Chairman’s Report for the AGM - 2010

Well! What a year this has been! I don’t believe that in 49 years of Thames’ history we have enjoyed so much success in all fields.

I am going to break with tradition at the start of my report and on behalf of all of you say a huge “Thank You” to all of our trainers, both in Obedience and in Agility. We are exceptionally fortunate to have excellent trainers and a trainers’ training program that is constantly encouraging new trainers into the fold. Steve Devaney and Sandra Curry from Obedience, and Carol Dicker and Natasha Wise from Agility; thank you all for setting this training program up for the benefit of us all.

The reason for thanking the trainers first will, I hope become apparent as we see the successes in all parts of the club, from Grade 1 to 7 and Pre-beginner to “C”.

Just after the AGM last year Tag and I were privileged to be part of the Thames Dog Training Club Large Dog Agility Team at Crufts, together with Jeff Holloway and Meg, Kate Austin and Mirk, Dave Jolly and Moss and the reserves Lucy Clifton and Pie and Carol Dicker and Xada. Up against stiff competition we managed to qualify through to the finals in the evening. The course set by the judge was tricky and full of traps, one of which in particular was catching all the teams out. The three teams who ran before us all had at least one elimination, or 200 faults, and as the last team to go we had the victory in the palm of our hands. Dave ran first with Moss and put in a stunning performance and I was next with Tag. I avoided the trap that all the other teams had been caught out on and the rest was plain sailing....... right up until Tag decided to take the wrong course. I cannot blame him really; I did work him particularly badly at that point! 200 points for us too, and now it was a straight race. Jeff was next with Meg and sadly missed a contact and had a pole down, so we had lost the 1^st place, and Kate with Mirk finished the relay off for us, another stunning round!! We shouldn’t be disappointed really, after all, 100s of teams enter this competition and we made it to the last 4 teams in the final. And coming second overall is by far our best ever achievement. All I can say to the rest of the team and the Club is “Sorry Guys! – I will try harder next time!”

Speaking of next time, I am very pleased to say we have another shot at it this year. This time the team consists of Roger Griffin and Ray, Lucy Clifton and Pie and Alan Smith and Chase, me and Tag, and the reserves of Jeff Holloway and Harry and Danielle Smith and Ollie. It is a huge deal qualifying for Crufts in any discipline, but as a Team it is something quite special.

Also competing at Crufts this year from Thames is Daniel Gee & Meg who represent South Africa in the International Agility Competition. Natasha Wise with Maddie and Dizzy should be competing in the large and Medium Championship events; Maddie having won the Agility Club Championship and Dizzy six Champ classes, I think, including the first three Championship classes once she had qualified. Kennel Club rules prohibit Natasha from competing at Crufts this year since she is one of the judges, but they have kindly let her compete in lieu in 2011. As I alluded to it already, Natasha is actually judging the Team event at Crufts this year!! You may have noticed how nice we have been to her since we first found out!! Seriously though, Good luck to everyone up there and bring us back some trophies!! Tasha……. Have a brilliant time!!!

Staying with Natasha and Agility, who will forget that weekend when she competed in Austria in the Agility World Championships. Having been robbed the previous year by an outrageous judging decision, Natasha put in two stunning rounds and came home as the Agility WORLD Champion. In a sport where winners are decided by hundredths or even thousandths of a second, Natasha beat the rest of the world by a staggering 4.5 seconds!!

If I may, I will quote Steve Croxford, Great Britain Team Manager and Kennel Club General Committee member who said at the time:

“Natasha Wise and Dizzy ARE World Champions. How good does that sound - especially after last year when she came so close to winning. Two near perfect rounds from one of the UK's best handlers, and certainly one of the best dogs, if not the best agility dog in the world, handled by one of the nicest people on the planet.”

Who am I to disagree with that?

In June we had our Agility show - it is without doubt, the largest two day agility show in the world. As a Club, I think we all deserve a massive pat on the back for another very successful Agility show, and our biggest one yet!

Can I , as Show Manager thank our Show Committee: Ava Holloway, Jeff Holloway, Sally Edney, Veronica Brown, Carol Dicker, Kate Austin, Dave Jolly, Lynn F-M and  Norma Summersby. On their behalf can I say a huge “Thank you” to all our members, their friends and families who were roped in to help us out at the show. We cannot do it without you, and it certainly would not be as successful as it is if you weren’t there. The feedback by way of emails, phone calls and in person at shows always makes it a very special feeling to be part of such a wonderful Club that we are.

