Chairman’s Report AGM 2006

I cannot believe a whole year has passed since we were last here at the AGM when Dave Jolly retired as Chairman. Since then so much has happened within the Club that the time has simply flown past.

My first, and very pleasurable duty as Chairman of Thames Dog Training Club, was to go to Crufts and cheer on our Team of John Cook with Paddy, Linda Cook with George, Roger Griffin with Willow, and Dave Jolly with Dudley. Not content with just qualifying to compete at Crufts, our team went on to qualify for the Crufts Team final, and came away with a very creditable 3rd place. I am sure I speak for everyone here in saying “Congratulations on a job well done.”

One of the reasons we are still here at the Sea Scout’s Hut, is that we were unsuccessful in our attempts to secure the lease over Ockwells Park as a home for our Obedience section. The demands placed upon the Club to maintain the actual building as well as the running of the café in the Ockwells Park building and maintenance of toilets, and other stipulations dictated to us by the Council, we felt, as a Committee, that this was not in the Club’s best interest, and before any further monies were spent chasing this dream, we should walk away from it, which is what we did. It was not an easy decision to come to, and I would personally like to thank all those members who have taken the time to speak to myself and other members of the committee, commenting that we made the right decision. Our search for a new Obedience venue continues once more.

If anyone knows of any suitable venues that we could use for the Club’s benefit, PLEASE can they let us know!!

Whilst on the subject of Obedience, 2005 was an exceptional year for Thames DTC Obedience section. Our show in Ockwells Park in September was a great success, and again we were blessed with good weather.

The back-to-back weekend show we have with the British Association of German Shepherd dogs seems to be a big favourite with many competitors from around the Southeast of England with the number of entrants (and caravans) growing bigger and bigger each year. A big thank you must be given to our show secretary Becky Coleman, Sandra Curry and Teresa Davies, members, family and friends for making it such a great weekend and setting the standards for others to follow.

Although we are still actively looking for a larger hall, as I mentioned just now, we are still attracting, and maintaining a good level of members to the club who wish to continue with their obedience training classes. Last year we ran 6 puppy foundation courses and each course was fully booked. Most of those attending came from recommendations from members, or other people who have taken the course. We also held our second Kennel Club Good Citizen dog scheme awards. We had 13 members passing the Bronze and 8 passing the silver awards. This year we will continue with the programme for our members and hopefully hold the Gold awards later this year.

We have also introduced this year, an assessment nights for our members, which is all about giving the handlers encouragement and confidence when entering shows. In fact, last Monday, we held our first assessment night, the winner of the beginner class was Heather Hasler with Finley, and the winner in the advance class was Marie Stalker with Bethan. Congratulations to them both, and many thanks to our President, Pam for judging the first one.

Again, we must thank the instructors at obedience for giving up their free time to the club and making the training fun and enjoyable for everyone involved. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Norma Summersby and Margaret Yerby for arranging the obedience Christmas party and games, and thank everyone who attended and helped making it a very enjoyable and memorable evening. Margaret is also progressing well, assisting Teresa in her class with the view of becoming an instructor in the future.

Also in 2005, Thames club founded the “Three Counties Shield” obedience club match which was held at Ockwells Park in April. The other clubs invited to compete were Cippenham, Hampton, Surrey, Basingstoke, Marlow and Reading Branch of BAGSD’s dog training clubs. Hampton DTC coming out on top on this occasion.

The purpose of the match is to help guide new people into the sport. Everybody had a great day and from the turn out, we received a number of encouraging responses from those who attended. Marion Brocklesby ran the raffle which also helped boost the charity account, we are now planning to make this an annual event.

Finally for the Obedience section, we offer our congratulations to Sandra Curry, Mike Turley, Becky Coleman and Steve Devaney who took and passed the Kennel Club judging examination this weekend.

Our Agility section continues to thrive, and major thanks must go to all of our trainers who give up their time to help. Without you, we would not have the success we have, and certainly not the strength of Club that we enjoy. My thanks go to every one of you.

