We held an informal meeting at the National with all societies that took part in last years final invited. The consensus was that things worked so well last time that there is no reason to change anything so the trial is planned to go ahead in the same format, with the same teams being invited to put a team forward again and they will get first chance. If some drop out then there might be room for additional societies to join up. If you know of a society that would want their name on the waiting list to join then please ask them to get in touch with us.
The main points from the meeting: * George and Helen Bonsall are happy to host again * Same format with teams of 3 handlers * Date to be Sunday 5th March 2017 * Same early start time of 7:30am * If one team drops out (making it 15 teams to compete) we will hold at that number, if two drop out we will add an extra team from the waiting list (first to go on is first in line for the place) * The main thing that was discussed as a change at the 2016 meeting was regarding complaints, we had several emails from an individual complaining about how we ran the nursery final and even saying the judging was biased, we feel that this is very inappropriate and have said that in future if anyone has a complaint or suggestion for past/future trials that they need to go through their own society so they can assess the point before fetching it forward to the committee for discussion. * We have also welcomed two new members to the committee from 2016, Ed Thornalley and Richard Smith. If you know them better than the other committee then please contact them for a chat if you want to.
We will forward the minutes of the meeting to all secretaries soon.
For our second year we had Crystal Feeds team up with us, please view their website via the link below!