With reference to Rule 2 ‘The goals must be your own’, I had a boss who once told me that he wanted me to have ten goals for the year ahead. “Fine”, I said “I will go and write them up for you”. “No need” he said “nine of your goals will be mine. Nine of mine are my boss’s and so on up through the organisation. You need only come up with one personal breakthrough goal. Something you really want to achieve at work that you have never done before. It could even be something that has never been achieved by anyone before”.
You can predict what happened that year. As we progressed through the year which goal got by best attention? Which goal was achieved first? Which goal had never been achieved in British industry let alone in our little part of it? You guessed it. My ‘personal breakthrough’ goal.
Conventionally though, goal setting has
categories that you may wish to consider for your personal breakthrough, for the new you. In the past I have picked from the following list but you can ‘pick and mix’ or invent your own category. For example:
1. Health Goals - give up bad eating habits
2. Fitness Goals - get in shape 3. Social Goals - get out more 4. Study Goals - get more qualifications 5. Career Goals - get promotion 6. Finance Goals - get debts paid off 7. Attitude Goals - get happy
8. Family Goals - get more time with family members
9. Cultural Goals - get a piano and learn to play it
10. Spiritual Goals - get involved in some voluntary work
IS VIC THERE?
How a love of bowls turned into a ‘proper’ business for Vic Purse
one of the positions to be filled and I was asked if I would like to be considered, working to improve the England squad. In January 1999 I was appointed England
Team manager after the death of Mr. Bill Cox, helping to train the England team in their
preparations for the World Bowls in Girvan, Scotland in 2000. Thirty five years ago ‘as a bit of a hobby’, I started looking after the Coton Club green
I started playing the game of bowls in 1970 in the village of Coton, where I live, after I challenged Bill Sadler, a then county player, to play for ten shillings as I thought the game was for old men! On the first end, his bowls went all over the place, off the sides, in the end ditch, and I scored the maximum shots, telling him how easy it was to play this game. Well, I never scored another shot! He taught me how to play the game of bowls properly, any bowls near the jack he took them off with controlled weight of a full firing shot. The first lesson was certainly a very quick learning curve.
I paid up and the rest of the evening was
spent teaching me how to play the game. I was hooked, or should that be ‘bowled over?’ I progressed through the ranks to county player and coach. One of my first coaching jobs was teaching visually handicapped bowlers and I made coaching visually handicapped bowling a speciality.
I joined the English National Association of Visually Handicapped Bowlers (ENAVHB) as a life member in the early 90s. With the ENAVHB going for lottery money a coach was
and also helped out at other local clubs. At the time I was working for a waste disposal company and, when offered voluntary redundancy, I took the opportunity and set up Purse Turf Care with some of the proceeds. I now look after eleven bowling greens around the Cambridge and Essex area. My equipment includes scarifiers, spikers and a topdresser. All the greens get a weekly inspection and, when on an annual contract, are maintained on monthly schedules. They all have a link person between myself and the greens committee to keep them updated. If there are any new products released on the market, I will keep the clubs updated. This also applies to new machines or techniques. For example, I met Lynda Green of Terrain
Aeration at IOG Saltex and was impressed with their methods. I arranged a demo day and invited various clubs and their members to see how this machinery actually worked. I have recently used their services on a green that was constructed approximately ten years ago, with the wrong foundation, which went as hard as concrete! Water could not penetrate it was so hard, and spikers actually bounced off the surface. Since Terrain’s intervention the green has improved enormously and the green colour and texture is now as it should be.
Another club has, at the moment, a
problem with a very wet green. I am working with a chemical company and we have one of their products on trial which should release the tension in the soil. This is ongoing and photographs and soil sampling for root growth are taking place on a regular basis.
My ‘little’ company has grown as clubs have recommended me for their troublesome greens. Word of mouth has taken the company to a new level. As club members see the improvements to their greens, a number have asked me to look after their lawns, which I have now taken on. In addition I have been asked by Parish Councils, who have seen
me working on bowls greens, to undertake work on their pitches and village greens. This has meant that I have had to purchase a gang mower and I went for the Hayter 744 five gang - a nice piece of kit - which compliments my Westwood ride-on for general work and debris collection My fine mowing is carried out using a
Protea 630G 25” Greensmower but I use my 20” Ransomes Certes for rough work. It is always difficult to do maintenance
work, especially with a new client. It is hard to convince the members that fertilising, spraying for weeds and worms, scarifying and spiking are really necessary, especially as members often just want to roll up and play - and it always seems to be when I am working! So, now I have set days when I can work. Up until lunchtime at some and afternoons at others. Knowing my timetable some of the members actually come early to watch the work being done and, invariably, I get asked why I am doing a particular job. 2007 saw worms very active and the
sprayer has been very busy. I had to spray three times at two week intervals to keep on top of the situation. Unfortunately, two new machines arrived with problems. A Sisis R600 had the micro switch wrongly adjusted and a nylon nut not secure enough and the other, a Groundsman 345, had a fuel cap not venting at all. I was getting about half way across the green and the machine would cough, splutter and stop. Happily, both companies responded quickly and they are both working perfectly now.
As we go into the New Year let me wish you good luck with your personal goals, with the 'new you'. You may not need luck but you might need to remember the high achiever statistics, you will definitely need to follow the rules and above all try to only set goals in the categories that really inspire you e.g. your personal breakthrough.
The Waiting List for February’s ‘Essential Management Skills Course’ has just been started. If you would like to reserve a place contact
chris@pitchcare.com or call
Pitchcare.com on 01902 824392.
If, in the meantime, you have an urgent question about career development or personal goal setting you can contact Frank by e-mail at
frank@pitchcare.com or via the ‘Contact’ tab of his personal website
www.franknewberry.com.
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