History of Severnside Schutzhund Club
In organisational terms, numerous trials and seminars have been held at severnside over the years, generally hosting 3 trials per year including the WELSH OPEN since 1994 which also became the WUSV Qualifier for the selection of the British team to go to the World Championships in 2002. severnside have also hosted the BSA National Championships 3 times.
Severnside members are particularly proud of the contribution, which they have made in cementing relationships with other WUSV Countries in the early years. The initial first club trial was held September 1992. This was not only the first BSA trial to be held in Wales but also Ben Ekhart became the first Dutch VDH judge to officiate at a BSA event in Britain, The following year, in July1993, he returned to judge the BSA Nationals hosted by Severnside. This relationship with the Dutch led to Severnside arranging (with a lot of help from Jan Neinhuis) a BSA/VDH meeting held at Nijmegan during the WUSV World Championships in September 1993. At this meeting members from the White Rose club first met Marc Dhooge, thus leading to even closer links with the Dutch VDH.
Early in 1994 Severnside made arrangements with Jean Leyson, President of the Belgium VVDH, for Michel Heyvaert to become the first VVDH to visit Britain for the BSA event when he judged our first Welsh Open Schutzhund trial at Severnside in February 1994.
The Belgium connection was re-inforced the following year when Louis Vandepoel judged the second Welsh Open, an event which was now becoming a major event in the BSA calendar. Louis came again later in the year to judge the 1995 BSA National hosted by Derwent.
Ben Ekhart visited our shires again in 1995, not only to judge a club trial but, to also officiate at the first BSA approved endurance bike test (AD) 20 kilometres or 12.5 miles. This was a very successful event with five Severnside members passing the test.
In 1996 we hosted the BSA Nationals again and this proved a memorable event being the first time that the Nationals had ever been judged by a German SV judge, in the person of the highly respected Friedl Heghmans.
Since then we continued to invite the best of the working dog judges to our shores and also continue to invite the Belgium, Dutch and German knowledge to our club.
Bobby Behan (GSA) also had a tremendous input into the trials at Severnside judging on at least 5 occasions.
Bobby and his wife Anita made many trips across the Irish waters to help and support us. Your genuine friendship, help and knowledge are a big part of this Welsh clubs history and we thank and applaud you both.