We felt, as a Committee that the time had come to introduce some “new blood” into the Agility section. For the first time in several years we ran a course for beginner handlers and this proved to be a huge success. Several members of the course are now full Club members, and continuing to take great strides in their agility ability, to the point that they are now competing on a regular basis at the Inter Club Winter League. Their points gained in the Nursery Classes have helped, and together with all the places and points gained by our “Senior, more experienced” handlers enabled Thames to win the overall Trophy once again.

The competition from the other clubs gets stronger each year, and the points totals get closer, but Thames seems able to rise to the challenge each year, and come up trumps.On the subject of successes, several of our members have taken their dogs to the higher echelons qualifying out of the lower classes. Some memorable moments come to mind!!

Lucy Clifton and Kip winning out of Starters – Andy Wells and Sky doing the same – The look on Gordon Annis’s face when he realised at Supadogs last year, that he had won out of starters, and that his wife Chris would probably kill him for doing so. (I am very pleased to see that Gorgon is still with us!!) Freddie with John Cook won into senior, and in less than six months of competing. Sam Thorne and Fudge had a super season, winning into Senior and to make the task harder for herself, Sam did this whilst adding to her offspring count!!  We welcome Jez to the world and no doubt, with his brother Jake they will be Thames stars of the future!

Luke Finlay-Maxwell had a cracking year and gained several clear rounds and places with Dillon, the best of which were winning the Starters at Winter League, and a 1st & 2nd place at a UKA Starters show.  My own wife, Carol actually managed to hold Xada in control long enough to win a Novice agility, qualifying her into senior!! I am not sure she actually believes it, since at the last diploma night she was still telling the scrimers that Xada was in Novice!! Well done to Sally for spotting her deliberate mistake!!

Once again Olympia had a representative from Thames in the shape of Roger Griffin and Willow – another team who qualified senior this year. Very well done to everyone who has had successes this year, and my apologies to anyone I have missed, so many have been those successes.

Diploma Nights this year were very well supported, and possibly this was due to the quality of our judges - Ava, Jeff, Chris Annis, Caroline Braddock, Helen Cook and Jim Cook. I thought they all went well - we had some very good courses and I hope everyone enjoyed them. To add some spice and a twist in the tail, we have added for 2006 a “Champions” class at the very end, where the winners of the Nursery, Novice, Intermediate and Senior classes run off to be the Champions on the night. It gives the newer handlers a taste of pressure competition and our more advanced handlers’ absolute pressure at not being beaten by one of the lower class winners!!!

At the start of this year all our heights of the equipment changed in line with the New Kennel Club regulations.

Jeff Holloway, Richard Flint, Graham Tappin & Gemma Walker spent the whole of a Sunday in October changing the jump cup and A frame heights. They were amply supported by Ava who kindly volunteered to make the tea and coffee and eat, sorry, supply the doughnuts.

I would like to thank them all for giving up their day to do this for us.

This year we will be replacing 2 sets of weaves and adding additional cups to the jumps to produce another height between the current medium and large heights.The cloth tunnel developed a small tear in it and apparently Jeff’s mother-in-law, Daphne Boulton, was press ganged into repairing it! - Many thanks to her for doing this. Our special thanks must go to Robert Tappin for finally sorting out the welding on the see-saw. Jeff says that his little soldering iron just wasn’t strong enough!! A special plea from Jeff follows: One of the biggest jobs we have at Club at the moment is painting the container! (Yes Dave, even on your committee it wasn’t done!!) It was primed and the rust removed back in 2004, unfortunately as a top coat was never put on, this needs to be done again and painted with a finishing coat. If anyone has a couple of hours spare on the weekend of the 18th & 19th March, please can they let Jeff know as I know he will appreciate the help!!

Our Agility show in June last year was, I am reliably informed, the largest weekend agility show in the world. The success of this show is solely down to a fantastic team of people who work tirelessly both before and during the show. Several people, I believe deserve special thanks for what they do to make the Thames show the legend it is.

