Secretaries report for June

Hope that you are all visiting www.northerndwarf.org, on a regular basis, please contact Richard with your ideas and content for the site, we always on the lookout for new material to use. We are getting a lot of enquiries for stock at the moment, so if you have anything at all please pass details to Richard and he will put it on the for sale page, I am sure any stock will sell very quickly.
It is very quiet around the shows at present, not many shows with dwarf judges to tempt you out on a weekend, let’s hope club secretaries engage a few more, and put on a few classes so that we can get the stock out. That’s enough controversial stuff for now.
Welcome to all our new members including those from overseas, we are having to have more yearbooks printed, these will done by the end of April so if you are owed one please let me know. That takes me seamlessly onto the next item, the yearbook, Richard is hoping to make the 2008 offering even bigger and better than 2007, but he cannot do this without your articles, adverts and recipes!! Please get your thinking caps on, there are lots of you who I am sure would love to contribute something. We would especially welcome something for our new American members, please give it some thought.

Deb and Gary

Spring is here, Litters are plentiful!

I hope your breeding season is off to a flying start, with plenty of bubbling nests and newborn babies running around. Now is the time to start selling the ones you are not going to show. Why not advertise here? We have new members wanting rabbits to show. The cost is £5 per advert when the rabbits are sold.
The site is getting plenty of visitors. Email you advert with pictures if possible to forsale@northerndwarf.org Don't forget to email when they are sold, and I can mark the advert as sold.



If you don't have a member page yet (and they will be up soon) why not write a little about yourself and send it to webmaster@northerndwarf.org and I'll create your page for you.


These pages will showcase your rabbits and show your successes. Trevor and Alan have one already.

Starting a website. Beginners Guide

This is the first in a series of articles on how this website is put together and will hopefully answer the questions some members have asked.
How do I get an address like northerndwarf.org?
You need to sign up to a hosting company who will sort this out for you. A hosting company is a company who is connected to the internet with high bandwidth connections, these are very fast and can provide internet pages to millions of users simultaneously. A simple analogy would be that your broadband internet connection is like a small overgrown path onto the information superhighway, their connection would be a 10 lane motorway. They have computers that hold your website, and are fully backed up and kept secure against hackers.

I picked one.com as a hosting company and have found them to be very reliable and after 20+ years in IT i have never found a company to offer the level of service they do for the price they do.

How much does it cost?

We pay 90p (Ninety Pence) per month for 1 Gb of space, and paid £6.00 to register the address northerndwarf.org. Plus we got the first year free. This is a better proposition that the free web hosting companies you will find, because it allows you to have a professional looking address, and it does not make you have other peoples adverts on your site. The ones you find on our website are put there by me and generate money for the club. We have earned about £60 since the site went live in January 2008; not a fantastic amount but it has more than covered the cost of hosting the site.

This is the current offer from One.com, which currently at time of writing means its totally free.

Coming soon. Designing your site.

I would like to hear from anyone on this subject. Is this information useful to you? What would you like to know more about? email Richard on webmaster@northerndwarf.org

Secretaries report May 2008

Never mind David Beckham, we are also a global brand, thanks to the powers of the internet, northerndwarf.org, we are now welcoming members from the USA, and I would like to offer a very warm welcome to you all, many thanks for joining the Northern. Hope you had a chance to chat to our chairman Trevor who was across in April, flying the flag for us, ably assisted by his two minders, Max and Paddy!! (Nigel Atkinson and Kevin Farnsworth)
Of course our intermediate show will have passed by now, another set of winners and you know what that means, photos of the winners for next year’s “Hall of Fame” calendar.
Talking of photos, there are some great ones on the website, but as always we would welcome some more so please get in touch with Richard if you have any that you want putting on. While you are on the site have a look around there are some great deals to be had, Petplanet has great offers and they offer free delivery on rabbit food, so why not check out the prices.
Lots of people are after stock at the moment, so let us know of any surplus that you may have, and of course you can always put an advert on the website. We are having a trip to the southern Championship show in May so if any southern breeders need any stock bringing down we may be able to oblige!!

Deb and Gary

Welcome to our American Members

I would like to offer a special welcome to our new members from America
Thank you very much for joining the Northern Dwarf.

The new members are

• Sue Travis
  
• Vicki Weisgerber
  
• Lisa Monk
  
• Joe Powers
  
• Robin, Matt, Matthew, & Morgan MacGown
  
• Amie Dick
  

I am visiting the show in America this weekend with Nigel Atkinson and Kevin Farnsworth, and would really like to meet you.

