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Wow, what a year 2019 is shaping up to be! It’s our 30^th Birthday on 1^st May and thanks to the hard work of our incredible team, the business has never been in a better position! Bring on the celebrations!

Our Landscape Construction team have a strong pipeline of projects taking us well into the year and our newly formed estimating team are working hard to fulfil our client requirements from the start. Coupled with our focus on actively growing our Grounds Maintenance division and new contracts won in the private school sector, sports and leisure space and one of our largest contracts to date – Melbourne (Tullamarine) Airport, we are well on track to achieving our aggressive growth strategy.

Fast growth, however, can bring resourcing challenges and our industry is experiencing a shortage of qualified and experienced candidates. With the civil infrastructure industry experiencing an unprecedented boom in Victoria over the last few years, the candidate market is even smaller.

To help minimise this challenge and for the sustainability of our business and industry long term, we have successfully implemented a strategy to increase our apprenticeship numbers and provide education and career pathways to the leaders of the future.

Through the established partnership with Jacobs Gardens since in 2016, a local labour hire business, at any given time we have up to 50 members of the Burmese community providing labouring services to Super Gardens working alongside and complementing our existing teams.

We have further engaged with the broader Burmese Community, presenting the benefits of the apprenticeship program to them as a pathway to education, qualifications and a career in horticulture and in February we officially signed up 9 apprentices and 2 Business Administration trainees and welcomed them into the business.

In order to deliver the most effective training and assessment processes to this apprenticeship program we are pleased to partner with Murray Mallee ( registered training and not for profit organisation ) to ensure our apprentices are given every opportunity to succeed.

We welcome them aboard and look forward to being part of their career development and their long term success with Super Gardens.

Finally, in honour of International Womens Day on 8^th March, we celebrate the amazing Super Gardens Women and support gender parity in the workforce and #BalanceforBetter.

Regards,

Lorraine

AN UPDATE FROM DAVID COLLARD – BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

We received some kind commendations from one of our long standing clients Tim Bailey at the Melbourne Racing Club

“……..to let you know that Mitch and the team did a terrific job in the venue presentation for the V8 round last weekend. It was certainly noticed and mentioned by many that the venue was the best they’d seen it. I basically left Mitch to his own devices to co-ordinate these works, and he completed it excellently.

 

Tim Bailey

Racecourse Manager

 Melbourne Racing Club|591-659 Princes Hwy|Springvale   VIC   3171 Australia

 

AN UPDATE FROM DAVID COLLARD – BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

The last 3 months have been busy and exciting with new business opportunities within the grounds division. Driving new business and pushing into the private school and sports turf management areas. A credit to all our grounds teams for continuing to deliver outstanding results. The business is developing and we are in our next phase of growth. This has opened up many opportunities across many different sectors.

Our Unseen Heroes’ – A special shout out and thanks to Paul, Damien & Michael – our three full time mechanics. The unseen heroes’ who are able to excel and keep all of our machinery, tools and equipment in top priority working order and sharp. As the saying goes we are only as good as the tools given to us and if these are blunt and not in excellent working order the works will reflect this.

Pristine and well maintained tools will reflect the quality and workmanship of the experienced operator giving precision to hedges, immaculate edges on lawns and clean sharp lines on freshly cut grass. I commend and congratulate our unseen hero’s ‘Our three full time Mechanics” – Paul, Damien and Michael.

David Collard – Business Development Manager

 

 

We have been meeting with Des O’Keeffe & Matt Hyland from the Australian Jockeys Association and developing strong business relationships with them and the association to create career paths for Jockeys.  Currently, we have employed 2 Jockeys in the past few months who have made the transition into the Super Gardens family within the racecourses. Their knowledge and skills with horse etiquette and the track has proven to be invaluable.  A win win for both parties!

Super Gardens are able to offer stable employment and many opportunities for career advancement to retired jockeys into many different areas within the growing customer portfolio across both grounds maintenance and landscape construction.

We look forward to continuing these relationships and partnering with them.

