CLCA North Coast Chapter

September President’s Message by Charlie Thompson

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

We have tightened up our business practices, gotten re-focused on our precious customers and other high leverage areas. We have been taught (or reminded) what it’s like to have to grind it out to get work and make it profitable…..and do so within our values. As things start to pick up for many businesses I think about the golden opportunity that presents itself to us…..We have done and learned so much……will we retain what we learned and the practices we implanted or will they be replaced with our old habits and approaches?

As is the case with some of my past messages I will reference a good book that discusses “The Knowing-Doing Gap”. The basic message is that we have tons of knowledge and answers, but we struggle to turn that into “doing”. The recent economic pressures have forced many of us past the knowing-doing gap (nothing like an emergency to drive change). The question is….will we continue the good practices, the extreme adaptability, the appreciation of every
good customer, and the other positive behaviors into the future as the economy improves and our business begin to regain the shape that they once had?
The book is basically divided into what causes the Knowing-Doing Gap and what can be done to reduce the gap.

Barriers that create the Knowing-Doing Gap
1. When talk substitutes for action
2. When memory is a substitute for thinking
3. When fear prevents acting on knowledge
4. When measurement obstructs good judgment
5. When internal competition turns friends into enemies

Eight guidelines for action
1. Why before how: philosophy is important
2. Knowing comes from doing and teaching others how
3. Action counts more than elegant plans and concepts
4. There is no doing without mistakes. What is the company’s response?
5. Fear fosters knowing-doing gaps, so drive our fear. Beware of false analogies: fight the competition, not each other. Charlie Thompson
6. Measure what matters and what can help turn knowledge into action.
7. What leaders do, how they spend their time and how they allocate resources matters

These elements (and the detail provided in the book and in on-line articles) help create a road map for making sure that you and your people are applying the best of what you know into positive action and sustainable business results. As with any of these books and/or thoughts…..if they interest you and you want to talk I would be happy to discuss
them.

As I enter the 8th month of my term as president of our chapter I am thinking it may be time for some mid-term appreciation. I am very fortunate to have such a great board, many supporters who are not on the board but have been willing to help me, our board and our chapter, and of course extremely fortunate to have Connie for wisdom and support. We all have busy lives supporting our businesses, our families and trying to squeak out a little time for ourselves when possible. So to find time to support me, our chapter and our industry takes an extra level of dedication and commitment for which I am extremely grateful. Best wishes for a strong fourth quarter!

We were discussing this a bit in the office today, while reviewing and debating the latest daily events at our company and thought it was worth sharing. Sometimes you just have to step back from the hectic busyness of each day and take a moment to express gratitude for what we have and the times we live in. A few things to be grateful for:

• We live in one of the most prosperous, freest societies on the planet

• We are living in the golden age of man kind. Witness to the greatest technological innovation in history, dwarfing all previous periods in richness, scale, and complexity. All while benefiting from being the longest lived, healthiest people to ever live.

• We have unlimited information at our fingertips at an instant. Your smartphone can access information that would dwarf the Library of Alexandria.

• A too large portion of the world lives on $1-2 per day. Has limited access to clean water, lives in poverty, lacks education, and is subject to all manners of disease that most of us do not even have to consider.

It seems like at times all people have an all to great capacity to take things for granted. To use one accomplishment as stepping stone for larger, greater accomplishment. Take a step back, a deep breath, and use your perspective to express some gratitude for all that we have. The poet Derek Mahan expressed this beautifully in his poem Everything is Going to Be All Right:

Everything Is Going to Be All Right

How should I not be glad to contemplate

the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window

and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?

There will be dying, there will be dying,

but there is no need to go into that.

The poems flow from the hand unbidden

and the hidden source is the watchful heart.

The sun rises in spite of everything

and the far cities are beautiful and bright.

I lie here in a riot of sunlight

watching the day break and the clouds flying.

Everything is going to be all right.

Derek Mahon

Source: http://www.panhala.net/Archive/Everything_Is_Going_to_Be_All_Right.html

The Sonoma County Regional Parks department is putting on a pesticide applicators seminar in October. See below, you can Download the Flyer Here.

Come join your colleagues at the Sonoma County Regional Parks Pesticide Applicator’s Seminar! October 26, 2010. Registration form and schedule attached!

• Date: Tuesday October 26, 2010
• Location: Santa Rosa Vets Building – 1351 Maple Ave, Santa Rosa, CA 95409
• Time: 8:00AM to 4:00PM
• Fee: $75 ($90 after October 19^th) includes handouts, continental breakfast and catered hot lunch. Registration form attached!

