Chairman’s Report AGM 2008

Looking back over the reports I have given to the Membership at the AGMs one thing stood out above all others and that was my continuous plea to help find a new home for our Obedience section. Ladies and Gentlemen, look around you at our new Obedience home! Aren’t we spoiled now! And something else I have noticed – we are not all sat here shivering!

At the end of last year I was privileged to be invited to Holland to judge at their Obedience show. The venue we were at was a purpose built, single story hall that had ample car parking facilities, a lovely indoor training area, a bar, toilets and a kitchen, all about the same size as this hall we are in now. It also had a small field attached to it, about the size of the area at Burchett’s Green, which was kept clean and mowed by its members for either small summer shows or agility training days.

I am still determined that we should have a home that we can call our own; somewhere we can show and store our trophies, hold meetings and have social events. I especially like the idea of having a bar at training venues!!!

I have asked Steve Devaney, Head of Obedience to make some comments about the Obedience section, and so I take this opportunity to read out what he has reported.

What a year, and another brilliant show and the weather was kinder to us this year, ideal for working dogs. The Monday before the show we asked for helpers to come down to the club to help prepare the judges packs, send out the running orders and prepare the score board sheets, a task that would normally take the best part of the evening to finish, so many people offered to help it took 55 minutes from start to finish, a brilliant effort by members friends and family, thank you to you all.

Although this was the fourth year we've held the Obedience show at the Maidenhead venue nothing is left to chance, everybody really works well together and all the jobs get done as if by magic, thanks to Sandra Curry, Becky Coleman and Teresa Davies who continue to excel and making the show back-to-back with BAGSD the success it is. From the comments of many of the competitors attending, “A WEEKEND NOT TO BE MISSED.”

Thanks must also go out to Carol Dicker for putting the judges’ refreshments together, Pat Devaney, and Mary Harman for helping out at the stay ring before providing the afternoon tea and cakes for the judges and stewards, Marian Brockelsby for her bric-a-brac stall raising money for our charity account. Thanks to the members who work behind the scenes tirelessly all day organising the parking, stay stewards, ring stewarding, or just being around if needed. Its comforting to know that where the amount of shows are falling each year due to the lack of help, its a huge relief to find so many people, members, non-members, family, friends and people from other clubs are willing to turn up to help during the day, even if it was for a few hours, before and after the show. Finally, not forgetting the Maidenhead and Windsor Council who continue to allow Thames Dog Training Club the exclusive use of Ockwells Park for our show.

2008 has started on a brighter note as well. Teresa Davies managed to secure Knowl Hill Village Hall as the new training venue, bigger, brighter, warmer, cleaner and ample parking, MANY thanks Teresa. And keep an eye out for her in the Maidenhead Advertiser who have recently done a feature on her having been selected to represent the Southern area team in the Inter Regional obedience competition at Crufts on the 6^th March, well done.

At the moment, considering the cramped conditions we've endured at the Sea Cadets Hall, each class is full and thriving. We are grateful to Mark Painter, Nicola Rebbeck and Margaret Yerby who are learning to be our future instructors, the enthusiasm and commitment by everybody concerned is comforting for the future success of the club. Thanks to Mark Painter and Linda Odell for organising our Obedience Christmas party, it was a great success, lots of fun and everybody had a great time.

Also 2008 will be our first Championship show, looking back over the last few years, nobody would have thought that the club would surpass to this level, Championship Agility, and now Obedience. Therefore I hope that nobody books any weddings, holidays, Barmitzfahs etc. for the 6^th September and make our first Championship show one to remember.

The club has a bright future with the ingredients of a good, strong and committed committee, enthusiastic membership, as well as providing up-to-date training courses for our instructors. Again, thanks to everybody who make the training nights, shows and social evenings such a success.

Thank you for your report Steve.

Our Agility section continues to thrive with all the classes at all levels once again being full, 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.

Having said that…

I used the phrase in last year’s report - “Bad news and Good news in the Agility section!!” Well I am sorry to say I have to say it again. Bad news first: Our Agility Winter League performance was the worst on record. Unfortunately for this type of competition we are a “top heavy” club with many of our handlers in the top graded classes. We have very few in the nursery and beginner classes and so effectively throw away possible points there. Our “seniors” blew the top classes apart taking the first 5 out of 6 places on several occasions.

And now the Good news bit!! Many 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 with Pie and Natasha Wise with Maddie flew the Thames flag Novice and Senior Finals respectively at Olympia this year. Congratulations to you both on getting there. Our own Kate Austin was invited to be the Agility Judge at this highly prestigious event and had the very hard job of setting and judging courses in the massive Olympia arena that would please the competitors and thrill the Olympia audience of many thousands (not forgetting the Television Audiences). She did a fantastic job. Very well done Kate.

During the year John Cook and Freddy and James Cook and Panda won into the elite Advanced/Grade 7 group. We wish them all the best in the Championship class, as we do to all of our Club members in that top Class, and indeed, to all the other members in Grades 1 - 6.

