S & C Slatter last week hosted their second Bursars Golf Day at the Worsley Park Marriott Hotel & Country Club in Manchester.
Once again the Golf Day was organised to coincide with the start of the ISBA Annual Conference at which the company was exhibiting and presenting The Slatter Group .
Group Director Jason Douglass welcomed everyone as the traditional pre-play bacon rolls were consumed with great relish (they were exceptionally fine examples!) and our ‘Tournament Director’ Chris Marriott outlined the programme and logistics for the day.
In the evening, players and event support staff convened in the Club’s Manchester Suite for the competition prize giving, a three-course meal, the odd glass of wine and some very good conversation – most of which revolving around what a great day it had been. However, the chances of Liverpool winning the Champions League Final and the challenge facing Ole Gunnar Solskjaer were debates also given a good airing!
Team 1st Place: Simon Piggott The Leys Cambridge, Tony Collinson Lady Barn House School, Paul McKeown Oakham School, David Thompson Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls.
Team 2nd Place: Richard Fletcher, Richard Thompson, Jon Lawrence Bridgewater School, Mark Mackenzie Crooks St. Helen’s School.
Team 3rd Place: Paula Vanninen Arnold House School, Gerard Garcia Beechwood Sacred Heart School, Gary Johnson, Tim Tracey.
Longest Drive: Men. Tony Collinson, Lady Barn House School.
Nearest the Pin: Matthew Swift, Stafford Grammar School.
The Team 1st Prize, for each player, was two tickets to the BMW PGA Golf Championship at Wentworth in September, courtesy of The Sports Consultancy.
And the name of Robert Lougee, recently Bursar at Salesian College, was drawn ‘out of the hat’ to win the Calloway Golf Bag kindly donated by Tim Tracey of Collinson Construction.
A special ‘thank you’ was of course given to Chris Marriott of The Sports Consultancy for all the great work he did both prior to the event and on the day – picking the teams, drafting the order of play and confirming the results.
Many of the guests in thanking The Slatter Group for organising the Golf Day, expressed the hope that it could be continued as an annual event which even more Bursars could have the opportunity to enjoy.
S&C Slatter is delighted to confirm the acquisition of White Horse Contractors Limited which becomes a member of The Slatter Group.
White Horse Contractors was established in 1957 by Arnold Binning. Since then it has grown into one of the leading providers of natural turf sports facilities, land drainage, water engineering, landscaping and civil engineering projects. It has gained a first-class reputation for quality and service in these sectors.
As a well-established family business, S&C Slatter are acknowledged as one of the Country’s foremost experts in the design and construction of sports facilities including artificial and natural pitches, multi-use games areas (MUGAs), hard and soft landscaping. The Surfacing & Civils division is also very successful in securing an increasing share in the infrastructure sector – car parks, roadways, hard standings.
White Horse Contractors will operate from the Group Head Office in Enborne, Newbury as an autonomous business under the guidance of newly appointed Managing Director David Smith and Technical Director James Welsh.
With this addition, The Slatter Group offers an unrivalled scope of services to a broad reach of clients within the sports grounds, amenity, leisure, agricultural and equestrian sectors. The knowledge base and resource that White Horse Contractors brings to the Group complements perfectly the skills, technology and experience in artificial surfacing, civil engineering and project development accessible from the existing specialist divisions of S&C Slatter.
David Slatter, who oversees the operations of all Group companies, comments:
"When I first took over the business from my Father, we provided sub-contract services for White Horse Contractors on their bigger projects. For me they were always the ‘Gold standard’ which I was aiming to emulate and to this end I saw a perfect opportunity to approach the Directors of White Horse Contractors. To be able to bring their expertise and resource to our family company is a dream come true for me. The depths of services, skills and knowledge that we can now offer our clients in a one stop shop is industry leading."
James Binning is the third generation of the Binning family to chair White Horse Contractors and says:
"I’m delighted that we have found another family business which can take White Horse Contractors to new heights and that shares our company ethos and family values. Many of our staff have worked with us for decades and it is important to us that the business continues to be run in the same style as it has for the last 60 years."
However, the Binning family association with the industry will not cease as White Horse Contractors’ workshop and plant will continue to grow and thrive under a new name, Muddy Plant Hire Ltd, providing specialist plant hire services to The Slatter Group and the industry at large.
That’s Leisure News the in-house newsletter of Willmott Dixon, one of the largest construction companies in the UK. Featured is a case study of the fabulous Elmbridge Xcel Sports Complex on which we worked as specialist provider of the outdoor sports facilities and support infrastructure. Xcel is acknowledged as one of Surrey’s leading sports venues and very much a model of how to successfully create and deliver a multi-asset community development.
Our partnership relationship with Willmott Dixon looks to achieve continuous improvement in service performance and delivery, and commits to collaborative working during all stages of the construction process.
This is further illustrated by a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) session we recently presented for key team members of Willmott Dixon. The objective was to impart and share technical knowledge of key elements of the sports construction process and provide Information on our five service divisions. Some twenty executives representing a wide range of responsibilities attended and listened to panel of presenters led by S&C Slatter Commercial Director Jason Douglass.