Spend the day with us and participate in discussions about pest control topics ranging from pesticide application and vertebrate management to applicator safety. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and sensible use of chemical control will also be promoted. Enjoy a delicious hot catered lunch and continental breakfast.

Seven (7) CEU units (2 Law & Regs; 5 Other) have been requested for all Pest Control Advisors and Qualified Applicators. In addition, education points have been requested for GCSAA members and credits have been requested for WCISA members. This is a great opportunity for you or your staff to keep on top of the latest in pest management and control while getting CEUs to keep your license current.

See the informational poster and flyer, attached for your convenience. A registration form is included on the flyer. Registration is also available via telephone, (707) 565-2041, and at the event door. Register now and save!

See ya there!

Corbin Johnson
Stormwater Coordinator
Sonoma County Regional Parks
2300 County Center Drive #120A, Santa Rosa, CA 95403
cjohnso3@sonoma-county.org

707-565-2261

Daily Acts has a greywater tour this upcoming Sunday. See below, you can Download the Flyer Here.

Tour: Greywater with Gusto

Sunday, August 29th, 10am-2pm, Free for Cotati Residents $25 non-residents

Please register by visiting www.dailyacts.org or calling 707.789.9664

In this tour, we’ll visit the new, single-fixture Greywater System of Neil Hancock and Jenny Blaker. This system was recently installed under the new CA greywater code. We’ll talk about site selection and system design, pollution prevention, and the new regulations––and how to keep greywater safe for humans and our watersheds.

Two greywater experts will speak about the benefits of greywater: Trathen Heckman, Director of Daily Acts, member of Sonoma County Greywater Working Group and owner of the first permitted single-residence greywater system in Sonoma County, and Heather Shepherd, who planned, designed and installed the first fully permitted and compliant greywater system in Sonoma County. We’ll talk about how to best identify a prospective greywater site, gather preliminary data including soil percolation tests, and navigate greywater codes and ordinances. We will discuss environmental and financial benefits of greywater, and touch on watershed protection and restoration. At the end of the day, you’ll be equipped with the resources and information to realize your greywater goals!

Tour: Greywater with Gusto

Sunday, August 29th, 10am-2pm, Free for Cotati Residents $25 non-residents

Please register by visiting www.dailyacts.org or calling 707.789.9664

In this tour, we’ll visit the new, single-fixture Greywater System of Neil Hancock and Jenny Blaker. This system was recently installed under the new CA greywater code. We’ll talk about site selection and system design, pollution prevention, and the new regulations––and how to keep greywater safe for humans and our watersheds.

Two greywater experts will speak about the benefits of greywater: Trathen Heckman, Director of Daily Acts, member of Sonoma County Greywater Working Group and owner of the first permitted single-residence greywater system in Sonoma County, and Heather Shepherd, who planned, designed and installed the first fully permitted and compliant greywater system in Sonoma County. We’ll talk about how to best identify a prospective greywater site, gather preliminary data including soil percolation tests, and navigate greywater codes and ordinances. We will discuss environmental and financial benefits of greywater, and touch on watershed protection and restoration. At the end of the day, you’ll be equipped with the resources and information to realize your greywater goals!

Nuance, the makers of Dragon Naturally Speaking have a nifty free application for iPhone, Blackberry and other smart phones. The tool allows for voice dictation of emails and messages using your phones speakerphone. It achieves amazing accuracy by sending the the audio to the Nuance servers and then bouncing the text back to your phone. Definitely, worth a look for those who are out in the field  and want to send quick messages without typing.

CLCA North Coast Chapter members and volunteers coordinated by Sustainability/Resource Chair Susie Dowd Markarian, lent a hand to help with the Petaluma Bounty sponsored Arroyo Community Garden in Petaluma this past Earth Day. Here is a time lapse image of the garden in process of being constructed during a work day.

Read more about CLCA NCC Member’s work at the Knox Community Garden in Santa Rosa

Please join us for our August Dinner Meeting, featuring a Water Conservation panel of municipal and vendor represenatives to learn the newest trends in water .
Details:
Tuesday August 17, 2010
Rooster Run Golf Club – Petaluma 6:00 PM
Cost $30 with RSVP, $35 at the door

Please RSVP to Connie Salinas by Phone or Fax @ (707) 829-5487
Or e-mail: heyconniesalinas@hotmail.com

Download the August Dinner Meeting RSVP Form

Check out the chapter’s new Facebook Page and browse the Photo Galleries of this year’s awards. You can comment on and share with others all this year’s award winning gardens.

One of your crew members drop a cell phone while working on irrigation? It might be ruined, but you can also try Bhesstie, a bag specifically designed to get the water out of high tech devices. Featured in June’s Inc. Magazine, Bheestie was developed by sisters that developed the bag, which is full of special clay beads, after a son dropped a Game Boy in a pond.

