The Grounds Management Association (GMA) has revealed a seminar line-up as part of the SALTEX 2022 Learning LIVE Programme – taking place at Birmingham NEC from 1-3 November.
In addition to this announcement, the SALTEX 2022 Learning LIVE schedule this year has been extended to over 30 free sessions.
The programme is designed to provide insights to help grounds people to playing surfaces across a range of sports and settings
The programme will cover surfaces for a variety of sports: For rugby, Catherine Hall (Premiership Rugby), Dr David James (Labosport) and Dan Prest (GMA) will talk about raising Premiership Rugby pitch standards.
For cricket, Gary Barwell (Edgbaston Stadium), Karl McDermott (Lord's Cricket Ground) and Steve Birks (Nottinghamshire CCC) discuss how new cricket formats impact on the modern-day grounds manager.
Tennis will be covered by Neil Stubley (Wimbledon), who presents the All England Tennis and Croquet Club’s court expansion project.
Rob Sullivan, CEO of the Football Foundation will discuss the Foundation's ambitions to improve grass pitch quality, whilst facilities programme manager Chris Smith is set to cover the funding process to improve pitches.
The question of hybrid pitches will be investigated by Dr Richard Earl of TGMS, a sports surface consultancy, who will reveal data findings from the Sport England hybrid pitch pilot for community use in London’s Regents Park.
During the discussion of hybrid, the education sector will also take part. Whitgift School’s recent hybrid pitch installation was the first in the independent school sector, and panellists Daniel Ratling (Whitgift School), Dr Richard Earl, and Dr James Welsh (Whitehorse Contractors) will look at the rationale, design and planning process, construction, project outcomes and the ongoing maintenance and renovation of the project.
Geoff Webb, CEO of the GMA, said: “This series of seminars provides relevant, invaluable information whatever the playing surface they [the delegates] work on.”
“We are grateful to all those industry experts and leaders that are taking time out to speak at Learning LIVE and support those working hard across the industry to make sport possible across the UK.”
