for continuing education and network opportunities that occur through conferences, seminars, trade shows or combinations of the three.  This year, I attended the Alberta Golf Superintendents Associations (AGSA) Property Managers Conference, and the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) Conference and Trade show.

My first at either show.  Being a new turfgrass Albertan, I attended the AGSA in Canmore to take in the talks and meet new colleagues.  Most recently, I returned from San Diego, which was this years host for the GCSAA conference and golf industry show.  I asked on twitter what to prepare for when attending the GCSAA, and I was told to wear comfortable shoes!  I now understand and appreciate the individuals who complete their suit attire with a pair of comfy trainer kicks.  I’m not certain what the area of the trade show floor was, but it’s probably equivalent to walking greens every morning.

We still have another month in our off season and we are still recruiting to fill the rest of our 2013 team.  A few more ground supplies need attention and soon our focus will concentrate on upcoming weather patterns.  We are nearing day 100 for ice cover in some areas, however our most recent plugs give us great news as we’ve seen good activity.  Fingers crossed and cooperation from mother nature encouraged.

For all of you fellow turfies that also believe in doing as little as possible in your winter break, good for you!  We all deserve it, because when the time comes to get er done’, we always find a way.

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