(This is the third blog message in a series of nine that will address the concept of expanding chapter service to better provide for the welfare of its members – focusing specifically on job enhancement and job security issues. Accordingly, chapters are encouraged to wait until this series is totally presented (see schedule below) before considering how and when to implement series recommendations.)

I closed my last blog message with the following thought:

“In my professional judgment, golf course superintendents will not realize the long sought highly justified fruits of their labor until their chapters begin to address employment issues embodied within carefully worded chapter mission statements…

To best prepare readers to understand and digest the essential meaning of the above premise, a profile listing of what the balance of this series will address follows:

3.   Schedule Caution (This blog)

I am concerned that chapter leaders may think that by presenting this series I am suggesting they move to implement series recommendations – including the hiring of an Executive Director -ASAP.

This is not the case because different sized and funded chapters have different needs that will require a wide rage of due diligence planning before giving serious consideration to implementing series recommendations.

I anticipate that all 103 chapters will eventually address/implement the key provisions presented within this series – with the larger chapters leading the way initially and with the smaller chapters following this lead through a five-plus year period. Each chapter must determine when is the right time for it to implement the recommendations presented in this series.

4.  Chapter Management (February 25)

This blog message will focus on the following pivotal issues: positioning private sector experience within the chapter Board and Long Range Planning committee; how to search for, interview and eventually train qualified candidates once employed for the position of chapter Executive Director; and how existing staff can support a newly hired Executive Director.

5.   Long Range Planning (March 4)

This blog message will focus on the need for chapters to commit to serious long range planning that would include a newly formed “Employment Oversight” sub-committee, which is the one element within this series that can/should be implemented now to pave the way for more effective future chapter planning.

6.   Funding (March 11)

This blog message will illustrate how multiple source funding can generate adequate moneys to meet chapter needs; and make the further point that just as housing costs decline significantly in a bad economy – so too, the varying salaries (will identify salary ranges) the larger and smaller chapters will be required to pay a qualified Executive Director.

7.  Legal Counseling (March 18)

This blog message will focus on providing chapter members with low cost affordable legal counseling to see them through employment-based issues, but not larger litigation-based matters.

8.  Outreach Programs (March 25)

This blog will focus on developing a effective chapter-based outreach program to best ensure the opportunity chapter members will have to find meaningful employment as a superintendent, elsewhere in golf, or outside golf when without a job.

9.  GCSAA Role (April 1)

This blog message will confirm what has been previously stated; i.e., that because chapters directly interface with the nation’s golf courses, their playing clientele and representatives on an every day basis – they are the sole entity in golf with the face-to-face opportunity to educate and generate effective response from within America’s golfing community relative to the imperative issue of addressing superintendents’ job enhancement and job security concerns.

This is not meant to suggest that GCSAA itself does not also have an imperative role to play in direct support of chapter employment-based initiatives. This blog message will demonstrate how only a total chapter-GCSAA team effort will establish new beachheads on this critical too long neglected employment front.

Stay tuned because the future welfare and job security of every individual throughout the profession rides on how effectively chapters accept the responsibility to lead on employment issues.

I consider this blog message the most important communication of my professional career because it addresses the paramount golf industry issue of our time: the right of golf course superintendents to earn secured employment within wage schedules that are commensurate with the value of the services they deliver.

Before writing this blog message, I surfed the Internet to see how each of the 103 regional chapters’ mission statements treated this important subject. I was not surprised to note: (i) that only 16 of the 103 chapters (16%) have mission statements; and (ii) that the few available mission statements tended to be similarly worded and that collectively they are virtually void of any reference to employment issues.

Before reading the “Model Chapter Mission Statement” below, take the time to read the “Total List Of Chapter Mission Statements” now to establish a frame of reference that will allow you to better understand and appreciate the value of the statement below. After reading the old and the new, you should surmise: (i) that too briefly worded mission statements lack the definition to realize their stated objectives; and (ii) that “pioneering” mission statements require sufficient definition to educate an industry.

MODEL CHAPTER MISSION STATEMENT

In the interest of advancing the professional image of the golf course superintendent, promoting the game of golf and the ethical treatment of its members, the primary function of this chapter is to promote the career welfare and to enhance the job security of its members, which is to include: providing model employment contract sampling with access to pre-negotiated fixed fee legal counseling to review member employment contract drafts before finalizing; the annual surveying of members to make timely contract, compensation and general employment data available throughout the local golf community; dedicating its information and communications assets to increasing members’ access to written employment contracts; promoting a set of model hiring practices, compensation programs and dismissal/severance packages to guide constituent golf courses’ employment practices; identifying a grievance mechanism whereby contested employer-employee issues can be constructively and quickly resolved; and providing an outreach program for members seeking employment.