Both Willmott Dixon and S&C Slatter recognise and support the benefits to be accrued of early supply chain involvement in project development..
Everton has become the latest high-profile football club to enjoy the benefits of new football turf facilities provided by sports construction specialists S&C Slatter. A full-size outdoor pitch and smaller indoor one at the club’s renowned USM Finch Farm Training Complex have been refurbished and upgraded with new FieldTurf CORE 42-17 football turf playing surfaces.
Prior to introducing the new systems, the company’s refurbishment technicians had to release, uplift and remove from site both the existing artificial grass surfaces and shock pads without causing disruption of the overall pitch structures.
Having completed the removal process and preparation of the sub-base formations, a new in situ-bound rubber shock pad was machine-laid to fine tolerances over each pitch footprint. This is a highly-skilled operation where attention to detail and vigilant supervision of quality assurance is paramount if one is to achieve the required finished specification.
However, S&C Slatter’s ISO 9001:2015 certified Quality Management System provides a control and monitoring framework for all projects; embracing the full range of on-site programmes and activities. This links with our on-going training and education commitment which ensures that all our team members benefit from regular appraisals and personal development courses.
Installed over the new shock pad systems is FieldTurf CORE 42-17 football turf which represents a genuinely revolutionary development in artificial grass technology. The fibre has a hardened centre for exceptional resilience and durability but a soft outer layer for optimum player comfort and interaction. This combination has prompted many to comment that CORE is the most exciting innovation we’ve seen for many years.
The completed full-size pitch has been independently tested and certified as compliant with the FIFA Quality performance standard while the indoor pitch meets the specified requirements of EN 15339-1.
S&C Slatter and manufacturing partner FieldTurf regularly work together on projects funded under the Football Foundation Framework and have earned a reputation for consistently building and delivering quality football pitches of the highest order. You will also have seen our pitches featuring regularly in televised FA Cup matches most recently at Haringey Borough and previously Maidstone United and Sutton United. In fact, four teams in this year’s first round ties have football turf stadium pitches built by S&C Slatter with FieldTurf playing systems.
Insightful presentations and discussion of artificial grass pitches led by a panel of acknowledged experts including World Rugby and FieldTurf together with Robert Lougee of Salesian College and Ben Grigor of Queen Ethelburga’s.
Plus a special presentation by Paul Wilson of the Harlequins Foundation on their METTLE mental health campaign.
Includes a buffet lunch and the opportunity to enjoy the excellent facilities of the Members Lounge.
Olympic Hockey Gold and Bronze medallist Helen Richardson-Walsh recently joined the Mayor of Brighton & Hove Councillor Dee Simson for the official opening of the superb new Roedean School hockey pitch constructed by S&C Slatter.
Helen, who along with her wife Kate, is a Sports Ambassador for the School, performed the time-honoured tradition of ‘cutting the ribbon’ and used the opportunity to encourage the pupils to take full advantage of the opportunity to practice and play on such a facility. She said that in her experience ‘it really will make a difference’.
The new pitch has been fittingly titled ‘Pitch Perfect’ by the school and is referred to as such on the Donors Board which the Mayor unveiled as part of the ceremony. It has been certified to the FIH National Performance Standard and features a FieldTurf Hockey Gold Elite artificial turf playing surface.
Great sensitivity and imagination were necessary in developing the design and construction specifications due to the technical challenge of the sloping cliff top location and the need to minimise any visual impact on the local environment. The solution developed by S&C Slatter focussed on an extensive cut and fill operation with a series of retaining walls creating construction footprints inset and modelled into the hillside.
Despite the huge amount of excavated material generated by the process, all was retained and re-used on site in accordance with the parameters set by the school and planning authority. This entirely removed the need for costly and disruptive disposal.
However, the hockey pitch is just part of a wider development completed by S&C Slatter which also included the complete refurbishment of the tennis court complex, the creation of a new natural grass sports pitch and the building of a formal tarmacadam car park and access road. A network of new pathways, transitions and hard standings have been formed to link all these elements.
The end result of the project is an outstanding and highly practical asset for the school.
The whole contract process was delivered by the S&C Slatter in-house Pre-Construction and Engineering teams with Contracts Manager Peter Fowler responsible for on-plan performance. Find out more in our Case Study.
Being good at what you do; having that recognised by others; growing as a successful business; being seen as a leader, is great. And at S&C Slatter we can rightly claim to have achieved all these things. It’s a testimony to the Slatter team – the skills, the experience, the motivation, the sheer hard work – to dynamic and determined management, and to investment in providing the right tools for the job.
But that’s not enough. We want to be the best. The very best Sports Construction & Civils Specialist there is. Today, tomorrow, every day. And that means constantly working to improve; to be even better. Throughout the company. In everything we do.
And why?
Because only by striving to always be the best we can, can we hope to offer the best possible product, the best possible service, the best possible value to our clients. And in doing so create the desire for others to come and see what makes us different from the ‘run of the mill’ and the ‘make do’.
So is this commitment working? Well, we took a ‘snapshot’ of what has happened in S&C Slatter in just the last couple of months. We wanted to see ‘real’ evidence of our improvement strategy showing as ‘real’ actions.
