President's Report for 2022
by Sandy Harris at the Annual Meeting 2022
Welcome everyone to the annual meeting of the Capital Kennel Club of Juneau’s annual meeting for 2022. We have been able to expand our activities this year as the pandemic restrictions have diminished and we’ve had a successful year.
Jumbo Gym reopened in September 2021 and we were able to have indoor activities all year. Practices were held on Saturdays from September through December, and in January we had our first indoor trial since the pandemic. I’d like to thank Gina Vose for serving as judge for three UKC Obedience trials on January 14 and 15th and Patti Kalbaugh for serving as back up judge. I would also like to thank Marty Phelan for serving as Trial Chair and George Utermohle for serving as Trial Secretary. These are time consuming jobs and we all appreciate you volunteering to do them. I also want to thank everyone who helped by serving as stewards, doing set up and breakdown, and helping in other ways with the trial. Four new titles were earned over the course of the trial.
In late January Patti Kalbaugh and Gina Vose, assisted by Marty Phelan, began a series of classes designed to help newer club members learn some of the skills needed to compete in obedience trials. The classes were very successful and went for two four week sessions.
Summer agility began at Lena Dog Park in April and proved to be a very popular activity. Jill Grose organized summer agility and began teaching a beginners class. She was not able to finish the class, and Vicki McLaughlin offered to step in to teach the class. Vicki very capably finished teaching the class and worked with Katie Sullivan, Sharon Moore, and the other class participants to continue a weekly agility practice up to the first week of September. The weather mostly cooperated this year and a good core group of agility enthusiasts coalesced over the course of the summer.
Meanwhile, at Auke Bay School covered playground, obedience and rally practice were happening on Saturday mornings. Patti Kalbaugh set up a beginning rally class there for members new to rally. I want to recognize Patti for her enormous contributions to teaching rally and obedience skills to many generations of new members. She helped me get started in rally and obedience thirteen years ago and she continues to mentor novice handlers. If we had a lifetime achievement award, I would nominate her for it. Thank you, Patti.
In September we had our second trial weekend on September 23 and 24. I want to thank Lisa Barnard who came from Edmonton to judge two UKC Obedience trials and two UKC Rally trials. Lisa hasn’t been able to travel here since the pandemic and it was very good to see her again. I also want to thank Gina Vose, Trial Chair, and George Utermohle who once again was Trial Secretary. We had six qualifiers in obedience and twelve qualifiers in rally.
In September, Sharon Moore and Jill Grose organized a five week indoor agility practice at Jumbo Gym. This is the first indoor agility since 2020 and it has proved popular. I want to thank Sharon for taking the initiative to get this started and following through to make it happen.
Our on line presence requires volunteer support as well and I d like to thank the two members who do most of that work. George Utermohle administers the Facebook page providing the general public with a window on club activities. Marty Phelan manages the club website.
I’d like to thank all the members for pulling together to make this a successful year. It seems like we have lots of new energy this year and people are really working well together to make things happen. As we all know, trainings, practices, and trials take work. Sharing the work, whether it’s stewarding, instructing, organizing, or hauling mats and equipment from here to there, makes everything easier and more enjoyable. So thank you all for all your work.
I’d also like to thank the board for another year of administrative work. Judy Gustafson, Sue McGowan, David Garrison, Marty Phelan, and I have become good zoom buddies over the past few years. Every third Thursday we meet to make sure supplies are purchased, plans are made, forms are filed, money is accounted for, activities are reviewed, etc, etc. David and I are leaving the board this year. David has served for three terms and I have lost count of my terms. Thank you David for your policy expertise, your sense of humor, and your questions. We leave the board in capable hands with new members Kristy Totten and Erika King. Thank you Kristy and Erika for stepping up.
I’d like to open up for discussion now. This is a good time to bring up thoughts about long term goals, activities you would like to participate in, changes to policies you think are needed, directions you would like to see the club take.