Valued secondary chapter functions include: continuing to be a responsible steward of the environment; fostering high ethical standards throughout its membership; tracking the legislative process; facilitating an assistant employment exchange program; continuing well-respected scholarship and research programming; contributing to the education and general welfare of the regional golf community; maintaining solid local community service ties; and interfacing with and complementing GCSAA programming for the benefit of chapter members.

In my professional judgment, golf course superintendents will not realize the long sought highly justified fruits of their labor until their chapters digest and begin to address the employment issues listed above within the model mission statement.

Do not be misled into thinking that this should be the mission of GCSAA per se because (as previously stated) – GCSAA is too geographically distant to be able to identify and address the many and varying local issues that only regional chapters can. GCSAA has its own national mission, which it addresses effectively.

Coming blog messages will advise how to best address and implement the thinking presented within the above mission statement.

An Invitation: I will be at the Vinyl Guard Golf (sponsor of this blog) GIS booth #4023 on Wednesday and Thursday mornings (February 10th and 11th) from 11:00 AM through noon+ each day. Stop by and say hello. I look forward to meeting some of you.

Where does the greatest opportunity lie to further advance the job security and professionalism of the golf course superintendent?

Is it via the continued inspired work of individual superintendents? Not really, because: the indispensable work of the golf course superintendents collectively throughout the country already has had its meaningful impact on the national golf community and doesn’t promise the opportunity for significant future professional advancement.

Because GCSAA does not interface directly with the nation’s approximate 16,000 golf courses, it is dependent on its chapters to establish a meaningful industry-wide connection with the country’s estimated 26 million golfers…

Is it via GCSAA with its ever-expanding educational and service programming? Again, not really: because GCSAA does not directly interface with the approximate 16,000 golf courses across America, while chapters do. Fundamentally, GCSAA is to the 26 million golfers throughout the national golf community as the federal government is to the 300 million-plus citizens across the country; i.e., both institutions are dependent on regional intermediaries to establish meaningful contact with the people. For the federal government, the 50 states supported by local governments effectively fill this intermediary role.

The myriad of regional chapters should be filling the intermediary role for GCSAA.  However, though well intentioned, it is becoming apparent that the 103 regional chapters that populate the country are functioning without a timely mission statement that addresses their members’ current needs. Consequently, the chapters have defaulted primarily into social forums (i.e., member gatherings, golf tournaments, modest educational forums, etc.) through the years while at the same time failing to provide: critical career enhancing, job securing programming for their members; or constituent targeted educational programming that would shed a constructive regional light on the mission of the golf course superintendent.

Consequently, the professional image of the golf course superintendent languishes; the correlation between job security and the value of the job delivered gets lost in the shuffle; compensation levels stagnate; superintendents (i.e., chapter members) are left with a discomforting feeling about themselves; and family stability suffers.

Where Does The Responsibility Lie?

Many will instinctively think that it is GCSAA’s responsibility to remedy the situation to bring substantive meaning to the chapters’ existence. I disagree and believe the problem must be solved from the grass roots level up and not from the top down because GCSAA does not have the manpower (staff or otherwise), or the prerequisite local knowledge to address the varying needs of each of 103 chapter entities – while the individual chapters do.

…the fundamental welfare of golf course superintendents’ future careers will be primarily determined by how effectively their chapters identify with and support their members’ pursuit of an optimum employment environment.

Furthermore, GCSAA is basically meeting its national  “umbrella” responsibilities effectively now. This is not the problem because the fundamental welfare of golf course superintendents’ future careers will be primarily determined by how effectively their chapters identify with and support their members’ pursuit of an optimum employment environment.

Accordingly, the coming weeks’ blog messages will address the following:

*    Updating chapter mission statements for today’s challenging times.

*    Profiling chapter management options, including Executive Director considerations.

*    Generating the necessary funding to implement new era chapter planning.

*    Identifying the service spectrum that chapter members’ require today; and

*    Suggested fine-tuning of GCSAA’s complementary role.

Stay tuned.

An Invitation: I will be at the Vinyl Guard Golf (sponsor of this blog) GIS booth #4023 on Wednesday and Thursday mornings (February 10th and 11th) from 11:00 AM through noon+ each day. Stop by and say hello. I look forward to meeting some of you.