Hello again,

My report this time contains world firsts; changes and improvements and some cold hard facts.

The first Neuter Championship points were awarded at the Central Australian Show Society show on 2 July. 11 neuters were entered, including several from interstate. Answering the question I posed in my last report, the first dog to be awarded Neuter points was Gus, Claire Flattum’s Italian Greyhound- Galig Fancy A Fandango. The next question is a 2 pronged one- Who will be the first NT registered dog to gain its Neuter Champion Title, and will it also be a world first?

The new Dogs NT web site has been a great success and congratulations must go to Chavonne Carroll for getting it up and running from scratch, a job well done. However success can unearth things that were never thought of initially. The sheer volume of traffic to the web site has seen us exceed our bandwidth allowances on occasion recently; this has resulted in additional costs to the association in order to keep both sites operational.    

To alleviate ongoing additional costs a decision has been made to streamline both sites. The most noticeable changes for you, the members will be that the Presidents Report, Club Notes and Results will now be only appearing on the web site rather than the TDW. This will allow more up to date information to be published as well as reducing TDW production time and costs. Minor tweaking to the web site will reduce the bandwidth it uses and should allow quicker loading of the pages.

A special thanks to Darien Pearce and Susie Ripper for stepping in to address and rectify the problems that occurred and for formulating the proposal to keep the TDW and web site operational, relevant and cost effective. Thanks to our TDW publisher, Tracie McIntosh for her understanding, patience and knowledge not only during this time but always.

Now for the cold hard facts: We have great people out there who step in to fix things that go wrong and show us a better way to go forward, but their efforts may be in vain. As most of you are aware Council has been operating on very reduced numbers for some time, the strain this has put on the remainder is not acceptable. Elsewhere in this issue you will find a special notice concerning the vacant positions, READ IT and ACT ON IT, if you don’t the dog world as we know it in the Northern Territory will be over.

We need the positions of Secretary and two Councillors filled immediately. These are not hard positions, the main one of Secretary can easily be accomplished by anyone with basic computer skills and the willingness to give up one night a month for the Council meeting and a couple of hours in the week before and after the meeting to do the paperwork. Other than calling in to the office to collect and drop off the correspondence, the rest of the work can be done at home.

The Council positions require similar effort, a meeting once a month and an extra couple of hours to help takes us forward. There are lots of different ways you can do this, what’s your passion, I am sure we can use it in some way.

To steal the words of John F Kennedy.

Ask not what your association can do for you, but what can you do for your association.

This may be your last chance.

Graham
dogznorth@bigpond.com
0428 248 103