Over the past weekend I was in Jacksonville, Florida for a clay court maintenance seminar. It had a ton of GOOD INFORMATION to say the least with a cast of tennis characters from all over the state of Florida including Tennessee (because Welch does not leave Florida for seminars). The seminar gave detailed information on how to maintain clay courts and since I am interested in this stuff I went. It was $159.00 to get myself a seat and even before I got there the one of the directors had rubbed me the wrong way by calling me way to many times and misplacing my check and my registration information. It was very disappointing and almost ruined the entire experience before I even went. I was so frustrated that I thought that if this is how they run their organization I don't want to go at all. After several phone calls later and tracking down my payment and registration information I arrived on time. I was told it would start at 8:30, but it did not really start until 9:00 (sigh). I was disappointed once again so I stuffed myself with the food there which was a decent breakfast and perfect for a fat man. I was given a folder with some information but it was mostly stuffed with sales information which I was not there for. I was there to further my education and make it official as opposed to shop for new tennis court toys. The morning was rough but extremely informative and did make it worth the trip with valuable information to the die-hard tennis person. I only wish I had taken more notes. For example the only place in the US to get har-tru is up in Virginia and essentially WELCH is a middle man in the clay game. The whole session was a little quirky, let me rephrase that. The whole session was very quirky. The people who worked for Welch were all quirky and a little odd and just seemed sheltered like they had never met people before. My questions seemed to annoy some of them and several were ducked or the answers were just unknown and I had to ask several employees before I got what I wanted. I had to consult other maintenance people to get some more answers that I wanted. The afternoon was rough with terrible weather. We were only able to go outdoors for maybe an hour in the rain and could not use all the tools because the courts we were too soggy and the demonstrations were tragic because of this. The club in its entirety was not the best selection, and due to the lack of outdoor demonstrations I gave the whole seminar a fair rating. After complaining through a survey with my name on it, I was offered attendance to another seminar for free due to inclement weather, so at least their customer service had good quality. There were a lot of strange people there, it was like your typical maintenance guy, not 28 year old cool guys. It was mostly old fat men, out of shape and just kind of gross. All in all Welch does do great tennis work and their construction is supposed to be some of the best in the world http://www.welchtennis.com/ and this served true in many of their final photos. The classroom education was solid, the food was great (breakfast & lunch), they hooked up a lot of people with mugs and hats and a number of other souvenirs through trivia questions. I am looking forward to attending the outdoor session of the seminar in the future to learn more. Here is a fun fact, clay is not really clay. Clay is basalt granite mixed with gypsum and that giant rock weighs 17,400 pounds and was brought down from Virginia to place in front of the Welch offices.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Welch Tennis
Over the past weekend I was in Jacksonville, Florida for a clay court maintenance seminar. It had a ton of GOOD INFORMATION to say the least with a cast of tennis characters from all over the state of Florida including Tennessee (because Welch does not leave Florida for seminars). The seminar gave detailed information on how to maintain clay courts and since I am interested in this stuff I went. It was $159.00 to get myself a seat and even before I got there the one of the directors had rubbed me the wrong way by calling me way to many times and misplacing my check and my registration information. It was very disappointing and almost ruined the entire experience before I even went. I was so frustrated that I thought that if this is how they run their organization I don't want to go at all. After several phone calls later and tracking down my payment and registration information I arrived on time. I was told it would start at 8:30, but it did not really start until 9:00 (sigh). I was disappointed once again so I stuffed myself with the food there which was a decent breakfast and perfect for a fat man. I was given a folder with some information but it was mostly stuffed with sales information which I was not there for. I was there to further my education and make it official as opposed to shop for new tennis court toys. The morning was rough but extremely informative and did make it worth the trip with valuable information to the die-hard tennis person. I only wish I had taken more notes. For example the only place in the US to get har-tru is up in Virginia and essentially WELCH is a middle man in the clay game. The whole session was a little quirky, let me rephrase that. The whole session was very quirky. The people who worked for Welch were all quirky and a little odd and just seemed sheltered like they had never met people before. My questions seemed to annoy some of them and several were ducked or the answers were just unknown and I had to ask several employees before I got what I wanted. I had to consult other maintenance people to get some more answers that I wanted. The afternoon was rough with terrible weather. We were only able to go outdoors for maybe an hour in the rain and could not use all the tools because the courts we were too soggy and the demonstrations were tragic because of this. The club in its entirety was not the best selection, and due to the lack of outdoor demonstrations I gave the whole seminar a fair rating. After complaining through a survey with my name on it, I was offered attendance to another seminar for free due to inclement weather, so at least their customer service had good quality. There were a lot of strange people there, it was like your typical maintenance guy, not 28 year old cool guys. It was mostly old fat men, out of shape and just kind of gross. All in all Welch does do great tennis work and their construction is supposed to be some of the best in the world http://www.welchtennis.com/ and this served true in many of their final photos. The classroom education was solid, the food was great (breakfast & lunch), they hooked up a lot of people with mugs and hats and a number of other souvenirs through trivia questions. I am looking forward to attending the outdoor session of the seminar in the future to learn more. Here is a fun fact, clay is not really clay. Clay is basalt granite mixed with gypsum and that giant rock weighs 17,400 pounds and was brought down from Virginia to place in front of the Welch offices.
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