2012 Dog Club Duties

L to R: Michele, Puddin, Sheryl holding
a box of brochures.  Charlie was off with Wayne.

Publicity Committee:  This year my club duties will be expanded thanks to our new Publicity Committee, which I chair, getting the funding I asked for.  Yippee!  We now have a paid for booth including 10' x 10' canopy that the club will own (instead of borrowing mine), which means I can paint our logo around the edges!  We can afford to laminate posters and place them in vets offices, and maybe start accumulating a set of demo equipment.  My enthusiasm took a huge leap now that I know the club supports it.

I designed these brochures last year as the Publicity
Committee's first effort.  Hot gluing the Pup Corn treats
to the top was a real attention getter!

Krewe Of Mutts Parade: We didn't get our funding in time to sign up for a booth space at this annual event, so last Sunday Sheryl Mc' and I wore our Red Stick Agility T-shirts and just passed out club brochures to passers-by who looked like they might want to train their dogs.  She walked her Boston, Charlie, and I walked Joy's boxer, Puddin. Most people had never heard of LCCOC, though our club's been around for nearly 50 years. We're well known as a training club in competition circles, but not by the general public. Clearly, we have a PR problem -- which I aim to rectify by our 50th anniversary in 2013.

The LSU Veterinary School Open House next weekend is a big affair drawing huge crowds, and I'm coordinating our booth volunteers for that, despite the fact that I'll be at a trial in Mobile that weekend.  We have a bunch of great volunteers lined up.  Crowds of around 5,000 are expected. I just learned this is the only Vet school in Louisiana, one of only 28 in the nation, and one of the largest and best funded.

I'm keeping up the duties as LCCOC Webmaster and Membership Coordinator this year too, also serving on the Agility Committee and teaching agility classes once or twice weekly.  I'm offering my first Saturday class, Handling Fundamentals, but there are only 2 students enrolled.  I would have thought Saturday would be more convenient to some people than weeknights.  No matter.  It gets me out there training my own dogs every Saturday!

I also volunteered John and myself to coordinate the Summer Crawfish Boil (same as last year (2011)  and the year before that (2010), using our own equipment to boil 100 lbs of crawfish.  Nedra volunteered her yard again, everybody brought a dish, and last year we had over 40 people attend.  This is up from 12 when we used to hold the event at our agility field which has no water, no electricity and no bathroom.  I was successful in getting the Crawfish Boil budget increased by $50 this year because, even though we boil them ourselves now, the raw sacks are going up in cost and there are so many more gluttons like myself gobbling them up.  Crawfish here in Louisiana are a big, big deal.

John and I are also helping our new Field Maintenance guy, Ken, with whatever he needs.  We started by chopping down 2 scrub trees a few weeks back that blocked our night lighting, and are about to tackle 2 pesky china ball trees behind our fence that keep us forever raking one corner of our field to keep the spiky balls from injuring our dogs' paws.  We're also intent on cleaning up debris along the fences and making our field look neater.

Agility Trial: John has scheduled 2 vacation days to assist our course builder at our agility trial over Easter weekend, and this year John and I will be in charge of loading the U-Haul with equipment, getting it to the trial and safely back.  I'm also shadowing the Trial Secretary to learn more about handling the paperwork.

With all that scheduled, I won't be able to volunteer for much else!  I'll be out of town for the Obedience and Tracking trials, and focused on my dogs at our Agility trial.  I might be able to make the Herding trial.

It's going to be a busy year of volunteering.  Hopefully it will be grand fun and very educational!  Alas, my floors go increasingly un-mopped, my furniture undusted, my porches unswept, and the pile of dishes incessantly gathering in the sink will continue to disturb me.  HELLO.  A reliable housekeeper should go on my list of goals for 2012.  A nice, quiet, unobtrusive live-in maid who needed a free bedroom with a desk and wi-fi in exchange for some routine housework, and loved my dogs, would be wonderful.

Upwards and onward!