Kevin and Nigel at Bradford 2008

Please introduce yourselves to me and we can have a chat. It has been a wish of mine to visit one of your shows and see how things are done on a much larger scale than in the UK, I am really looking forward to it.
Hope to see you there.

Trevor Hoole
Chairman of the Northern Area Netherland Dwarf Rabbit Club.

Intermediate Show at Bury and Radcliffe 2008

Many thanks to everyone who supported the show, if you couldn’t make it we hope to see you at our Young Stock Show in September.

Thanks to Ros behind the table, a new face for us, and to the stewards especially Nigel on the book.

Many congratulations to Nigel Atkinson on BIS with a stunning REW

and to Lucy Wheal going best Junior with a brilliant Marten Smoke.

It was so nice to see Colin Bothamley out of hospital at the show looking so well.

You could not have written the script any better, not only was he best under 5 months in our show but he was Best Of Breed in the open show going onto Best In Show. Brilliant.

Gary Hodson

Bookshop now online.

Northern Dwarf is please to bring you the bookshop in association with Amazon.
You can also browse our bookshop and purchase books and other products that are listed. You can access it here
All bookshop orders are dealt with by Amazon, the worlds number one online store, the payment and delivery are through their service.
The Northern dwarf makes a small commission from your purchase, this does not increase the price you pay, and our webmaster works hard to identify the bargains within the Amazon store to bring you the best prices.
All commissions made from your purchases go to the running of the club. If you normally shop at Amazon, the club would appreciate that you search using the box on the left so we can earn a commission. If you have anything you wish to buy or think others may be interested in, or any comments or questions - please email me at richardgarforth@btinternet.com

Please support your bookshop!

Happy 12th Birthday Rheanne

Many Happy Returns to Rheanne Sleightholme who is 12 today.

From all at Northern Dwarf.

Hope you can make the show tommorrow!

Secretaries report for April 2008

Many congratulations to Remlap for their brilliant BIS at our President’s show in February under Deanna Williams, not content they went best dwarf in the open show under Tom Stratford with the same Black Otter.

Best junior was Rheanne Sleightholme with a brilliant black, well done.


Our next show is the intermediate show at Bury and Radcliffe April 6th , see advert in the March F&F or click on our website for details. www.northerndwarf.org, once again many thanks to Richard for such a brilliant job.

Ros Waring is doing the honours with a Adele Wray continuing the feminine theme, judging dwarfs (teddy bears) in the open show.

Many thanks to everyone for renewing their subs, very few of you haven’t and with the influx of new members it looks like being a great year for the Northern. Please recommend the Northern Dwarf to everyone that you sell a dwarf to. The calendars have sold out, many thanks to everyone who bought one and remember they will be a Hall of Fame as they will be composed of the winners from our stock shows. All we have to hope now is that you get yourself out to the shows and support the dwarfs.

I cannot finish these notes without some reference to Easter and the Easter Bunny as you will be reading these in April.

Q: How does the Easter Bunny stay healthy?

A: Eggsercise, particularly hareobics!

New Gallery of photographs

The Gallery can now be accessed from the top menu. If you have photos, either historical or from recent shows, please send them and I will add them to the gallery.

The more photos from the Presidents show will be published shortly, showing the winners so check back soon.

Secretaries report for March 2008

All over for another year, were the BOB winners at Bradford northern members? You bet, not only were they northern members but it was our chairman the one and only Trevor Hoole, well done Trevor, perhaps the Martens are your number one colour??


Best Junior was Lucy Wheal with a super Marten Smoke, it certainly had the “Wow” factor, again a northerner.

Thanks to Trevor, Nigel and Richard for ‘standing’ in for Deb on Saturday morning, I know that you really enjoyed yourself Trevor!

The calendars went down really well. A special thanks to Rachel and Richard for their ideas, enthusiasm and IT skills, we managed third in the stand competition, we are after top spot next year. If any one wants a picture of two celebrities, click the top photograph shows TV vet Matt Brash presenting me with the award.

The stand was busy over the two days, a few new members, and just about everyone renewed, their subs. If you haven’t got a year book let us know, and if you didn’t get to Bradford, we look forward to receiving your subs. (You can pay online here!)

Our Presidents show at York on the 3rd of Feb, which of course will have happened by the time you are reading these, followed quickly with our intermediate show in April at Bury and Radcliffe, see you all there.

I’m off to see what I can buy from the website now.
Keep in touch
Gary and Deb.

Forum is now open for business

Come and discuss all things dwarf in the forum.

You need to register first before you can contribute questions or answers. Please feel free to suggest new forum catagories by posting in the website discussion area.

If you are having problems registering, let me know.

As an aside I found Interesting Rabbit books on ebay these are worth looking at!

