Australian Sports Turf Managers Association (ASTMA) Update It has been a big 12 months for Australian Sports Turf Managers Association (ASTMA), following the launch of a range of initiatives including a change of name in September 2019, rebranding from the Australian Golf Course Superintendents Association (AGCSA). As the peak industry body for Sports Turf Management in Australia, the not-for-profit industry Association was formed in 1981 and works to improve the knowledge, education, recognition and professional standards of its members and the turf industry, and that has been the one of the primary areas of focus for the Association given recent COVID-19 events. We caught up with the Chief Executive Officer at the Australian Sports Turf Managers Association, Mark Unwin, who provided some background to these changes at the Association, and also gave us his thoughts on the future of the industry in the years ahead.
“To say it’s been a big 12 months is accurate, yet probably doesn’t come close to the range of activities we have undertaken over that time” - Mark Unwin Chief Executive Officer at the Australian Sports Turf Managers Association
scale activities across the turf industry, so it’s certainly been a busy time for the team.”
“To say it’s been a big 12 months is accurate, yet probably doesn’t come close to the range of activities we have undertaken over that time” said Unwin.
Conceivably the largest of these initiatives was rebranding from the Australian Golf Course Superintendents Association to the more accurate Australian Sports Turf Managers Association.
“Perhaps further, looking back now, it’s closer to the last 2 years where we’ve set about planning and delivering some large-
“We set about this change in 2 ways, with the first being a review into our membership structure and benefit offerings,
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which highlighted some gaps for us in the approach to members that weren’t employed at a golf facility. The review was predicated on the need to ensure we continued to deliver meaningful benefit to all members, and ensure that our membership offerings were representing members in the best way possible.” “What the review showed us very early on, was that the largest growth area in memberships with the Association was from turf managers at sportsfields, schools, racetracks, bowling greens, stadiums – every area of the industry including continued growth from golf clubs, so we looked into the numbers a bit further to understand the background. What became pretty clear was that over the past 2 or 3 years, the Association had grown by a very significant amount, members working on non-golf facilities, which in turn made the Board decision to change the name to accurately reflect and encompass the entire membership of the Association a relatively straight-forward one” Unwin explains. Following this review, the Association introduced a new structure to simplify its membership, moving to a Full and Standard Membership from the old model of a somewhat complicated rolerelated structure. The change to both the Association name and a simpler structure seems to have paid off, with memberships