At this point of proceedings I would like to read Steve Devaney’s report concerning the Obedience section:

“On behalf of the Thames Obedience Show Committee I would like to thank firstly the members who worked their socks off preparing the scoreboards, running orders the Monday prior to the show, and then throughout the weekend. Secondly, family, friends, helpers and many people who just turn up each year to help at our obedience show, thank you all. I've said this on many occasions, and I'm going to take this opportunity to say it again, without your help over the weekend it wouldn't be the success and enjoyable weekend it is. Again we had a number of people, competitors, and judges who expressed their thanks and appreciation in person for putting on a great show.

Although we have to make minor changes to the ring plan each year, nothing is left to chance. In 2010 we will have to change it again because the council has planted some shrub beds where our stay rings were and an additional play area around where the catering vehicle normally parks. However, everybody really works well together and all the jobs get done. Thanks to Sandra Curry, Becky Coleman and Teresa Davies who continue to excel in making the show back-to-back with BAGSD the success it is, even though we clashed with two other shows this year we were only slightly down on entries, it must be that everybody knows it's a great weekend at Thames with an excellent venue.

Thanks must also go out to Carol Dicker and Lynda Lewis for putting the judges’ refreshments together, Pat Devaney and Mary Harman for helping out at the stay ring before providing the now traditional and much talked about afternoon tea and cakes for the judges and stewards. Marian Brockelsby for her bric-a-brac stalls 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. We count ourselves very lucky to have such help when some clubs suffer so much with only a few people willing to do the work. Finally, we must not forget to thank the Maidenhead and Windsor Council who continue to allow Thames Dog Training Club the exclusive use of Ockwells Park for our show.

The Obedience section of the Club itself is going from strength to strength. At the moment we have five full classes held on a Monday night. This is unusual for an obedience club and we now have a waiting list of people waiting for a place at the club. I can only put this down to the high standard of instructors and assistant instructors we have, together with the enthusiasm and commitment by everybody concerned. I believe this is comforting for the future success of our club.

2009 was an exceptional year for the club winning three of the four classes at the Four Counties Shield held at Newbury in April. Thames was also invited to compete at the Hampshire Rally for the first time in May, again an outstanding performance by those taking part coming third in the Senior Cup, fourth in the Junior Cup, and fourth overall, congratulations and thank you to all those members who represented Thames Dog Training Club in 2009. We also had a very successful year for those taking part in competitions at open or championship shows. In 2008 we recorded 104 place wins throughout the year, this was surpassed by an outstanding effort by our members by winning 152 place wins for 2009, who knows what 2010 will bring.

Although it is always very busy at the club we managed to fit in The Kennel Club Good Citizens Bronze Awards in November. Fifteen dogs and handlers taking part and judged by our Chairman Andrew Dicker and assisted by Margaret Yerby. All fifteen dogs passed the awards with no dogs failing. The following week we held the KC Silver Awards. This was judged by Enid Diplock assisted by John Diplock. This time we had eighteen dogs taking part and all dogs passed with no failures, another reflection of the excellent instructors we have at the club that everybody passed the Bronze and Silver Awards at the first attempt. Finally, I would like to thank Enid, John, Margaret and Jane for organising a wonderful Christmas party for the dogs, Marilyn and Ray for providing the food for the evening and Lizzie and Liz for coming up with novel games ideas to make it fun for everybody. We had an excellent time and over 800 photographs were taken during the evening (a selection of them are on the website). Thanks to everybody involved.

I know Andrew would have liked me to have kept my report about the obedience section at our club short it was very hard when so much is happening. The club continues to have a bright future with the ingredients of a good leadership, 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.

Steve Devaney - Obedience coordinator

Keeping tally of who has won what and when in each discipline, for me at least, is very difficult! Certainly in Agility we have a plethora of handlers who are grade 5 and above and relatively speaking, not that many at the lower grades. Whilst this is a testament to the trainers as I mentioned before, it did cause us some grief at this year’s Winter league! We managed to come last out of 5 clubs. This doesn’t mean that we are the worst club, only that the scoring system of the Winter League does us no favours! The “Committee” of the Winter League is a law unto itself as I am sure our co-ordinator Alison Wells will verify! I know she has put some ideas to that “committee” in order to make the playing field a little more level for next year.... in our favour! Let’s see what happens!