What we saw is:
That’s an investment of over a £1,000,000 in plant just in 2016.
We believe this shows how determined we are to deliver the best possible service through continual development as individuals and a team. Hardly surprising then that last month team members Stuart Wilkes and Toby Spearing both won awards from our client Willmott Dixon for outstanding personal performance on separate sports facility projects.
Having the right team with the right training, the right experience, the right resources, the right product and the right attitude genuinely helps us keep being the very best we can.
We’re delighted to announce that S&C Slatter has become an Independent Schools Association ISA Gold Preferred Supplier for the category of Sports Construction including Artificial Sports Pitches.
This appointment recognises our standing within the Independent Schools sector and confirms our commitment to work with the Association and its member schools in delivering the very highest standards of sport facility provision and aftercare.
ISA members value innovation and inspiration and aim to build on the best traditions to promote a range of qualities including integrity, industry and responsibility.
During the year the Association provides an extensive calendar of courses and events encompassing educational, personal development and networking opportunities. S&C Slatter aims to play an active part in the programme making available our substantial expertise and experience where a beneficial contribution can be made for member schools.
Over the last 25 years, the company has grown into the principal National specialist in artificial sports pitch construction with our work with leading Independent Schools providing a strong and acknowledged endorsement of our partnership approach to project delivery.
However in the last two years, we’ve extended our range of product and service reach still further, now offering a truly inclusive end to end project solution featuring key infrastructure elements such as enhanced user and spectator facilities, access roads and pathways, car parking, hard and soft landscaping and sustainable drainage systems (SuDS).
The first International Hockey Federation Certified Field Builder, S&C Slatter operates an ISO 9001 certified quality management system and is a member of UK ActIve, The Institute of Groundsmanship Corporate Plus and the Sports and Play Construction Association. The company carries EXOR Gold, SafeContractor, Constructionline, CHAS and Builder’s Profile accreditations and is a sponsor of Bucks SportsAid which looks to provide funding support for local young athletes.
S&C Slatter is also a Category A Supply Chain Partner to Willmott Dixon which confirms our ‘Preferred Supplier’ status and commitment to collaborative working during all stages of the construction process. Achieving continuous improvement in service performance and delivery is a particular goal of the relationship.
If you’re planning to build, refurbish or upgrade a sports or leisure facility, S&C Slatter as the Country’s leading single solution provider of inclusive construction services has to be the go-to choice.
However, did you know that S&C Slatter actually comprises of five specialist product service hubs, each created to deliver a specific set of in-house skills and resources?
With each hub being an acknowledged expert in its particular project specialism, you just know you’re getting the very best advice, skills and technology available.
And it’s supported by the extended S&C Slatter delivery team which is recognised, accredited and certified by a number of governing and advisory bodies. These embrace quality management systems (QMS), environmental management systems (EMS), procurement, supply chain management, risk management as well as sports and construction-specific performance standards.
This group structure offers our clients unparalled flexibility in selecting exactly the right range of services and expertise needed. If you just want our Design & Planning assistance; fine that’s the team you’ll work with. The same goes for Surfacing & Civils or any of the other service hubs. And if you need input from more than one team, just leave it to us to put together exactly the right package of services under the control of an S&C Slatter Project Manager designated explicitly for your project.
As well as being a very targeted approach to resource procurement it’s highly cost-efficient too.
Adrian Flemming, a specialist in Health & Safety and Quality Compliance has joined the S&C Slatter team as Health & Safety Manager as the company continues to build and extend its in-house expertise and resources.
Health and safety is a concern across all UK industries, but it’s of particular importance within the construction industry.
Whatever the aspect of construction – demolition, building, refurbishment, roadworks – construction sites can present risks beyond most other industry workplaces. Whilst no workplace has zero risk, there is an obvious and major difference between the risks presented at a construction worker’s place of work, in comparison with, for instance, a finance or retail worker’s workplace.
This is why S&C Slatter takes its Health & Safety responsibilities to its staff, clients and the general public very seriously and has certificated accreditations with EXOR Gold, Safecontractor and CHAS. This commitment and the company’s policy of pursuing a path of continual improvement has directly led to this key appointment.
Adrian is a highly qualified Health & Safety professional with specific senior management experience within the construction sector and armed forces. He is a Chartered Member of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (CMIOSH), Specialist Member of the International Institute of Risk and Safety Management (SIIRSM) and Associate Member of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (AIEMA).
In addition to spending a good deal of time on S&C Slatter’s active construction sites throughout the country monitoring and ensuring H&S compliance, Adrian will be working with the in-house Pre-Construction team in preparing client submissions and pre-works risk assessments, method statements and constructions phase plans.
On wider quality-related strategy, implementation of our quality and environmental management systems ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015 also comes under Adrian’s remit as QEMS Manager This again is an area within which he has a good deal of practical experience being a qualified Lead Auditor for both standards and ISO 18001.
S&C Slatter is a certified member of various PQQ and Compliance organisations including Constructionline Gold and Builder’s Profile and is the Independent Schools Association (ISA) Gold Preferred Supplier – Sports Construction including Artificial Sports Pitches.
