This is the inaugural Western Beagle Gundog Association All-Age Championship.
We have made a lot of progress in our first 18 months leading to our first major signature event. We owe a lot of thanks to several people and organizations. We have gotten a lot of great advice from the Presidents or other officers of the Pennsylvania Beagle Gundog Association, the Mid-South Gundog Association and the Lonestar Beagle Gundog Association.
We also greatly appreciated the help and encouragement we have received and continue to recieve from several people with the AKC including Jim Odle, Mel Stewart and the field events and club relations staffs. And thanks for all the work and many hours put in by our Association officers, club delegates and the individual members themselves. All yhe above has led us to our first of many All-Age Championship Trials.
As we grow from here we will begin to discuss other association championship events which could include a Two-Couple Pack Championship trial, a Derby Championship and if the interest is there, a Gundog Brace Championship trial.
We will look to the delegates from our member clubs to decide what is next and, just as importantly, how we want to approach these next major Association events. At our annual meeting last July 2019, we asked our club delegates who had expressed interest in a Two-Couple Pack Championship and TCP High Point recognition to put together a proposal to present to the Board of Directors for consideration at our annual meeting this July 2020.
We are already seeing increasing interest and excitement out here on the Western fringe of gundog beagling. If any of this sounds interesting to you I hope you and your club will consider attending this All-age Championship and then joining us as we go forward. We are very young and now is a great time to join and provide valuable input on how we will be shaped as an Association of Gundog Beagle field trial clubs.
I hope to see you all in Kansas on March 28th and 29th 2020.
Regards
Ed Belding, President
WBGA
