To celebrate the Grounds Management Association’s (GMA) ‘Grounds Week’, we're promoting the GMA’s new online ‘Grounds Management Toolkit’, a training resource to support volunteers who maintain sports pitches.

This new website consolidates information from the Sport England ‘Groundsmanship’ website and has re-shaped some of its written content into short videos and easy-to-digest seasonal guides. These are of particular focus during Grounds Week from Monday 1st to Sunday 7th March, the first-ever week celebrating the hard work of all who work in the turf care sector.

By relaunching the website, the GMA aim to continue increasing the skills and capabilities of practicing, and future, grounds volunteers. The resources also help the general public to engage further with common practices involved in grounds maintenance and to understand how to help get pitches ready for players across their community.

The toolkit follows the launch of GMA Level 1 and Level 2 online courses, with modules covering the basic grounds maintenance tasks required at grassroots level. Jason Booth of the GMA said: “We know that volunteers can sometimes only offer a few hours of their time each week, or that some local clubs struggle to find regular grounds volunteers. Without pitches, there is no sport.”

The ‘Grounds Management Toolkit’, funded by Sport England and Other Media, can be accessed for free via this link. To upskill your knowledge through GMA training courses, or for more information on bespoke training sessions, visit the Grounds Management Association's website or E-Mail learning@thegma.org.uk.