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Author: John

Master Greenkeeper John Quinn is the author of Performance Bowling Greens, and several other titles on Greenkeeping, Club and Business Management.

Performance Greens and Thriving Clubs: Action Speaks Louder than Words

Performance Greens and Thriving Clubs go hand in hand. There can be no denying that the most important aspect of any club is the sport itself, so it stands to reason that clubs with great greens have a better chance of thriving than others.

I have a growing band of enthusiastic users of my Performance Bowling Greens and Club Survival eBooks.

I say “users” rather than “readers” because I think there is a vital difference between the two.

I have written these eBooks with the intention of them being used as practical guides or manuals and it is great to see so many of you putting them to good use already.

But…It can’t be over emphasised that Implementation is the vital component of any project and I would encourage everyone to not only read these publications but to make a promise to yourself and your club to get on and take Massive Action on the back of your reading.

There is no better time to get started than right now!

Here is what some of our readers are saying:

Myself and my Club Kearsney Bowling Club have a lot of faith in John Quinn and are building our green improvement scheme around his book ‘Performance Bowling Greens a Practical Guide’ which was purchased by the club for our grren keeper and playing member Graham Perrinn. Bowling Club Survival and Tournaround eBook is just the guide for clubs to get a grip of and encouraging new members to come to the club. It will also once, the project is up and running, show to club members, in laymans language, how the club is running, what we can do to improve our image and how and where the money is distributed to make it a Club others will want to join. Thank you John for all the information you distribute amongst us willing Club Officers and Green keepers to make the game of Bowls continue into the future.
Regards Colin Thompson, Treasurer of Kearsney Bowling Club. Colin Thompson

 

 

Completed our first slit tining last Sunday, two directions second at 45 degrees to first. No rear roller on our machine; see what you mean about tails. Our machine only goes 100mm deep but we hope to undertake tining as often as weather will permit over the closed season.
Many thanks for your help and advice. Graham Wood

 

Just a line or two to thank you for some wonderful advice on bowling greens. I have recently been appointed greenkeeper at Sutton Coldfield Conservative Club.I have 38 years experience of golf greenkeeping but your advice has been invaluable. When i took over,the green was in a pretty pathetic state. But, with lots of work and manhours,it is turning around pretty well. It is good to know that there are people around that can offer their advice for free and are willing to help in this wonderful profession. Thanks once again for all you do for us novice bowling green guys.
Best regards,
Jim Guest

 

Performance Bowls Greens-Making Best Use of Winter

Time is marching on and most greens have had their autumn renovation works completed and the greens have been “put to bed”, which is my least favourite phrase in bowling green maintenance.

There should be no question of putting a green to bed for winter, as the next few months are the most vital of times for starting your journey towards a performance bowling green.

Bowling green maintenance has traditionally concentrated on the bowling season and greens have to a large extent been almost neglected during the winter.

The 2 main problems that greens suffers from and which are the root cause of almost all of the difficulties we encounter on greens can only really be tackled head on during the winter.

First among these is thatch and if there is an excessive build up of thatch on your green you should be taking appropriate action now to reduce this mechanically before it gets too cold.

The remainder of the winter right up to March or thereabouts should be peak compaction relief time; this is the only time when you can tackle it properly and the best technique to use is pedestrian, deep slit tining.

So if you are not out doing this now, don’t be surprised if your green isn’t performing very well next season.

The trouble with neglecting this work is that it just can’t be caught up with again during the season, which results in a very early deterioration in condition once the season is underway; in many cases the green doesn’t really get growing until well into the late spring period. Meantime the green is being subjected to further compaction and wear at a time when recovery is limited due to cold soil and weather. If this is combined with last year’s compaction and thatch which hasn’t been dealt with properly in the close season then tgreen can deteriorate beyond recovery very early in the season.

