Show secretary’s report – Birmingham & District GSD Association

Where do I start!

It was certainly a show that will live in my memory forever. How you all kept my surprise a secret from me for such a long time is unbelievable. I had no idea. I even fell for the made-up incident that required me to leave the Secretary’s base and go to the far end of the field to deal with the complaint behind Polly’s van so that you could all assemble in front of the marquee. Everything was organised to perfection, even getting my son and partner up from London and also my God- daughter Laura to attend.

The speech made by Ann Davis was wonderful and my gifts were amazing. Yaris’ portrait has pride of place were I sit and can see it every day, my vouchers I have yet to spend but I want to get something permanent for the garden to remind me of you all. Unfortunately the bottles of whiskey and wine will not be kept but you can all be assured I will enjoy them as will the amazing cake made by Sheila Huntley. I am sure I will get a bit merry on the cake I know how much alcohol Sheila feeds her cakes with over the months it matures.

Thank you everyone!

Now I must go back to the shows.

After much stress caused by the Council and their predictions of bad publicity and adverse comments on social media, we had NONE. In fact the shows went off like clockwork, and everyone reported that they had only received positive comments from the general public.

The shows only run without problems due to the large amount of help I have from competitors. To judges and stewards who give up their day, thank you from myself and all the competitors, without you there would be no shows. Personally, I would like to thank everyone who helped in whatever way and however small, there are too many to name but you all know who you are. From the setting up of the show, booking in caravaners, parking day people, scent decoys, the girls in the marquee who kept the judges refreshments going and the girls in charge of serving the judges lunches, people who did shopping for me and run around the showground taking messages and then finally the dismantling of the show. Many, many thanks.

Huge thank you to Bryan Lukcock our Chief Steward, you always do a fantastic job and again we can report there were no incidents and hopefully should get an excellent report from the Field Officer (thanks for your help dealing with him).

Congratulations to all the winners. Good luck to the ticket winners when you compete at Crufts 2023.

Hope to see you all next year. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year.

Kathy Hood

Show Secretary’s Report – Elm Park

What a weekend. It started with losing the Chief Steward, then losing the Show Secretary, we also lost a ticket steward and PetNeeds, so had no trophies, and even the caterers were one man short. At least the weather was kind to us. After the threat of rain on Sunday, it turned out to be a lovely day.

The show ran smoothly as normal even with these hiccups as we have a very experienced team of people to help.

Thank you to Sandra Cobbold for stepping in to be Chief Steward. To Ian Appleton for stepping in my shoes as well as his own lol. To Kath Westell for making sure Ian didn’t mess it up too much. To Clare Jameson for stepping in to steward the ticket for Roy Neal at very short notice, despite only stewarding her first C recently.

Thank you to all the Elm Park gang, Jan Witham, Claire Bloomfield, Julia Tuck, Nicola Smith, Paula Kenny, Janet Long, Les Tolliday, Mick Johnson, Lyn Johnson, Kim Ford, Sue Starr, John Westell, Julie Enright, Sandra Barnes, Chrissie Gordon, Sue Stevens, Colin Sutton, Julie Phillips, Ewina and her daughter.
Thanks also to Vanda Fitter, Linda Plows, Myra McCarthy, Les Willis, Shawn McCarthy, Malcolm Hanlon for helping with the gate duties.
Thank you to all our judges, stewards and scoreboarders for giving up their day.

The other notable event of this weekend was Barry Fitter’s last judging appointment after 37 years of judging most weekends. There was a presentation at lunchtime on behalf of Elm Park and the wider obedience community. Thank you Barry for all your years of service to obedience.

Congratulations to all our ticket winners. Kamal Fernandez and Firetouch Super Girlie and Firetouch He’zz Kynda Hot, Trish Jones and Ob Ch Longwaves Cloudy Sky , Sue Monk and Ob Ch Ruskath Knockout Image and the winners of all our other classes. Very well done to you all.

I was very disappointed not to have been there this year but look forward to seeing everyone at Acorns or around the shows next year.
Good Luck to you all.

Cheers Julie Appleton