We have several members competing at Crufts this year, Natasha Wise in the Agility Championship with Maddie, Lu Candy-Carter with Tyke and Stuart Carter with Storm in the Team event, Daniel Gee & Meg represent South Africa in the International Agility Competition and as Steve’s report said earlier, Teresa Davies and Lu represent the South Of England in the Obedience Inter Regional competition. The very best of luck to them all.

As the Chairman of Thames Dog Training Club I feel immensely proud of the work that was done to make our show “the best show ever” (as said to me by one competitor). A show of this size has to have an organising Committee that knows what it is doing. I honestly believe that each and every one of the teams within the Show Committee is simply the best there is. At the Agility Club’s 25th Anniversary Gala, Thames was nominated in the top three best Agility shows. After a phone vote over a number of weeks, we were beaten by Wirral Club’s show. At least we KNOW we are the best, and we don’t owe BT a small mortgage now!! And whilst on the subject of the Agility Club awards, huge congratulations to Dave Jolly on being voted the Best Agility Judge and to Jenny Lovegrove in being nominated in the top three in that category, also done on a phone vote.

The social events of the quiz night and skittles evening were well attended and a lot of fun, and my thanks go to Committee members Alison, Norma and Ava for organising them. Now that we have access to this superb facility, we look forward to having more regular events for the Club and the Members to enjoy. Further news on this for next year will appear in the newsletters.

And on the subject of newsletters, our Editor-in-chief, Sally Edney, continues to compile newsletters that are up there with the classics…. War and Peace was only a couple of pages longer than one of the editions I seem to recall!! In an effort to be greener as well as save the club some money, the membership form this year has a facility to put your email address on. We would like to send out as many newsletters as possible by email, or have them downloadable from the Club’s website. Please can you indicate on the membership form that you would rather the newsletter sent out by email, rather than by post.  Bearing in mind the size of some of Sally’s compilations, broadband would be advisable!

This has been another cracking year for the fundraisers - we have raised in excess of £1400 for our chosen charities. Teresa Davies and Norma Summersby have been responsible for all the fundraising coordination throughout this year, and I am sure you will all agree with me that they have done a fantastic job.

Sam Thorne produced another future Thames Member this year, and we welcome to the Thames family, little baby Isabel. You need just one more Sam, and then you can run your own team at YKC!!

Gemma Walker and Graham Tappin got married just before Christmas, and shortly afterwards, tragically lost their unborn daughter, Jessica. One often forgets in this modern world that Life can be so very fragile. A collection was taken at Club, and, what became known as the “Jessica Fund” raised a fantastic £250 in quite literally a matter of days. 

It is because of baby Jessica that members have asked us to include SANDS (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society) on the voting form for you to decide on for the Nominated Charities for this coming year.

In a club of our size, it goes without saying that the trainers in each section are one of the reasons we are as successful as we are. By way of thanks to them for this year, and after the success of last year, what would be of benefit to them most would be specialised training with top trainers in there respective disciplines. We were privileged to have David Munnings and Traci Gaunt to train the agility trainers, and Neil Short, one of the top Obedience handlers and trainers help the Obedience trainers. From the feedback received, I believe that those who were able to attend benefited immensely. We are looking to do more of the same during the year and in doing so their training would filter down and benefit the other club members they are teaching.   

Running a Club of this size takes an immense amount of hard work and time, and so my personal thanks, as always, must go to your Committee. They are, Steve Devaney – Vice Chairman, Ava Holloway – Secretary, Sandra Curry – Treasurer, Carol Dicker, Jeff Holloway, Graham Tappin, Gemma Tappin, Sally Edney, Andy Wells, Alison Wells, Norma Summersby and Teresa Davies. Thank you for all the time and effort you have put into the smooth running of our Club and for all your support. Andy and Teresa have decided to take a break from organising and fundraising. Thank you both for all you have done.

One final thing, and not wanting to steal the Madam Treasurers thunder, I would just like to make some comments about an item coming up later. We have been very fortunate over the past few years to have a membership system that meant we paid very little, relatively speaking, per week to train our dogs. The cost of that membership has remained the same for some years now. Unfortunately, the BCA our Agility venue, has effectively increased by 15% as we no longer get a 15% discount for long term hire, and the Obedience venue has effectively increased by 60% from £10/hour at the scout hut to £16/hour at this beautiful hall. We may also need to take an extra hour for training at the BCA to basically stop the livery horse owners using the venue before us in the time we normally take to set equipment up. We have ridden our luck on this matter for a number of years, but as the number of livery horses increases at the BCA, I feel that our luck may soon run out. To put this into perspective, one handler attending regularly with two dogs at each discipline would in effect pay 51p per class at the new proposed rates.

Overall it has been an excellent year for the Club. Our Obedience section has found a new home, as I mentioned just now, and to cap everything off for them, we have finally been granted Championship status for our Obedience show. All we need now are fit dogs, fit owners and loads of good weather…

…. So 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

Thames Dog Training Club