20 Years Already!

SUMMARY: Bay Team celebrates

I love my new Bay Team 20th anniversary mug! You, too, can own one of these three beautiful drinkware options--but, first, a little history.

The Bay Team's first-ever meeting (before it had decided on a name) was held on August 22, 1992, long before I had ever heard of agility. Fifteen people attended. They finally hosted their first fun match at the end of 1993 to become certified to hold real trials, and their first real trial came in January 1994 (NADAC).

We held our first USDAA that May--a one-ring trial with 20 dogs competing.

The club bought/built its first Aframe, out of wood, for $450.

When I joined The Bay Team in July of 1995, I did so only because I thought maybe I'd get some useful info from time to time and also sometimes a free practice along with the meetings. But then I studiously avoided going to meetings because, thank you very much, I had plenty of other things to occupy my time and I really didn't need to get involved in this, especially since I wasn't ever planning on actually competing with my dog Remington; we were just in it for something to do on Wednesday evenings and had been taking classes for only about 3 months.

The Bay Team and I were both still so new to agility. In September of 1995, I dropped by the club's 5th-ever trial for a couple of hours, a USDAA event in Daly City, to see what it looked like. It actually looked pretty cool. I recognized a few people from class, and was amazed at the feats they achieved in actual competition. Plus ribbons!

I also spent some time talking to a nice woman (Debby Stein) and her shepherd mix, who not only did very well in agility but wowed me with a bunch of tricks, which I rushed home and worked on teaching to Remington. I learned much later that she was one of the founding members of the Bay Team. (I followed them and their tricks and obedience career for a while and they were sort of my role model for Remington, maybe because of the tricks and maybe because he was also a shepherd mix, dang I can't remember his name.)

My first competition was a Bay Team NADAC trial in January 1996, the horrific mudfest, which that Saturday almost made me give up agility--except that we earned a Q in, of all thing, gamblers, and that's all it took to make me come back the next day, where the weather cleared up to a bright and sunny day and we earned another Q, in Jumpers, and then I was nearly hooked.

I attended 6 whole trials that first year, four of them Bay Team trials (2 NADAC, 2 USDAA).

Fast forward to 2012...well, we're anticipating a bit, but we're planning on celebrating our 20th anniversary all year.

As of our 20th anniversary, the Bay Team will have hosted (best guess) 100 trials (22 NADAC, 21 CPE, the rest USDAA); we have nearly 300 members; our annual Regional trials have 5 rings with nearly 500 dogs competing.

Our current Aframes are metal, rubber-coated, professionally built and costing around $1500 each.

As of last weekend, I've now run 4 dogs in agility at 245 trials--that's 3,898 runs. (That's 52 NADAC--some dual-sanctioned with ASCA, 46 CPE, a couple of ASCA, and the rest USDAA.)

And I have served on the club board as member at large and President; acted as webmaster since 1998; I've chaired, secretaried, crew chiefed, and score tabled innumerable trials; attended many seminars and fun matches, chose my dogs, my car, and my house specifically with agility in mind--and here we are.

So, now, YOU, TOO, can own one or more of these etched glass items. Bay Team members get one FREE; they can also order more, as can nonmembers. However, you must order by October 15, because we're only ordering enough to fulfill people's requests. After that, allllll gonnnnnne. Just download the PDF order form from the Bay Team site (http://www.bayteam.org).

(Photo credits: Glassware--Mike Scannell; mudfest--Bill Newcomb)