Country casual

When Ian and Rosemary Stowers were invited to organise a series of dog agility competitions at the Living Heritage Country Shows during 2004, they looked upon this as a good opportunity to bring 'everyday agility' to the general public. It was also a great opportunity to give the regular Open show competitor a chance to chill out a for a change and enjoy a Country Show combined with their favourite hobby and a whole lot with less stress.

 Eastern Counties Country Show (Weather) Report
Ipswich 11-12th March 2006

It was a bit of a roller coaster few days.  We 'mislaid' the cups to the hurdles, the rosettes couldn’t be delivered to our home address before we departed for the show on Tuesday and when Sylvia Marcham and I (Rosemary) went to get some petrol from Tesco’s garage the van keys were locked inside the side door of the van.  We didn't have a duplicate set of keys. They were with Ian at Crufts!

All was well by Friday evening when the cups turned up, the rosettes were delivered and I then had a sense of relative calm.  I knew then that everything was going to be okay.

We had a mixture of weather ranging from:  rain, wind, sunshine, blizzards - three on Saturday during the Knock-Out - and snow. We also had three nights of frost resulting in the gas cookers and gas cylinders freezing up in the marquee and at competitor’s caravans. It could have been more but I lost count! We then had a thaw and I was singing 'Rain drops keep falling on my head' as the ice thawed from inside the marquee.  It did get a bit warmer on the Sunday. 

I have to say that it was good fun in spite of the weather.

I would also like to thank all those competitors who volunteered their help at the show – we really do appreciate all your help.  Personally I am disappointed at the people who came to the show - and who also go to other shows - who didn’t offer their help. It should not be left to the minority of very kind people who put in the work at shows just to keep the shows running for those who don’t offer their help! Without help from everyone at Agility shows they just would not happen.

Orchard Events Easter Class Clarification

Rosemary and Ian Stowers are getting calls from people, many of whom are new this year to competitions, who are not sure what classes they are eligible to enter at the Orchard Events Easter Show.

 'As you can see from the schedule below,' explained Rosemary and Ian, 'we are trying to encourage new agility people into the sport by giving them the most classes to enter. We wish everyone good luck in their competitions.'

To clear up an earlier error and to clarify other classes on the schedule, here is what you can enter at the show

Special Classes are for dogs which have not entered any other agility classes at the show. The class may contain weave poles.  

Flyball and Cleverdogs competitions are also at the same venue.  

Please call Ian or Rosemary Stowers on mobile: 07802 359815 for any other queries.

Finalists with Judge Lee Broadhurst

The Arden Grange Elementary/Starter Final

The Arden Grange Complete Dog Food Elementary/Starter Final took place on the 24 September 2005 at the Paws in the Park Show, Dorset.

The agility course was set, suitable for a national final competition and was very ably judged by Lee Broadhurst with Debbie scribing for him.

The competitors were the ones who had been placed throughout the year at the various venues where Orchard Events Agility shows took place and were the best of the 2,837 who entered those particular qualifying classes.

The weather was very kind to us and ideal for Agility, dry, sunny and not too hot for the dogs. The standard of handlers and dogs was excellent and those who were good enough to be placed had to work extremely well to achieve that goal.

The presentations were attended by Arden Grange show Manager Chris Mellor along with the judge Lee Broadhurst who awarded the engraved glass trophies and 15kg sacks of Arden Grange food.

The final placings were:-

Congratulations to all those who qualified for the final and especially well done to the three in the picture.

Finalists with Judges Lee & Debbie Broadhurst

The Our Dogs Newspaper Knockout Final

The Our Dogs Newspaper Knockout final also took place on the 24^th September 2005 in the Main Arena at the Paws in the Park Show.

The Knockout course set by the Judges Lee and Debbie Broadhurst was a traditional circular knockout course starting and finishing in the centre with two pipe tunnels and two half sets of weaves at each end of the oval the only addition to the 12 sets of hurdles.

The competitors were the ones who had been place throughout the year at the various venues where Orchard Events Agility shows took place and were the best of the 480 who entered those particular qualifying classes.

Circular Knockouts are not for the faint hearted and having a dog that will go on over hurdles and weave regardless of handlers heavy breathing is a definite advantage. The Knockout was very exciting to watch and very much enjoyed by all those watching around the Main Arena.

Our Dogs representative Mrs Penney along with the judges Lee and Debbie Broadhurst presented the trophies.

The final placings were:-

Congratulations to all those who qualified for the final and especially well done to the four in the picture.

Organisers Ian and Rosemary Stowers said, 'The Orchard Events Agility Shows have been very well attended during 2005 and we do have to limit the numbers to keep the entries to a level where we only run two rings at the same time due to allocated space but are relaxing that rule for the Easter Show at Old Warden Park this year.'

Thank you
Our grateful thanks to all those who have contributed to the shows during 2005, we cannot take the shows to all the different counties promoting Dog Agility to the general public without your help and we trust that when you wear your ‘T’ shirts you think back to some very enjoyable weekends.

