OP, I’m active in both our National and Regional clubs.
The National club membership is mostly breeders and exhibitors in conformation. There is a growing number who also do Obedience and/or Rally, and quite a few active in AKC or ASFA lure coursing.
At our National Specialty, we do have a person designated as the Newcomer Education person (I did it one year), and they make frequent announcements on the loudspeaker about what and who this is, point me out, and I stand up and wave. I have various handouts on things like how a dog show works, and explain what is going on, what the handlers, hounds, and judge is doing, and answer any questions. I just try to be friendly and talk to them and make them feel welcome. We’ve also done this as a booth- I think it works better if you actually sit with the people and chat with them.
We have a separate Hospitality for Foreign Visitors, that person welcomes them offers any special help they need. I did that once too.
National Specialties are four days long. They could probably do all the judging in one or two days, but it is spread out because of all the activities. Usually there are at least a couple of health seminars, a grooming seminar, a handling semi at, and one or more judging seminars, both “hands on” with opportunities to go over and gait hounds, and lecture/PowerPoint type presentations. These are usually open to everyone who signs up, not just judges or prospective judges.
There is a separate Judges’ Mentoring, where you sit with prospective judges and talk them through a few classes, and then have to sign their AKC Judges’ certificate if they are at that stage. We have a whole committee who does that, and we encourage them to rotate among us so they get some different perspectives and hopefully reinforcement on important points
The health lectures sometimes include a pizza dinner. There is also a dinner combined with an auction of both breed-related things and things like vacation places. Then at the end is the Judges’ Dinner, where some awards are given out and the judge gives a talk.
Whoa, this was longer than I thought, I’ll do a separate post on the Regional Club.
I will mention though that we also have a Regional Liason committee that coordinates things between the Regional and National Club.
OP, I cannot believe that your National Club does not have a Breeder Referral list! We have two lists, one is just Breeders, and the other is “Contact List” which includes, but is not limited to active breeders. It includes people who are willing to talk to people about the breed, answer questions, and if appropriate, invite people to their homes to meet their hounds. Some people think they want one, but have never actually seen one in the flesh. Then if they are still interested, the contact people can refer them to a breeder.
We do encourage the people who are on these lists to answer every inquiry promptly. In fact, this is why I took myself off both lists, I simply didn’t have the time to do it as well as it should be done. I still receive many inquiries but the volume has diminished. It can be very time-consuming to do this.
I will go back and read the rest of you posts later - I’m definitely very interested in all the details.
