BINGO!!! I've been saying that for several years but TPTB don't want to
hear it. The Golden Retriever National is an excellent example. Their
National moves around the country, it's never in the same area 2 years in a
row. Their show is HUGE! Sites are committed to (HARD COMMITMENT) several
years in advance and most of the work is done by local groups, overseen by
their national club committees. We should seriously consider trying that.
For the last several years Julia and I have been co-chairs for obedience.
Julia lives in California, I live in NJ. When we took the job, it was our
understanding that the National would be rotated around the country. Julia
figured she'd attend the West coast, I'd take care of the East Coast, and
one or both of us would attend Central Nationals. Obviously that is not
happening. Running a trial from half-way across the country year after
year is NOT a particularly fun project.
BUT...we do the best we can. Right now I'm focused on getting enough
stewards so we can keep things running smoothly....
--Regina
On Mon, Oct 3, 2016 at 9:10 PM, Ruth Scheubler <rightdogphoto@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
This is precisely the problem with having the show in one location without
a local club running point.
What sense does it make to have a committee run something from many
hundreds of miles away when they have no local contacts.
Back in 2004 there was so much confusion because the agility committee was
on the east coast and nobody there thought about having to make
applications. Were it not for our local agility chair who caught it and
made the application at the very last minute, there would not have been any
agility. Instead, the locals took over, got the trials organized, the
equipment donated, and plenty of people to volunteer to make it all work.
How much easier it would be to have the local club(s) take a large part of
the organization and make it work properly.
Even if the local clubs near St Louis volunteered to do a lot of the work,
just how many years running do you expect them to do that??? Not only is it
unfair, it is totally impossible.
That is why so many of the large successful nationals are co-hosted by
local regional clubs. Again, we see a lot of Nationals out here and see
that same policy in practice. They organize years in advance, have most of
the local organization done locally and the shows work. Really.
I am not saying that national committees don't work, just that it works
much better when locals take care of what needs to be done locally.
Ruth
On Mon, Oct 3, 2016 at 5:59 PM, R. Steiner <mobilegrmr@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We need volunteers to steward in obedience at the National. No
experience necessary, we'll teach you whatever you need to know!
The obedience committee is responsible for the Thursday and Friday
trials. None of us live anywhere near St. Louis so we don't know any local
exhibitors. When the trials were in South Jersey, we got help from quite a
few of the local obedience exhibitors and judges. But strangely, none of
them want to drive to St Louis to help, even tho we are offering them a
good lunch and tickets to our raffle! ;) So if you are coming to the
National and would like to help, or if someone traveling with you would
like to help, please let me know.
Like I said, no experience necessary.
--Regina
obedience trial co-chair
