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From The Chair....
Welcome to the
Central Oklahoma Golden Retriever Club 2009 National
Website!
We are very excited about hosting the GRCA National
Specialty in October of 2009. COGRC last hosted a
National Specialty in 1994 with a theme of “The Big
Picture”. Our reputation for hospitality became legend
with that event.
Since
everyone is always anxious for information about an
upcoming National Specialty I would like to take this
opportunity to give an overview of the plans for the
week.
Can a
small club really put on a National? With only 2 years
lead time?
We are a
VERY small club. Actually, we had no intentions of
hosting this National Specialty. We had already
committed to host the 2007 Central Regional and hosting
a National in 2009 was not in our plans. However, as it
became apparent there were no other clubs willing to
step up to the plate, our club made the decision to host
the National. We had only a 2 year lead time and a
Regional to host before we could really start planning
for the National! Our 2007 Regional was November 2007.
That has given us only 21 months to plan and fund raise
for this event. That is a tall order for a club with
fewer than 15 active members. Because of this we have
called on many of our friends around the country to
help, but more on that later.
A Few
Imperfect Decisions
There
are very few perfect decisions – only decisions that are
better than others. There will be many times people
complain to each other asking “why did they do that”?
For most of those questions there are good answers! Our
schedule is “different”. We start the field trial on a
Tuesday and Best of Breed is on the following
Wednesday. Neither event covers a weekend. This
decision was made due to bordering events and site
availability. It was not so we could see how much time
we could make people take off from workJ!
Another
schedule item of interest is that Wheatland GRC will be
hosting an Agility trial during Best of Breed. I never
remember an event occurring simultaneously with Best of
Breed, however we have been told that to have a decent
agility entry we must have 2 days of agility
competition. The equipment and workers for agility are
committed to a very large trial in Kansas the weekend
preceding the National Specialty. We could not set up
until Monday so that made our only option holding
agility Tuesday and Wednesday.
There was
discussion about holding the WC on Saturday instead of
Friday so more people could attend. However that would
split up our field workers and birds would have to be
held over an extra day. Besides, many of the people
working in the field need to be available on Saturday
for show set up (remember that small club issue?).
These are just a few examples of less than perfect
decisions that we have had to make and there are many
others. So please before anyone starts on a fault
finding mission, please know that we are probably aware
we didn’t make perfect decisions. We made the best
decisions we could make with what we had to work with.
The Fun
Information!
This
National will be held in Enid, Oklahoma. The Chisholm
trail went through this quaint town located an easy 1 ½
hour drive North of Oklahoma City. It is also
approximately 1 ½ hours from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Cheryl,
one of our Enid members says you can get anywhere in
Enid in about 20 minutes unless you are lost,
sightseeing or got caught at a train crossing. Although
most traces of the cattle trail are gone, there are
multiple “chain” restaurants with several locally owned
unique establishments. We will have information
available on the more quaint and interesting
establishments available elsewhere on this website.
The Field
Grounds - Groendyke Ranch:
This lovely
facility will be the host for the field trial, WC/WCX
and tracking events. It is an 1800 acres ranch with a
spacious lodge for our evening events. The Groendyke
Ranch hosts a large National Quail Shoot annually and we
are excited about having this site available. Securing
this facility was one of the final points in deciding to
host this National. The Ranch is less than 15 minutes
from most Enid hotels and about 10 minutes from the Expo
Center.
The Show
Grounds - Chisholm Trail Expo Center:
This
facility is a perfect site for an indoor National. As
Enid does not have a single hotel that is large enough
to act as a host hotel, there will be no host hotel and
all events will take place at the Expo Center.
Conformation and obedience will be held in the Coliseum
which has a large floor area with both elevated seating
and floor seating available. Conformation rings will be
carpeted, while the obedience rings will be matted and
have adequate space for crates and chairs. These rings
will be at the far end of the arena for less distraction
and traffic. Also on the floor of the Coliseum will be
the COGRC booth along with booths for GRCA, the Golden
Retriever Foundation, Show Secretary, Photographer and
Veterinarian along with our major sponsors. You won’t
want to miss our amazing “centerpiece” that will be an
exciting backdrop for pictures!
Attached to
the coliseum is a dirt arena, a cement floored grooming
area and the “Redlands Room” where many of the social
events will take place throughout the week.
The dirt
arena will house the vendors and agility rings.
Grooming will be on concrete with a concrete walkway by
the dirt arena to the show rings. The grooming room will
feature more than 100 spaces in a well-lit room with
abundant electricity. Bathing facilities are housed
just outside the grooming room in large protected
concrete facilities used for livestock bathing. The
Redlands Room is located adjacent to the grooming and
agility areas. There are also approximately 100 RV sites
available at the fairgrounds with another campground
approximately 1 mile away.
Special
Effects, Hospitality and Other Events:
Our theme is
“Go Native” in honor of the American Indian heritage of
the state of Oklahoma. COGRC is honored to have the 2008
“Volunteer of the Year” of the Red Earth Festival as one
of our members. Ron Smithee and his wife Doris have
volunteered to make available much of their museum to
have on display and use in our decorations. His programs
on Native American lore will be featured throughout the
National week. For those of you who have experienced
either our local specialties or our 1994 National, you
will be pleased to hear that “Mom” is our hospitality
chair again. We have a great room designated as our
hospitality room to host fun casual meeting time for
all. Mom is a bit older, as we all are, and she will
have a lot of help, but she will be there with “bells
on” to make everyone feel welcome. Like all COGRC
events we promise “The Parties Alone Will Be Worth The
Trip!”
One other
event we are excited about is voting on the GRCA color
calendar photographs. Since COGRC produces the annual
GRCA calendar, we decided it would be fun to have the
voting for the 20ll calendar take place at our
National. The current plan is that those GRCA club
members who attend the annual GRCA meeting will receive
a voucher to vote on the pictures. The winning photos
will be published in the calendar. There are still lots
of details to be worked out so watch the website
carefully for more information.
Volunteers – It is Your National, after all:
As
mentioned previously we are a VERY small club.
Fortunately we already have people from all over the
country who have volunteered to help with this event, as
I think it should be. This event has become too large
for most clubs to host entirely on their own. If clubs
realized that volunteers would be available to help, I
think many more clubs would be willing to take on this
task. In this day of rapid communication there are many
jobs that can be done that you do not need to live in
the host city to do. We are building a framework and are
counting on volunteers to come fill in. Since our
volunteer coordinator is also our show secretary for our
fall specialty, we are waiting to launch our help wanted
page on this site until after our November event. We
will have jobs for ring stewards, help at our booth,
hospitality, decoration, field work, track layers etc.
Assuming this event is a profitable adventure, we plan
on making a donation to the Golden Retriever Foundation
in honor of those people who volunteered for the 2009
National. If it is not profitable we will have thought
it was a good idea.
We hope you
will join us in Oklahoma in October 2009 to “Go Native”
Sharon
Bolton
2009 General Chair/Show Chair |