Also without the judges the classes can’t take place so our grateful thanks to them also. We need to find many judges all over the country to judge at our shows and it is nice if starter people see a face local to them, so, if you can be one of our judges please give us a call.

Sandringham Camping Apologies

We would like to thank all our judges, camping stewards and helpers at our Orchard Events Agility show which was held at the Sandringham Country Show last weekend. Without all their voluntary help we could not run these shows, which are organised for everyone so that they can enjoy a more relaxed agility show without the pressure of an 'open' show environment. 

Friday proved to be quite a challenge when the heavens opened up when we had thunder and lightening, just as competitors started to arrive at the camping area. We thank everyone for their patience and understanding in this respect.

Due to lack of understanding of our camping area needs on the part of the organisers of the Country Show, we were unable to site all our Agility people in the agility camping area, for which we apologise, but this was out of our control!

On a more unpleasant note, to the person who gained 'free' access to the agility camping area on a friend’s camping pass and who was quite blatantly bragging about it in the queues - yes, they were overheard by two individual Club members in two different queues - it has been noted who that person is! We hope they feel ashamed of what they did and we hope they now have a conscience, because they deprived someone else of a camping slot, who actually paid for their camping pitch and who subsequently had to camp in the overflow camping area. They will be watched in the future.  Anyone who feels that they have gained free camping on the back of a friend’s camping pass should not feel proud of themselves. We will now be asking the Country Show organisers to ensure that this sort of thing will not happen again.

It’s nice to know that 99% of the people who attend our shows are good, honest people who wouldn’t even dream about trying to get one over on the organisers.

Once again, thanks to everyone, especially the lovely competitors who all mucked in each day.  We hope they liked their freebie tee shirts, which we gave to all our helpers.

More Agility at Country Shows in 2005

It is fair to say that the shows were very nice to organise. We made many new friends and renewed old acquaintances that we had not seen for a year or two. It is one thing to organise a show at club level where everybody is on hand to do their bit, but we were always ‘playing away’ and relied totally on the people local to the show to chip in and help us do it. They certainly did us proud on every occasion, and hopefully it made their time with us all the more enjoyable.

From north to south
We took the shows from Yorkshire to Dorset and popped into Kent to complete the triangle plus a few others in between; 7 shows in all. We were really impressed with the welcome that we got from each new area and venue. The most common comment during the show was how much people enjoyed an agility show like the ones they used to go to!

Many of our judges were local to the area, which we believe helps agility newcomers when they first start to compete.

Better in 2005
This year we have the same venues plus an extra event at the Canford Arena, Dorset.

The Agility class format seemed to work well last year, so remains the same this year, i.e. no running orders needed hence late closing date. Classes will run starting from Elementary, running through Starters and finally Novice. The Mini/Midi classes will fit into that format. For example in Ring 1 the order of classes will run:  Elementary Agility (24″ hurdles ), Starters Agility (24″ hurdles), Xtra Special Agility (Midi equipment) Mini/Midi Starters Agility (starting with Midi dogs) Mini/Midi Open Agility (starting with Mini dogs) and finally Novice Agility (30″).  We have made the shows limited this year, just as a controlling factor so that we don’t get too many for the shows to become too big. Two rings is the maximum for us.

We will be keeping the same classes for all the venues, so even if the schedule isn’t available, you can still make your plans knowing what the classes will be.

We are looking for people who would like to judge for us this year. The shows are run as any Open show, but with some flexibility, so we believe it is a good starting place for those who are thinking of taking on Judging, but find the Open shows a bit too daunting. We would also like experienced judges who feel that they can support many newcomers to the sport.  So, if you would like to judge for us, we will make you most welcome and do our best to make your day a very enjoyable one.

So that’s what the Orchard Events Agility at Country Shows is all about. We do our best to promote the sport we love to the general public and give competitors the chance to add a little extra to the weekend.

Thank you
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the judges for their very fine work in helping us.  We would also like to thank the many people who helped run the rings - we obviously can’t run the shows on our own. There are only two of us, so we totally rely on people to join in to keep things moving for everybody. We do have some stalwart friends who in spite of being forced to consume gallons of booze, stay up late and endure endless BBQs, still stick with us at all the shows and do many of the vital things that need to be done.

We are very fortunate to have our 2004 sponsor Premier Rosettes, who supply us with beautiful rosettes, as many of you will vouch for if you were fortunate enough to win one.  Our thanks to Lionel Thatcher, MD of Premier Rosettes.

RVA Agility Equipment is a new sponsor this year who has very generously sponsored two sets of equipment for all the shows, bar one, for 2005, which means that we can run two rings at each show and we will not have to pester those other Clubs this year to help us, but we are very grateful for your co-operation last year. We are very grateful to Ray and Val Amps and RVA for their support.

We would like to thank everybody who came to us last year and helped and that if you came and just competed, that you also enjoyed the whole show and look forward to seeing many of you again during 2005.

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