Picture – from left to right

Des O’Keeffe                     –              Chairman – AJA

Ryan Smith                         –              Racecourse Foreman – Caulfield Racecourse

Matt Hyland                       –              Executive Officer – AJA

Ian Griffiths                        –              Director

David Collard                     –              Business Development Manager

Mitch Kelly                         –              Racecourse Foreman – Sandown Racecourse

 

It has been an exciting few months at Super Gardens. The leadership team met in March to discuss our annual strategy and the key word for the year is ‘Growth’. All divisions of the company have identified areas for expansion and we are working hard to expand our influence and share of the market.

 North West Landscape continue to deliver high quality projects in Epping and Westmeadows with Development Victoria and Frasers Property Group. Enrico Kunze has joined the team as Project Officer for the West and is spearheading our expansion in this region with a high profile project in Mambourin for Frasers Property.

 South East Landscape have consolidated  their position as preferred landscape services supplier for National Pacific Properties’ developments at Clyde. In doing so they have secured up to a five year pipeline of works in this area.

David Collard, our Business Development Manager, is focusing his considerable talents on building relationships with prospective clients for the Grounds Maintenance Division in the private school sector. We look forward to seeing the fruits of his efforts during the year.

The merger of Green Makers and Super Gardens at the beginning of April has opened up a wealth of opportunities for our company in the sports turf sector. The skill and experience of David Cole and his team adds a whole new area of expertise to the company and  compliments our established Landscape Construction and Grounds Divisions.

Needless to say, none of this growth would be achievable without the hard work and passion of our teams on the ground. The pride our people take in their work is what distinguishes Super Gardens from our competition. This strong staff engagement is recognised by our clients and rewarded by repeat custom and the long term relationships we have built.

Thank you to all of our staff for your efforts and a big welcome to all of the new members who have joined the company over the past month.

Finally, this is a time of year for reflection. We are a ‘People’ focused company and in May last year we lost a member of the Super Gardens family in sudden and tragic circumstances. This month we will remember Jack Stanbrook as someone who embodied our company culture – a loyal, hard worker who took pride in what he did and was well liked and respected by his colleagues.

He is missed.

 

Dave Buckley – General Manager

Landscape Construction

 

We are happy to announce that we have joined forces with GreenMakers Pty Ltd!

GreenMakers Pty Ltd has been in operation for 18 years and David Cole, a well-respected identity in the Golf Course and Project Turf Management sectors. GreenMakers golf course maintenance clients include Strathallan, Spring Park and in excess of 24 golf courses in Australia that require specialist turf management services. The merger of the businesses provides opportunities to expand on our service specialties and offer fine turf installation and management of football and cricket sports grounds around schools and sports precincts, and golf courses. Super Gardens have well established systems and processes framed within the ISO Certifications in Quality, Environment and Safety that qualifies us to deliver services to public and private sectors and increases the market scope for GreenMakers services. We are very excited about the growth of our business and this merger. It presents us with opportunities to provide you with fine turf services of your sports grounds with specialist teams.

We thank you for your custom to date and together with the additional specialist team we are looking forward in continuing our “striving for excellence “ services to you. Please contact David Collard our Business Development Manager on dcollard@supergardens.com.au or I on andrew@supergardens.com.au if you require additional information and we would be pleased to discuss with you the scope of our services.

 

Andrew Grasby
Managing Director

We are pleased to announce that effective 1^st April 2018 the successful Greenmakers company, led by David Cole and his team will merge with Super Gardens. We are delighted to welcome all the Greenmakers staff to the Super Gardens team!

The merger has created an opportunity to establish Super Sports Turf and Leisure Division demonstrating the continuation of growth of grounds management and landscape construction services over the last 29 years. The combining of resources will further strengthen our position within the growing sports and leisure grounds markets.

For clients, the merger between Greenmakers and Super Gardens adds to our extensive range of horticulture services and brings another level of expertise and experience to the business.

For our staff, the merger creates many new opportunities for career advancement and additional apprenticeships in Sports Turf Management and other areas within Super Gardens.

 

Post submitted by Vas Banschikov

Chief Financial Officer – Super Gardens Pty Ltd