Everyone arrived back from the Manchester City match Saturday night and most took in a great tribute band at The Cavern Club as our final activity in Liverpool. Our minibus arrived at 6:00AM for our two and a half hour trip from Liverpool to Harrogate, where BIGGA's Continue to Learn education series awaited us.

Our package with BIGGA included 13 hours of paid education for each attendee, much of which was scheduled between Sunday and Tuesday, when the many free sessions kick in. The BIGGA programming staff and our own Eleanor Geddes back in Atlanta helped everyone pre-register for the classes they would attend. Printing off badges was fast and efficient and from an environmental standpoint each badge is provided without the standard plastic badge holder.

Alan Fitzgerald, Scott Pavalko and Seat Tully register with BIGGAs Elaine Jones. Look who's on the wall (above) looking at us: Brian Stiehler, CGCS MG, sole 2017 recipient of BIGGA's Master Greenkeeper designation.

Trip participants were excited to start the education. Many of this years speakers are familiar to American superintendents, and include Micah Woods of the Asian Turfgrass Center, Penn State's Mike Fidanza, and Beth Guertal from Auburn. 

Royal Hall: quite a setting for a turf conference.

The BTME Turf Managers' Conference was held in the nearby Majestic Hotel.

Offering more than 250 hours of turf education, Continue to Learn at BTME is the largest single turf education program outside of the United States,