For More: Bheestie.com

Want to keep up with what’s happening in other Chapter’s around the state?
You can find links to the Chapter websites on the State CLCA Page here, or many of the Chapter Newsletters are listed here.

Please join us for our Annual Awards Dinner Banquet, “I Will Survive”.

Details:
Friday June 25, 2010
The Flamingo Hotel
2777 Fourth Street, Santa Rosa
Cocktails from 6:30-7:30
Dinner, Slide Show & Awards Presentation following

Cost $60 per person – Reservations Only
or 10 Dinners for $500 / 5 dinners for $275
Special Room Rate of $159 available (ask for CLCA) 800-848-8300

Dinner invitiations have been sent by mail. Please contact Connie Salinas by Phone or Fax @ (707) 829-5487 with any questions
Or e-mail: heyconniesalinas@hotmail.com

The inaugural Spring Scramble Golf Tournament at Peacock Gap Golf Course was a huge success and helped raise funds for the LEAF Scholarship Fund. Thank you to the generous support of Ewing Irrigation for sponsoring the BBQ before the tournament and some delcious tri-tip! John Deere Landscapes donated balls, knapsacks, and tees for all players, and Marin Landscape Materials donated gift certificates for the raffle. The sponsors shown below gave us tremendous support, without which the tournament would not have been possible.

Winners of the tournament and a Costco Shopping Spree was the foursome of Jeff Hausman, Fred Hanker, Tom Bresnan, and Adam Burgess. Thanks to all the players for their support and we hope to see you all next year!

Kudos also go out to the golf commitee, headed by commitee chairman Henry Buder, Jeff Jones of John Deere Landscapes, John Holmquist of Horizon, and Michael O’Connell of O’Connell Landscape.

Planet Day of Service- April 24, 2010
Knox Community Garden
Santa Rosa

The weather could not have been better, yet the effort put forward by the  people who showed up to give their 110% to this project was amazing!  Our share may have been small in number, but big in results, and I am stumped to find words the right words to express the gratitude and thank you  to the following people who contributed their time on Saturday to help with this community Garden project. A Big Round of Applause for:

• Phil Wyatt, Wyatt Irrigation Supply,  for his time and  all the materials donated, including Purple pipe, fittings, hosebibs, steel edging etc..

• Wheeler Zamoroni Supply- for road base rock for the pathway.

• Santa Rose Junior College -Environmental Horticulture Dept. , PJ Lococo; Bradley Saachs; Kathy Taylor;  from the Irrigation class.

• Gardenworks Inc.  – Peter Estournes, Jay Tripathi, for providing the Equipment for trenching- plus Jeff Housman and Salvador “Junior” Ledesma  who gave of their time and expertise.

• Pacific Landscapes Inc.  For sending their irrigation technician Javier Ramirez, who shared his talent and tools.

• (Sir)Henry Buder, Henry Buder Landscapes, who came early- stayed late, and provided knowledge and assistance in technique and application.

• Landeisgn Construction; John Fitzgerald for sending two irrigation technicians  the following Monday, to fine tune and finish up on the details.

• Cal – West Rentals, Tyler Dougherty who offered equipment if needed.

The project was supported by PLANET’s Day of Service and Tee-Shirts were supplied to the team!

Don’t Miss the New Spring Scramble Golf Tournament June 9th

Please join us for the CLCA North Coast Chapter Spring Scramble Golf Tournament, with proceeds to benefit the LEAF scholarship Fund and North Coast Chapter: www.clcanorthcoastchapter.org/golf

The Deadline for the early registration fee has been extended to
Friday May 28th!

Download the Tournament Entry & Sponsorship Form

Event Details:
Date: Wednesday June 9, 2010
Time: Lunch and registration start at 11:30am, tee-off at 1:00 (new start time)
Venue: Peacock Gap Golf Course, San Rafael

Tournament Registration:
register by 5/28 (deadline extended) $110
after 5/28 $125

Includes green fee, cart, range balls, balls & marker, lunch, 1 raffle ticket and 3 drink tickets! Additional Raffle Tickets $5 – Mulligans $5
Great Prizes for the Top Placing Teams! Long Drive, Closest to Pin Competitions, and More!

The North Coast Chapter was selected by Vertical Response as a winner of their quarterly 500 awards for quality email marketing communication. The Chapter placed 177 out of 500.  Awards are based in part on the number of emails sent and the number opened by recipients. Click here to join the chapter mailing list.

Permaculture Marin Announces a
“Laundry to Landscape” Greywater Workshop!