Richard

Initial report and photographs from York Show.

Deana Williams was judge for this show. A good turnout of dwarfs, considering the show at Wallsend the day before. Over 86 Dwarfs turned out for Deana to sort out, Hannah on book, Trevor Hoole, Phil Batey, Nigel Atkinson and Martin Copeland did the honours with the stewarding.

Best in Show

Best in Show was Remlap studs Otter, which also went Best of Breed in the York open show.

Best U/5

Nigel Atkinson was best U/5 with his Red eyed White

Best Junior

Rheanne Sleightholme was best Junior with her black.


Of course none of this would be possible without the organizational skills of our Secretaries Deb and Gary!

A full report will be published in due course after publication by Fur and Feather magazine.

Secretaries Notes for February

I can’t believe that I am writing these in 2007 and our first show of 2008 is just days away. York sees us with our President’s Show, just a week after Bradford, I hope the entry isn’t affected too much.
Things are very quiet around the shows, BOB at Rochdale was G&D Hodson with a Siamese Sable under John Fletcher, and that is all the results I have to publish.
Of course subs are now due if you haven’t already paid and if you have you should have a yearbook, not any old yearbook but the professionally produced, brightly coloured, advert packed, information bursting book smothered with a spiral binding, this is the Northern Dwarf Yearbook!!
If you are sending you subs through the post, a donation towards the cost of postage would be appreciated, our subs are so cheap that it cost nearly as much to post the yearbook.

(You can also join online by visiting the online shop or clicking here )

One of our members is not too well at the moment, I am sure that you will all join us in wishing David Buckland a speedy return to full health.

I’m off to read up on my unusual colours for Bradford, remind me again how many points for colour!!

(Gary, you can remind yourself here! - Web Dwarf!)

Deb and Gary

Presidents Show at York 3rd February

First Stock show of the year.
Deana Williams is the Judge for the Northern Area Netherland Dwarf Stock show, and Tom Stratford, our President, is Judging in the Open Show.

Location

The York Ebor show is in the Shipton Community centre on the A19 north of York. You can travel up or down the A1 and take the A59 to York then A1237 then the A19. Its at the side of that road as I recall and looks like this

See you there. Results and pictures later.

Richard

Bradford 2008 Day two.

Hannah Copeland, Northern Dwarf Member is proclaimed Junior of the year by the BRC.

Day two is traditionally the socialising day of the 2 day event, Duplicates are judged, the auctions try to raise money for next years show.

The Northern Dwarf was situated with the National Netherland Dwarf Rabbit Club, the Lancashire and Cheshire Dwarf Circle and the North Eastern Netherland Dwarf Rabbit Club.

The Northern Dwarf Stand becomes a hive of activity, members coming from all over the country to pay their Subs and buy calendars, drink tea and chat and generally have a good time. Is is just me or is the dwarf fancy the happiest?

Trevor Hoole receiving Trophy BoB

Kevin and Nigel watching the judging

Gary cracking Jokes

Robert Murphy MBE on book steward Duty

Richard Garforth

Northern Dwarf Calendar 2008.

Fancy a top quality Limited Edition Northern Dwarf Calendar? Pictures taken from around the shows, including people and rabbits.

These are designed to run from February 2008 to January 2009, (So you have not lost a month already!)

Printed by a professional Calendar company on top quality 250gsm coated paper on professional high end digital printers. The coated paper is TCF and made up of 50% recycled stock. They are wire spiral bound and supplied in a sturdy Cardboard Envelope.

Cost is £7.99.

Ring Gary or Deb if you want one, or email.

Strictly First come First Served.

Bradford 2008 Day One

A grand total of 164 Dwarfs entered, which were sorted out by Northern member Barry Taylor, and Northern Judge Gary Hodson.

Trevor Hoole wins Best Of Breed in the Netherland Dwarf Section with his Marten Sable.

The Northern club Stand fought off stiff competition to win 3rd place in the Club Stand competition. Gary Hodson was presented with the prize Card and £25 for club funds by TV Celebrity Vet Matt Brash!



The 2008 Calendar was selling out fast. Over half the calendars were gone in the first day. If you want one, you had better hurry!

Full report and pictures soon.

Secretaries Report for January

A successful year for the Northern, entries up at the shows with the exception of the ASS, membership up and new committee members wow!

The ASS was at East Lancs, Trevor behind the table making Nigel Atkinson’s Black Otter his best, the same rabbit also going best in the Lancs and Cheshire ASS, another otter, Alan Wheals went best in the host club under yours truly. Well done to everyone, including Lucy Wheal who swept the board in the Juniors with a cracking Marten Smoke.

