September 15, 2014
Trials and tribulations
Denis Flanagan CLD
LO Manager of Membership and Public Relations
The last month was an incredibly busy time for everybody involved with LO.
The chapters were organizing outstanding events with the help of the staff from Milton. Members have also been extremely busy with their own companies, yet still found time to support, sponsor and participate in baseball tournaments, golf tournaments, supplier barbecues, trial gardens, conferences and many other functions.
As well as being a great way for members to have some well deserved fun, the events are as always a great way to network, share ideas, discuss challenges and find solutions. As staff, we also find this networking extremely valuable to hear from you in regards to what you need from your association. The feedback from you is often the basis of how we develop educational topics, speaker ideas, chapter meetings, loyalty programs and trade show ideas.
I sometimes think that the ideas generated are similar to what takes place at the trial gardens that we hold. Here, the ideas are collected, nurtured and compared, and finally in a very democratic process at board meetings a number of ideas are selected and plans are put in place to propagate and market those ideas. It seems a very fitting system for our association.
So please, keep sowing those seeds and developing ideas, as we move into the fall and winter months.
Speaking of the wider industry, LO had a booth at the recent Grey to Green Conference and Trade Show held Aug. 25 at the Eaton Chelsea in downtown Toronto. The program focused on the economics of green infrastructure for our economy, our ecosystem and our bodies (designing for health).
One of the keynote speakers was Glen Murray MPP, Minister of the Environment. He made it abundantly clear that we are close to crisis mode “within less than 30 years, unless we make some enormous changes it will be like watching a plane crash into a mountain.”
Mr. Murray suggested that we have all the answers, we have enough advice and we have done the pilot projects. Now is the time for action.”
Many of our members were at the event as suppliers of green roofs and wall products, along with landscape architects, designers and contractors. Let’s hope that these big picture ideas will make it back to our sector group meetings for discussion and implementation.
As an industry, we are well positioned to make an enormous impact to improve our environment, our businesses and the lives of our families.
We have an important governance meeting set for Dec. 4, which truly is a great example of how well things work at Landscape Ontario, when a group of peers volunteering their valuable time come together to plan the future.
Denis Flanagan can be reached at dflanagan@landscapeontario.com or at 905-875-1805, ext. 2303.
LO Manager of Membership and Public Relations
The last month was an incredibly busy time for everybody involved with LO.The chapters were organizing outstanding events with the help of the staff from Milton. Members have also been extremely busy with their own companies, yet still found time to support, sponsor and participate in baseball tournaments, golf tournaments, supplier barbecues, trial gardens, conferences and many other functions.
As well as being a great way for members to have some well deserved fun, the events are as always a great way to network, share ideas, discuss challenges and find solutions. As staff, we also find this networking extremely valuable to hear from you in regards to what you need from your association. The feedback from you is often the basis of how we develop educational topics, speaker ideas, chapter meetings, loyalty programs and trade show ideas.
I sometimes think that the ideas generated are similar to what takes place at the trial gardens that we hold. Here, the ideas are collected, nurtured and compared, and finally in a very democratic process at board meetings a number of ideas are selected and plans are put in place to propagate and market those ideas. It seems a very fitting system for our association.
So please, keep sowing those seeds and developing ideas, as we move into the fall and winter months.
Speaking of the wider industry, LO had a booth at the recent Grey to Green Conference and Trade Show held Aug. 25 at the Eaton Chelsea in downtown Toronto. The program focused on the economics of green infrastructure for our economy, our ecosystem and our bodies (designing for health).
One of the keynote speakers was Glen Murray MPP, Minister of the Environment. He made it abundantly clear that we are close to crisis mode “within less than 30 years, unless we make some enormous changes it will be like watching a plane crash into a mountain.”
Mr. Murray suggested that we have all the answers, we have enough advice and we have done the pilot projects. Now is the time for action.”
Many of our members were at the event as suppliers of green roofs and wall products, along with landscape architects, designers and contractors. Let’s hope that these big picture ideas will make it back to our sector group meetings for discussion and implementation.
As an industry, we are well positioned to make an enormous impact to improve our environment, our businesses and the lives of our families.
We have an important governance meeting set for Dec. 4, which truly is a great example of how well things work at Landscape Ontario, when a group of peers volunteering their valuable time come together to plan the future.
Denis Flanagan can be reached at dflanagan@landscapeontario.com or at 905-875-1805, ext. 2303.