Saturday, April 24th • 10:00 am to 4:00 pm • Novato

Interested in reusing your home’s greywater? Do you desire a water-saving yet abundant landscape? Want to learn more about greywater and how to build your own system? Come to our design and installation workshop!

During this one-day workshop we will spend the morning learning the principles and advantages of greywater use, different types of systems, the new California code, appropriate landscape design and plants for greywater, common mistakes in system designs, and suitable products to use. In the afternoon we will install a simple, code compliant “laundry to landscape” greywater system.

This is a hands-on class, so come prepared to dig in the dirt and actually install a system from beginning to end!

Cost: sliding scale of $40 to $70. If you are able to afford the higher cost, we would appreciate it. It will enable us to provide more workshops and training for those less able to afford the cost.

To register: or for more information, contact Kathleen Lanphier at kclanphier@gmail.com. Directions to the site will be given at registration.

The workshop will be taught by Permaculture Marin members Kathleen Lanphier and Dustin Kahn, who offer greywater system design and installation through a collaborative venture called FLOW – for the love of water. Both Dustin and Kathleen completed a greywater installer’s certification course taught by Laura Allen and Andrea Lara of Greywater Action in Oakland.

Permaculture Marin is a local volunteer organization, guided by the permaculture ethics of caring for the earth, caring for people, setting limits to consumption, and sharing resources and surplus. We envision healthy communities where people live in restorative relationships with the land and with each other, thereby assuring an abundant life for both present and future generations.

Please join us for our April Dinner Meeting, The Sustainable Side of Our Suppliers. This is an expo- style event followed by dinner & dessert. There will be numerous vendors displaying their newest & greenest products.

Details:
Tuesday April 20, 2010
Rooster Run Golf Club – Petaluma 6:30 PM
Cost $25

Please RSVP to Connie Salinas by Phone or Fax @ (707) 829-5487
Or e-mail: heyconniesalinas@hotmail.com

Download the RSVP Form

Need to figure out how many concrete sacks are in a yard, or compare if it’s better to hand mix, deliver, or pump concrete. Here is a handy tool that calculates cubic yardage, footage, and cost for various sizes of concrete sacks.

There’s no better “green” lawn mower than an old fashion reel mower. Trouble is, reel mowers can be a lot of extra effor and take extra sharpening of the blades to be effective. New reel mower designs are solving some of these problems. Fiskars has a new reel mower that  incorporates a flywheel, meaning less effort to push the mower through the grass, and better blades that need to be sharpened less often.

Here is Charlie Thompson’s president’s message from this month’s journal.  I was discussing this message recently with a colleague who is a very experienced and knowledgeable contractor. We both agreed that it was a very though provoking idea to challenge the idea that we already know all we need to know.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not only be those that cannot read and write, but those that cannot learn, unlearn and re-learn”

One of my favorite articles ever written is “Confessions of a Recovering Knower” by Brian Hinken. He points out that most of us have achieved our successes in life from what we know. We have been promoted, we have been complimented and revered, etc. because, at least in part, of what we know. This pattern has been supported over and over again through most of our lives from our childhood to adulthood.

The problem with this is “knowers” are generally unwilling, or unable, to admit when they don’t know something and to be influenced. Knowing is so central to who they are that even when they are not sure of the answer they act as if they know it even though they don’t. They give up some of their ability to learn new things because the focus for them is on what has already been learned (the source of their success).

The alternative to this is to be a “learner”….Someone who effectively uses knowledge and experience, not to solve someone’s problems with what they know but rather with what they ask. They use inquiry masterfully. They understand that their knowledge and experience is only part of problem solving and not the single, magic bullet answer.

I found that having all the answers, or at least appearing to have all the answers, served me well when I was younger just starting out in my career. As I moved into higher levels of leadership it became an anchor more and more. Being a “Knower” held back those around me that I needed to develop. I found that being a “Knower” was not a very humble approach and therefore did not convey transparency and an unassuming

approach that I desired in order to help develop leadership in myself and others.

I have shared this view with enough people around the office that we compliment “Learner” behaviors in each other. We use this view to help evaluate employment candidates as well as existing employees for leadership positions.

I have found when I am more of a “Learner” that I see things and learn things that I would have never seen or learned if my focus had been on me and my knowledge. I have been able to enlist and collaborate better, develop allies, and in the end achieve more from what I don’t yet know than from what I already knew.

Charlie Thompson – An aspiring “Learner”

Brian Hinken is the long-time organizational development facilitator for Gerber Memorial Health Services in Fremont, Michigan, and the author of the recently published book, The Learner’s Path: Practices for Recovering Knowers.