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School sets high standards
Canford School’s head of grounds Steve Challis and his team of 14 grounds staff are kept busy all year round at this picturesque site in Wimborne, Dorset – and no wonder.
The school’s policy is to provide all 600 co-ed pupils aged 13 to 18 with the opportunity to play the sport of their choice – so the 250 acres of grounds include five cricket squares, seven rugby pitches, two football pitches, three grass hockey pitches, a nine hole members’ golf course, a 400m grass athletics track, two artificial hockey pitches and five hard tennis and netball courts, plus formal lawns and parkland.
High standards are maintained across the site by an extensive fleet of equipment, the majority of which is made by John Deere and supplied by local dealer New Forest Farm Machinery of Ringwood. The Deere machines include six compact tractors, from a 15 year old 955 to two new 20 Series models, three utility triple mowers, a fairway mower, two front rotary mowers, an electric TE Gator utility vehicle and an Aercore aerator.
“The school has invested a lot in new machinery over my five years as head of grounds, and in the process we have managed to dispose of a lot of the older kit where necessary and consolidate what we have,” says Steve Challis. “In addition to the pupils, the grounds are used by AFC Bournemouth as their main training facility, and there are various other external lets plus a range of prep and state school sports competitions taking place all year round.
“As a result we have to manage the whole site to the best of our ability to meet the needs of all these different user groups, and the requirements for a safe and healthy environment. We buy John Deere equipment on the basis that we’ve got to have the right machine for the job – all the machines we use come in on demonstration first, and our John Deere dealer always manages to come up with the right choice for what we need, every time.
“I think the main thing that John Deere does better than anyone else is operator comfort,” adds Steve. “When we sit on the machines everything is ergonomically right, with simple, easy to use controls – this is a big factor when you’re spending several days at a time on different jobs, and all the staff like using the machines because of this. We also can’t fault the service and spares support we get from both the dealer and the manufacturer.
“In an ideal world we would have an annual machinery replacement schedule, but at present it’s a bit more ad hoc – I make my recommendations each year, and sometimes I get what I want and sometimes not. John Deere machines are a little to blame for this, though, as they tend to last a bit longer than most!”
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