HOW IS YOUR CLUB DOING DURING THE AGE OF COVID-19?
If your club is struggling, maybe you need to open yourselves up to new ideas and newmembers. There will always be turnover and disagreements, but a good attitude and the desire to work together to accomplish goals will bring great results.
kindergarten several times a year. Our classes are enthusiastically taught by Jan Flaherty, our current Vice President. Jan’s class has been instrumental in our growth, and she has helped so many new- comers find success in the ring. We also have an arrangement with a local training facility that provides agility and obedience training for our members at a reduced rate. As mentioned earlier, we try to get everyone involved and we encourage people to take on new tasks. This has served us very well. Our Agility trials, Obedience, Rally, and Fast Cats are all led by relatively newer members who have risen to the task with the encouragement and support of the membership. In 2014, we had a new couple come into our club. The couple was very new to the sport and extremely enthusiastic and yearning for knowledge. Both of these individuals, along with their high school-aged daughter at the time, jumped right in. With the men- toring of members, the daughter enjoyed a successful run in Junior Handling and the entire family has completed numerous titles in conformation and obedience on their dogs. More importantly, the couple became very involved and now serve on our board, and the wife took over our website and has made it a fantastic resource for not only members, but also interested guests. As a club, being a part of our community is also important. We sponsor a student annually with a substantial scholarship at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine. We have supported numerous other charities such as the local Chil- dren’s hospital, Take the Lead, AKC Canine Health Foundatin, and many others. A few years ago, before our local cluster broke up, we were able to do several things to raise funds for charitable causes. But only being able to have a two-show weekend has hurt those efforts. As President of the TVKC, I am extremely proud of the spirit, cooperation, and level of enthusiasm that the members of our club share. I know from others how difficult it can be to have a happy and cohesive group of people working together. In closing, what I hope you take away from this article is that success—even during a pandemic—is possible. If your club is struggling, maybe you need to open yourselves up to new ideas and new members. There will always be turnover and disagreements, but a good attitude and the desire to work together to accomplish goals will bring great results. Just because someone is new or has a different perspective does not mean that they can’t contribute to the success of your club. These are tough times, and we need to be tough enough to accept change and make it work moving forward. I don’t know about you, but I sure am looking forward to get- ting our shows and events back on, and we need your clubs to make it happen. If you have any questions regarding our club and how we do things, feel free to contact me at loracvizsl@aol.com .
our membership to see what they like and dislike about the club. Programs, and the fact that we include everyone, are always high on the list. I would say, on average, we have an attendance rate of 20-35 individuals at all meetings and, since 2009, we have always had a quorum. The TVKC covers a vast area of East Tennessee. As you can imagine, geographically, it is challenging for some of our members to attend every meeting. For several years there would be votes try- ing to move the meeting locations East or West, depending upon those attending that meeting. Several years ago, we put an end to that by offering the membership a choice of Eastside or Westside of town or an alternative of a split arrangement. The members voted for the split, so now we meet six months out of the year on each end of the city. The sites are about 20 miles apart, with the fall and winter months held at the local emergency clinic on the Westside, and the Spring and Summer months held on the Eastside of town at the University of Tennessee. The split arrangement works well and it helps members on each end of town attend more meetings than in the past. As with most clubs, the pandemic caused both of our meeting sites to be unavailable. Even though we lost our meeting sites, we have only missed two meetings. We moved the meetings to mem- bers’ backyards and practiced social distancing and, when the win- ter months came, we were offered a place at a local training facility that, although not heated, has allowed us to meet and still practice social distancing very well. Like many clubs, we like to recognize the accomplishments of our members and their dogs. Each year we award members who have completed an AKC title on their dogs; a plaque recognizing the achievement with the dogs’ name and title. We do this at our annual awards picnic where we have also added the tradition of our annual Lottery Fun Match. We ask each member to bring one dog each (it doesn’t matter if it is a show dog or not, just one that they own) and we assign each an armband number and put all the numbers in a hat. We draw two numbers, and those two dogs start the competition with the judge for the initial class coming from someone who did not enter a dog. At the end of the class, the win- ner goes on to the next round and the loser is eliminated. However, the person who was just eliminated serves as the judge for the next two dogs competing. This goes on for as many rounds as it takes until one dog stands alone as Best in Match. It has always been a lot of fun, and many members remark that they could not believe how hard it was to choose between the two dogs—and the two people they knew! Training classes are also a big part of many clubs, and ours is no exception. We offer ongoing weekly conformation classes (currently on hold because of the pandemic) as well as puppy
56 | SHOWSIGHT MAGAZINE, APRIL 2021
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