In the July edition of the Newsletter we sent out a “poll” concerning membership fees and what you, the members thought of them and how the Club should be funded. The results made for some interesting reading. I have to say I was a little disappointed by the 44% return – I had hoped it would be more. Nevertheless, the Committee discussed the results at great length, and believe we have come up with a fairer system which results in a far smaller increase in membership fees than we had initially anticipated. In item 9 of this meeting we can have a closer look at it and hope you agree with the Committee’s recommendations.

On the Social side, we had hoped for a Barn Dance but as there were very few takers for that, we had a quiz instead! Dave Jolly, fresh from his local judging appointment in New Zealand, kindly stepped in as quizmaster as I was otherwise engaged judging in Holland! I gather it was a very entertaining evening and grateful thanks go to Norma Summersby and her team of helpers, Mark Painter and Alison Wells for coordinating the evening.

Carol Dicker organised a very intuitive demonstration on Galen Myotherapy with two practitioners, Sara Bennett and Gemma Mitchell showing us how and why we should warm up and massage our dogs both pre and post training and competition. I am in contact with Sara to do a further demonstration for a small number of handlers and their dogs to teach us specific techniques and how to massage specific to each discipline. I will keep you posted as to when this will happen.

Alison, Norma & Mark were also responsible for causing me to lose far too much money with our second Race Night. That too was an immense amount of fun. Thank you all for setting these evenings up for the Members – They are great way for us all to let our hair down and raise money, both for the Club and for our Charities at the same time.

Ava Holloway, our esteemed Club Secretary was instrumental in organising an evening of Cabaret with Mary Ray. I for one found it very educational, amusing and, dare I say it, humbling, especially when I was called upon to do my own dance routine... with Ozzie, Mary’s Sheltie!!! Thank you to all of you who called out for me to do that, and I am willing to pay good money to destroy photos of me and Ozzie dancing and restore my reputation!!

This has been another superb year for the fundraisers - we have raised £2277.37 for this year’s charities which Dogs Trust, Thames Valley Chiltern Ambulance, Berkshire Search and Rescue & Blue Cross.

Norma Summersby and Margaret Yerby and their team have been responsible for most of the fundraising coordination throughout this year, and I am sure you will all agree with me that they have done a fantastic job. There is, however, one person who does more for charity and in particular to our charities and she deserves a special mention - that is Marion Brocklesby. Marion has regularly raised well over £500 every year with her various walks and bric-a-brac stalls. I know it is not trophy time yet, but can I ask Pam Albrow, our President, to come up and present Marion with this gift with grateful thanks from everyone at Thames, and especially the many charities that she has helped.

This coming year is a special year for the Club, we will be 50 years old; I hope that as a Club we will have some special occasions and gatherings to celebrate. We are always looking for new ideas for entertaining the members, so, as it is your club, if you do have any ideas of evenings, days out or anything else that might be fun for you all, please can you let us know so we can look into it and get it organised.

In order to facilitate mass communication, can you please make sure that you have your correct email address and mobile number, as well as all the other information, on your membership forms. Certainly in terms of sending out the newsletters and other such items, correct details are essential in order to preserve postal funds and be greener!

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, Shirly Fastnedge, Margaret Yerby, Carol Dicker, Alison Wells, Norma Summersby, Sally Edney, Mark Painter, Jeff Holloway and Natasha Wise

Thank you for all the time and effort you have put into the smooth running of our Club and for all your support. Two of the Committee have asked not to be re-elected and they are Jeff Holloway and Shirly Fastnedge. The more observant of you will realize that we haven’t seen Shirly for some months now. She is currently battling against a personal illness, and we all wish her a speedy recovery. Jeff retires after many years of service working tirelessly behind the scenes repairing equipment or painting containers amongst other things!! Thank you both for all your hard work over your time on the Committee.

Overall it has been another excellent year for the Club. We are at capacity in both disciplines and thanks to our excellent trainers, continue to make progress at all levels.

…. It just remains for me to 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, our 50^th Anniversary.