Magazine - Pitchcare's about Education

By Laurence Gale MSc in Training on 10th Feb 2004 15:00

Pitchcares about Education

By Laurence Gale

The main concept of Pitchcare is to provide information and resources for all. Its primary objectives are to provide up to the minute information and technology on all aspects of the sports surface industry and allow members the opportunity to share skills, knowledge and experiences through an interactive web site.

In the coming months Pitchcare wants to increase the awareness and importance of education and training, developing the site to attract universities, colleges and other education / training providers to post and provide information about courses, training days, seminars and conferences.

Pitchcare would like to clarify the opportunities available to all who seek to improve their knowledge and education. Many members may be put off from attending education courses due to budget and time constraints or eligibility, when in fact there may be ways around these constraints. From my own experiences I have found the universities / colleges to be very accommodating and flexible in providing the appropriate courses and funding.

We also want to attract educational professionals to write and submit articles that are relevant and interesting that will stimulate our readers and members, with many topics covered. (Research & development, Plant and soil science, machinery, health & safety, management, accountancy, design, construction and many more specialist subjects).

We will be setting up a dedicated education and training page to promote and deliver these services, offering advertising opportunities and links pages to interested customers.

Please contact me at Laurence@pitchcare.com for further information and details.

I am please to announce that Danny Thorogood and colleagues from IGER have agreed to provide regular articles for Pitchcare on new technologies relevant to turfgrass care, especially in the fields of plant breeding, genetics and plant physiology. IGER introduced the stay green grass technology that is continually being developed through an increasing understanding of what makes grass leaves turn yellow. I am sure within a few months we will be able to offer articles from other organisations and research institutions with relevance to our industry.

I would like to take the opportunity to announce that The International Turf Grass Research Conference will be taking place in July 2005 and Danny is currently accepting papers for this conference. Deadline for submission of titles and a brief summary, in order to set the scientific programme, is the end of February 2004 and full papers need to be submitted by 1^st July 2004. Please see details below.

The International Turfgrass Society (ITS) is a not-for-profit scientific organization established in 1969 to encourage research and education in turfgrass science, and to promote personal communication among the international community of turfgrass researchers by organizing international conferences to present turfgrass research and information on all phases of turfgrass production and use.

To this end, International Turfgrass Research Conferences (ITRC) are held at 4-year intervals. The hosts for past conferences have been England (1969), the United States (1973, 1993), Germany (1977), Canada (1981, 2001), France (1985), Japan (1989) and Australia (1997).

The next ITRC will be held in Wales in 2005. A refereed Journal of turfgrass research papers is published in conjunction with each conference. Papers have been submitted from all over the world including the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand and the conference will offer an opportunity to hear authoritative speakers on a range of up-to-the minute research findings directly relevant to the turf industry. As well as concurrent sessions of contributed oral and poster presentations, key-note speakers have been appointed to address symposia on ?Maintaining turf without protection chemicals? and ?Turf in the urban environment?and there will be a special session covering the latest developments in the artificial vs real turf debate. Information about the conference will be starting to appear in the next few weeks at:
10^th INTERNATIONAL TURFGRASS RESEARCH CONFERENCE 2005

10th INTERNATIONAL TURFGRASS RESEARCH CONFERENCE 2005
10th-15th July 2005 North Wales Conference Centre Llandudno Wales UK

Read more articles in Training, by Laurence Gale MSc or from February 2004.