ED Report for the 2026 AGM
Executive Director Report For the 2026 Annual General Meeting
On behalf of the WCTA Board and staff, thank you for your continued support of turf management professionals in western Canada. This report is longer than last year’s reflecting a very busy 12 months, highlighting our accomplishments, the impact of recent events, and status of our forward-looking initiatives.
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February: 61ST Annual Conference & Trade Show
Requiring months of planning and organizing, our flagship event and largest annual undertaking, WCTA2025 marked the 5th time the show has been hosted by the River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond, BC. With the fastest ever trade-show sell-out (2 days), final attendance came in just 10 people short of our record-setting numbers set in 2023 at 527 delegates.
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March: Conference Mop-up & First Meeting of New Board
While anti-climactic, mopping-up after the conference is a necessary and lengthy task that includes a ton of communication, book-keeping, tallying, reconciling, record-keeping and just plain old catch-up after a very busy week at the show. The River Rock invoice alone is 41 pages long! With no new Directors, the first Board meeting picked-up quickly where things left off - the first order of business was renewal of the Executive Director contract through 2029.
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April: Golf Tournament Changes Direction, CEC Software Development Resumes & Lots of other ‘Stuff’
With the KPU Foundation taking over production of the Annual Pat Dooley Memorial Golf Tournament and directing all funds raised away from turf research and turf management student scholarships, the WCTA Board concluded the event no longer aligned with our mandate. All conference post-production was finally completed and CEC software development resumed. 2025 student award decisions were made and paid out, 2025 Research funding agreement with University of Minnesota was executed, our annual dues calling campaign started (several weeks early) the 2026 conference agreement was executed and planning for our 2025 field day got started.
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May–June: Member Directory Production & Major Systems Upgrade
Member directory production is about a 4-week job and was ready on-time but circulation got delayed about a month by the Canada Post Strike. 2025 field day planning stalled waiting for site location approval from FIFA. A long-awaited accounting software upgrade and transition began on June 13, taking about three months to complete. Conference planning gets serious now.
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July–August: Behind-the-Scenes Work
Summer is the busiest time for WCTA members including our Board of Directors so no Director meetings take place. We did sneak in a few field-day organizing sessions and piggy-backed our first 2026 conference organizing meeting on one of them.
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September: Ramping-Up, Planning, Fiscal Year-End & Fall Field Day
Staff is extremely busy with ‘this-time-of-year’ planning and administrative tasks along with completion of the new accounting software transition. Dues and AR collection is a focus as we approach fiscal year-end, CEC software testing was underway, and as part of our need to find a new media partner by June 2026, I dedicated quite a bit of time to look deeply into the future of our website, email distribution, online commerce, social media integration, back-end contact information database, magazine & directory publications and all related components of our media and communication strategies. Meanwhile, the fall field day at Bos Sod on Sep 18th needed all hands-on -deck and ended up being an amazing event, setting a new attendance record with 192 participants.
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October: Conference Preparations, 2025 Financial Wrap-Up & 2026 Member Dues
Conference planning took center stage with contractor agreements, budgeting, and registration launches. Membership dues invoicing, involving over 700 members, also began and was the first big test of the new accounting program. Mario Lanthier continued working on the ‘IPM Manual for Turf Managers’ update.
Nov/Dec Turf Line News production began. Financially, we had several unexpected and major expenses for the 2025 fiscal year but still beat forecasted net revenue by a good margin.
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November: Conference is Hopping, Turf Line News Out-the-Door, New/Old Staff & Plenty More!
The trade show floor sold-out so more space was added, delegate registration opened Nov 7 (about one week earlier than last year) and myriad production tasks are in progress at this point. 2026 dues invoicing was about ½ done as of Nov 24. Our previous book-keeper, Crystal Fishbrook, returned and while the new accounting software is working well, there’s a big learning curve requiring many tweaks to our workflows.
Nov/Dec TLN magazine production was completed and delivered to the mailing house on-time and the Feb/Mar ‘Conference Issue’ was started. CEC records were sent by Leslie and CEC software development and testing continued. The contract was signed for our inaugural Golf Tournament ‘FORE’ Turf Research taking place May 28, 2026 at Redwoods Golf Course, Langley, BC. I had a very preliminary meeting recently with IG’s website developer, Greg Daynes, to discuss website rebuild options and prices.
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December–February: Conference Preparations in Full Swing, E-News Ramps-Up, Strategic Planning Session and Lots Going On!
I met with Eagle Lake Sod on Dec 2nd to start the 2026 Fall Field Day planning process – they are very excited!
Our annual BOD strategic planning meeting took place early December. The lead-up to the February conference is our absolute busiest period. The Turf Line Conference Edition serves as the show program, while membership dues and registrations accelerate. E-newsletter frequency doubles at this time of year. Our mid-January Board meeting concludes the term, preparing for Board of Director election at the AGM.
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Closing Thoughts
This report provides a snapshot of the WCTA’s efforts over the past year. For more detailed updates, stay engaged with our magazines and e-newsletters. Thank you for your continued support.
Jerry Rousseau
Executive Director, WCTA