By Sarah Wheeler
What a fantastic weekend we had! The sun shone and the venue looked fantastic.
It all started last Friday with the arrival of our huge marquee and spotlessly clean loos. Both are a significant investment for our small Club, but I think you will agree that they both made a huge difference to the overall feel and running of the Show this year. Thanks must go to our lovely suppliers; Tops Marquees and TULU.
Huge thanks must also go to the Events Team at Berkshire College of Agriculture (BCA) led by Danielle Tikare. Danielle is new in post and could not have been more helpful if she tried. The condition of the show ground has been greatly improved, and she even asked how close we would like the grass cut in millimetres!! I think you will all agree that it was a vast improvement on last year.
Now to the important bit, thanks must also go to all of you.
To our judges, stewards, scoreboarders and scribes who all gave up their time to come and support our Show. Without you our Show wouldn’t have happened and for that we are very grateful. Your professionalism, calm manner and sound advice was much appreciated by all competitors. Having you all on board, made our life so much easier.
The Stay Ring was in safe hands with Charlie Webley at the helm. His team of volunteers worked so hard all day and it was lovely that so many of you came and volunteered your time. Special mention must go to our Pre-Beginner Judge and Steward – Lilian Turner and her husband, who both stayed on to help Charlie in the Stay Ring after they finished judging; to Alesya Miroshnikov who, having worked her dog, then gave up the remainder of her day to help in the Stay Ring; and to Danny Harrison who worked alongside Charlie all day in the Stay Ring and then went on to act as Scent Decoy for several of our judges. Thank you to you all!
Steve Devaney kept us all on track acting as our Chief Steward. Thankfully, there were very few incidents to report. However, we would like to take this opportunity to wish Lyn Collins a speedy recovery. Unfortunately, she had a fall on Saturday night which resulted in a rather painful fractured ankle.
Finally, thanks to all of you for entering our show and coming to support us. It takes a huge amount of time, effort, energy and money to put on an Obedience Show, but, when you see it all come together as it did on Sunday, it all seems worth it.
We hope that you all enjoyed your day with your dogs and we look forward to seeing you ‘out and about’ competing, and more importantly, helping out at all of the other shows over the next few months.
Good luck and thank you.
Cippenham Obedience Show Committee