How about this, we have a website under construction, the details will be available for the stand at Bradford, then you can join us on the worldwide web. Many thanks to Richard for dragging us into the 21st Century.

Catering for your traditionalists we are producing a Northern Dwarf Calendar, so if you don’t want to find out when all the shows are at the click of a mouse, you can write them on a calendar. you’ve guessed it we are producing Northern Dwarf pens to write on the calendars. Who says that we don’t think of everything.

The AGM went very well, nothing controversial to report, proposed that we add a yearbred show to the young stock show to cater for those dwarfs that are too old for the YSS but not big enough to compete with the big boys. Everyone was in agreement so you have now got a show for all your new year babies.

Gary and Deb

Secretaries Report from December

Get your diaries out we have the dates for our stock shows next year;

Presidents at York on the 3rd of Feb, Deanna Williams doing the honours.
Intermediate at Bury and Radcliffe on the 6th of April, Ros Waring keeping the female thing going! And very nice to have a couple of different faces behind a Northern table
YSS at East Yorkshire on the 7th of September with Vice President Ken Beecroft sorting the youngsters and the adult support, hope you can manage the travelling to the show Ken, and to finish the year our President Tom Stratford is sorting the adult Stock show and supporting YSS at East Lancs on the 23rd of November, both restoring the male balance, not forgetting experience, but I am too polite to add up the years they have spent behind the judging table.
Deb and I had a trophy stock take and a couple appear to have disappeared into cyberspace, the YSS Junior and the ASS yearbred, or someone’s loft, so could you please have a look when you get your Christmas tree down. You can’t miss them, they are too heavy to hang on the tree although they could have Santa’s name engraved on them.
Hope to see you all at our ASS, which will have passed when you are searching for the trophies, and please don’t forget to return your trophies for Bradford so those lucky enough to win are not disappointed.

Deb and Gary

Yearbook 2008 is now ready for printing.

Thanks for all your articles and yearbook adverts. The yearbook is now finished and Gary has it for final review and printing.

Our previous editor Danielle Hodson did a marvelous job before, but had to give it up to go to University. How she managed to do the yearbook and study for her A levels I will never know. Anyway shes off to University now, and I would like to thank her for her commitment to the yearbook wish her the best with her studies.

It was a lot more time consuming, than I first thought, and chasing people for updates takes time, not because they don't respond, its just theres so many people to talk to and dwarf people like to talk! Disasters along the way, the laser printer broke, and the 60-Day trial copy of Microsoft publisher expired 1 week before I was finished so I had to buy a copy.

I'll not give any clues as to whats in, but its around 96 pages this year.

Some new things will be announced at Bradford 2008, the new Calendar and the website will be launched officially.

Northern Area Netherland Dwarf rabbit Club Ballot results for 2008 Officials and Judges.

The following have been returned unopposed:

President: Mr T Stratford
Vice Presidents: Mr K Beecroft. Mr A Rushforth.
Chairman: Mr T Hoole
Secretary / Treasurer: Mr & Mrs G Hodson
Yearbook editor: Mr R Garforth
Cup steward: vacant
Committee: Mr C
Bothamley. Mr P Faint. Mr A Hicks. Mr K Smithey.
National Judges: K
Beecroft. A Hicks.. G Hodson. T Hoole. K Smithey. T Stratford. R Waring

Nomination to National Panal: (2 judges) Mr P Faint 15 (E), Mr S Smithey
10 (E), Mrs S Carlile 9, Mrs J Bramley 6, , Mr R Smith 6, Miss J Carlile 4
Intermediate show: R Waring 7,T Stratford 6, A Hicks 4, K Beecroft 3, P
Faint 3, R Smith 3.
YSS K Beecroft 9, T Stratford 7, A Hicks 4, R Smith 3, P
Faint 1, R Waring 1
ASS. T Stratford 7, A Hicks 5, R Waring 5, R Smith 4, P
Faint 1.
All judges for stock shows to be confirmed after venues have been
chosen.

57 papers sent out, 28 returned (2 spolit)

Yearbook plea. Adverts and Articles please

Please contact me with your updated adverts and any articles you may have.

If you had an advert last year it will be repeated, the cost being £6 for full page and £4 for half a page.

If you have an idea for an article, I can help get it down on paper if required, and any photographs would be very useful. The yearbook is always better when articles are contributed.

Richard Garforth

Contact details

(01226) 740997 - I can ring you back to save your bill.

