News, News, News! November 2011

Here it is time for our report to the Shepherd News so what can one find to write about this month. Have had my listening ears on but our members seem to go quiet or whisper when I am in earshot of them so for this month will just have to rely on pure facts for our report.

Our tracking before obedience training has gone great and I thank all those attending for getting out of bed a couple of hours earlier to come to training. Now that daylight saving is upon us and it is daylight at approx. 6.30am I am not so sure the response would be as good if I changed the training times to fit in with daylight saving--I can hear what they would say already and I would not be able to ask the Shepherd News Editor to print it in this family magazine.

We held a catering event for the Dog Club next door to us in Morshead Park on Saturday October 8th so to prissy our clubrooms up we had two working bees to clean up in and around the clubrooms. Thank you to everyone who helped in any way whatsoever to get everything shipshape--it looked really good. This time our newer members had some great ideas so as well as baking and cooking for the event Lyn made menus complete with prices of what we had available and one was handed out to each person as they picked up their entries at check in. She also made great laminated signs for inside and outside the clubrooms to help customers choose what they wanted and so our members could check the prices. Thankyou Lyn. The BBQ boys were very popular and busy from 7.30am until approx. 2.00pm with a steady stream of customers throughout that time. Thank you Bernie, Doug and Tony.  Whilst we made a profit on the day the weather forecast was not kind to us which attributed to many scratchings and so numbers were down on previous days. Thank you to Carol, Karen B and Bev for their baking/cooking they brought along - very much appreciated. Fact is we thank everyone who helped in any way to make the day a success and we had the most helpers on the day so far which was great. Thanks to Sally who dressed up for the occasion, also ‘spruked’ on next door's microphone to drum up custom and then wandered around with a tray of sandwiches to sell. Thanks Sally.

Our training held on 9th October was held in secrecy as we were in serious training for the fun day and did not want other GSDCV Branch scouts to see the standard we were at - as they would then had a few days to practice before the event on the 16th October. October 9th was also a great day for Ballarat as Karen Cordell presented her bitch Star for breed survey and was classified on the day with a Class One. Well done Karen--all that running, jogging, swimming was great and they tell us you double handled very well on the day and that your dog looked great also. Getting back to Oct 16^th - What a great day it was for Ballarat in many ways- the weather matched ours – showers – windy - cool with the sun shining sometimes but not too much. This was another advantage we had on the other branch folks.

Out of 8 entries who were able to attend we gained four first places, one second place and one third which is the absolute best result this branch has had for some years now and was very pleasing for all of our branch members.  We had two entries that had to scratch on the day due to injury - Tony was busy coaching Harley for his soccer trick and as usual Harley put in a top effort but in doing so pulled muscles in his shoulders and had to stay home.  Joan had Trigger all set to go but on the Thursday noticed he had gone lame in the left front leg and had to stay home also. Whilst all this consternation was happening Doug found he could not attend either - no,no.no it was not through Chloe being injured but poor Dougie himself who did something terrible to his left arm - (I think it was turning the bacon, sausages, eggs, onions and hamburgers the previous week that did it) and he was a scratching also after treatment where a large needle had to be used to help him bend his elbow. Now I bet no one has ever thought of that excuse before (store it  - it may come in handy one day) but we hope your arm is getting better fast Doug as we have a two day catering event coming up in November and if you get a sore arm again around that time it would be like the Melbourne cup favourite going lame. Thank you to all members for training for the fun day and thankyou to the Eastern Branch for hosting such a well-run and interesting fun day for not only us but all GSDCV members - well done.

Team Ballarat.