Let’s re-cap on some of the major problems that arise from neglecting this work:

Flooding, puddles, un-even playing surface, Localised Dry Patch, bare areas, poor use of fertiliser/increased fertiliser requirements, disease, more pesticide required, more water required, moss, weeds, poor runs, slow green surface, inconsistent rinks, unhappy members etc.

Now is the time to be getting on with the early stages of renovation which will lead to a performance bowling green for your club in the future.

Irrigation Running Costs and Bowls Club Success

A funny time of year to be talking about irrigation but it is a surprisingly popular search term for the site.

So what are the costs of running irrigation on your green?

Well as you would imagine this can easily turn into a “how long is a piece of string?” type of debate. That’s due of course to the plethora of different irrigation systems around the country and of course the weather.

However, what we can do is look at some basic irrigation facts and then, armed with some key information from your irrigation hardware and utility bills; we can make a good estimate of the costs of running the system.

First let’s look at fixed costs:

These are primarily the cost of maintaining the system after its in place. On newer systems this will probably take the form of the cost of a maintenance contract with a qualified irrigation engineer; as the system gets older this will also have to have an element of contingency planning for new parts etc.

Then we look at the variable costs such as electricity and water:

Where most of your irrigation is carried out on automatic (recommended) the variable cost of labour is negligible. So we need to know how much a unit of electricity costs us and we can get that information from the bill, same with the water costs.

Armed with the cost of water per m3 and the cost of electricity per kw/h we can then work out the actual true cost of running irrigation on our greens.

Pump Outputs are typically expressed in litres per minute.

However, for the majority of systems that are configured as Read more

Statistical Analysis; to give you the Bowls Green Maintenance answers you need

Don’t worry, we’re not going all mathematical on you.

Over the past 2 years the traffic to this site has steadily grown and now provides help and advice to a big proportion of the UK Bowling Club Scene.

I know this, because like every website; in the background we have what are known as Web Stats or statistics.

The web stats provide a lot of good information and allow us to mould the content of the site to provide the kind of advice we think you want.

One of the really great parts of these web stats is the section that allows us to see what terms people type into search engines before being directed to the site.

For this month alone, the list extends to over 4 full A4 pages of search topics, many of them in the form of questions like for example “will too much water harm our green?” or “what are the favourable conditions for fusarium?”

So what I thought I’d do is start to answer some of these questions at the rate of perhaps 1 a day and see how we get on with that.

Keep your eyes peeled for our new “web search” Tag

Speak to you soon John

Bowls Club Success Manifesto

Speaking to club officials as I go around the countryside, it’s never long before the conversation turns to the difficulties in retaining members, keeping the club afloat and general club survival issues.

Of course, the time of year makes it all the worse, as clubs going into the winter with financial difficulties are obviously in a delicate condition. It’s never clear how many members will pay their subs again and want to come back next year.

For many clubs it doesn’t look great this year; the combination of the already prevalent factors related to the state of the game with the very strange series of weather events (very cold and prolonged winter, followed by a very cold and very dry spring, followed by a very hot and dry spell of weather for many of us in June and July) has left a lot of clubs with worries about their survival.

This has led me to change around my plans recently and prioritise my work to make sure you have access to the right kind of information at the right time.

So, although we said that our new eBook: Bowling Club Survival and Turnaround would be available at the end of August, we have delayed this until the 25th September, so that we could bring forward the release of our new Manifesto for Bowling Club Success.

I know, I know it’s a bit of a mouthful, but I think “manifesto” describes this new guide most accurately as it provides clubs with a document that can be adopted and then adapted into a declaration of your intention to work on a plan to rejuvenate your club’s fortunes.

Our Manifesto for Bowling Club Success includes 4 main sections as follows:

Part 1. Accepting the New Order of the Game

Part 2. Club Turnaround

Part 3. Long Term Strategic Planning

Part 4. How to Imbed Best Practice

It is available FREE now. Just click here to access your copy; and please let us know what you think and how you plan to use it in your club.