Email richardgarforth@btinternet.com

Secretaries Notes for October

As our YSS is on the 30th of September at Pontefract you will hopefully be reading these notes a few days before the show so please support us. The entry for the last few years has been extremely disappointing, in fact nothing short of disastrous, last year we had single figures, the lowest entry in the 20 odd years we have been secretaries. If every member show two dwarfs we would have a really pleasing entry so please please pop along to Pontefract, the judge is really good….his words not mine!!
Remember Richard Garforth is our new yearbook editor, his phone number is 01226 740997, so please get in touch with your adverts and articles. Your committee are organising the stock shows for next year so have you any thoughts where you would like them, let us know asap, we have a couple of nominations to ponder but would like a few more.

Thanks to those of you who returned our ballot, the results are in this issue but judges will be confirmed after venues have been finalised.

See you all at Eggborough, I hope!!!!

Deb and Gary

Caption competition

This is another post including a picture .

Best Caption wins a .......

Articles wanted for yearbook 2008

Have you got an interesting story for our yearbook?

Have you got any photos other member may be interested in?

Do you want to put an advert in the yearbook?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then contact the yearbook editor. Contact details in Fur and feather.

Yearbook entry prices £6 full page and £4 for half a page.

September 2007 Secretaries Notes

Well done to our Chairman Trevor “Tiger Woods” Hoole, BIS at the National YSS with one of his infamous squirrels. Our members did very well at this show, even though not many ventured south. A little closer to home was our YSS at Pontefract, a better entry than last year but there were still lots of members missing, and much as I try to think of reasons why I cannot. Enough of the pessimistic stuff, lets celebrate successes, well done to Nigel Atkinson on going BIS with a stunning REW, a dwarf that must have a future. Simon Beynon did the Adult support with a Marten Sable that was oh so impressive, also going BOB in the open show. Lucy Wheal and Hannah Copeland swept the floor in the juniors, well done to all.

Adverts and articles are due for the yearbook, so please give some thought to putting pen to paper. Richard’s email address is richardgarforth@btinternet.com
As last year the plan is to repeat your advert from last year unless you want to update it, so please get in touch.
Gary and Deb

Secretaries Notes

July is the season of Agricultural shows, a great selection to choose from in the Northern area, with lots of dwarf judges, so get your dwarfs in the shop window.
Stock is in great demand at the moment, so if you have anything spare let us know, Himalayans and agouties are top of the wanted list, but it keep changing, and I am writing these in May.
We haven’t been to many shows lately, so things are very quiet on the news and gossip front, no championships, no new members, no phones calls, looks like I will have to get stuck into the exam marking!
The youngsters in the shed add the excitement to keeping rabbits this time of the year as the adults are so moulty, searching for that flyer for the YSS.
London Championship show starts off the September show season, why not have a trip to Reading, a great venue and the Northern Dwarfs have a very good track record there, apart from ours that is. Never mind keep trying, and of course there are many other things besides winning that matter, not to mention a bit of a do in the car park, a few beers and a kebab.

Gary and Deb

Secretaries Notes

Guess what?? We have a volunteer to do the yearbook editors job, Richard Garforth, probably better known to you as Waggledance Stud. If you don’t know what Richard and his wife show, just have a look at the photos from the national ASS at Bretby in F&F and admire the stunning BEW. A rabbit described by Bob Luke at Bradford as the best BEW he had ever handled. Having judged the rabbit last week I too would put it up there with Budweiser. I am sure a few of our longer serving members remember Simon Beynon’s famous BEW. Richard’s address is in the yearbook so can you send all your articles to him, just to make him feel wanted!

It is only a couple of day’s to our President’s show, I don’t know the entry yet, but we usually do very well at York so here’s hoping.

Many thanks to everyone who has joined us so far this year, if you haven’t renewed get them to us today to be eligible for the Trophies at our Intermediate show at Carlisle, CA6 4AA. Remember we are with the National, so any of you National members who are coming, why not join us, it would be a great pity if you couldn’t take the trophy.

Gary and Deb

Secretaries notes

It is the end of January already, but don’t worry our President’s show is a month later than usual at York on the first Sunday in March, so if you have spent up at Bradford, you can save up for York. Robert Murphy MBE is making the long journey from bonny Scotland so let’s make his journey worthwhile with a top entry. Bob Luke is judging the host classes, so let’s do them both proud. Hopefully the yearbooks will be available by now, if you have paid your subs and not received one let us know, I would like to thanks Danielle for producing the book, not easy whilst juggling with 4 A levels, don’t know what we will do next year when she is at University, any volunteers?

Talking of volunteers, if anyone fancies giving a bit of a hand to put up the pens and clear away afterwards at York it would be greatly appreciated. Hope you all watched Celebrity Come Dancing to sharpen up your moves for the do at Bradford, just wait for my Argentinean Tango, I’ve hired the orange suit and everything!!
Gary and Deb