I know that Ava could not have survived without the help of Kate Austin. Ava says that without the countless phone calls, advice and experience of Kate, Ava could not have done the job.

John Cook will probably tell me exactly just how many campers we had at the show. Each and every one of the caravans was in a marked up pitch put down by John and his team.

Lynn Finlay-Maxwell and her team of helpers, including Joyce, Ann Munro and Lucy kept all the judges and helpers fed and watered during the lunches with a positive banquet.

All our ring managers kept the rings running smoothly and it was the responsibility of Chris Annis and Elaine Skilton to get the drinks and refreshments out to them. A task made a little easier by the use of the golf buggies. The less said about the buggy I had running out of petrol the better!! So very many people help run this show, I am bound to forget someone, so I would just like to say how much everyone’s help is appreciated, and a huge “Thank you” from me and the Committee.

This has been a superb year for fundraising, and we have raised in excess of £1400  for our chosen charities. Teresa and Peter have asked me to say a few words on their behalf by way of thanks:

Firstly John for supplying the materials and building the jumps for the two auctions at winter league.

Norma for her beautiful cakes (Apparently Daisy and Millie very much enjoyed the chocolate Christmas cake!!!!!!)

Ava for the supplying the wine and wine boxes, To everyone who ran the raffle at the first winter league this season

Barbara Poole for her help in selling quiz sheets at the gate at the agility show and Kate and her “marking team” for marking the completed sheets and finally everyone who has donated prizes & bought raffle tickets which has made this year such a success for our nominated charities.

On both a Social and Fundraising note, Ava organised our Christmas skittles evening which was well attended with 40 members from both the Agility and Obedience sections. Instead of a raffle we had a Bus Stop challenge as a way of fund raising. Sally and Peter managed to fill two cards, and if memory serves me right, the Griffin family scooped the lot!! Obviously Roger and Jackie's Mum, Pat, use far more public transport than the rest of us!!

At last, our web site is now up and running, for those who have access to a computer the address is www.thamesdtc.co.uk . If any members have any suggestion, photos, additional information or related links to other sites, please let Steve Devaney know so he can include them on our site. The password for the member’s pages is 8382 (Thames Dog Training Club in your mobile)

Can I take this opportunity to thank all of the Club’s trainers, both in Agility and Obedience. At the end of my report, please can you come up and receive your voucher by way of thanks for giving up your time to help all the rest of us.

Alison Jolly, Barbara Poole, Dave Jolly, Jeff Holloway, Roger Griffin, Carol Dicker, Graham Tappin, Kate Austin, Russell Hempston, Ann Munro, Chris Annis, Jackie Griffin, Sam Thorne, Ava Holloway, Daniel Gee, Jan Merrill, Veronica Brown, Virginia Harry, Lynn Findlay Maxwell, Peter Edney, Teresa Davies, Sandra Curry, Steve Devaney, Pam Albrow, Marion Brocklesby and Margaret Yerby.

Finally, my personal thanks must go to our Committee. They are, Steve Devaney – Vice Chairman, Ava Holloway – Secretary, Elaine Skilton – Treasurer, Carol Dicker, Sandra Curry, Jeff Holloway, Graham Tappin, Richard Flint, Sally Edney, Peter Edney and Teresa Davies. Thank you for all the time and effort you have put into the smooth running of our Club, and can I ask you all to come up in a minute and accept your vouchers.

[Peter and Sally have very kindly asked not to accept their Committee vouchers, but to put it in their name as a contribution to the Thames Charity fund] Thank you very much Peter and Sally for this generous donation.]

Peter has decided not to be re-elected this year, and so my personal thanks go to him, and especially for starting off the charity fund with his generous donation.

I wish each and every one of you, and all the Members of our Club, the very best of luck and all success for the forthcoming year.

Andrew Dicker

Chairman