Specialty Clubs & AKC Member Club Status
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By Amy Fernandez
Speaking as someone who has endured the AKC club approval process, I can assure you that it’s a joyride…Not! Obviously, AKC’s first consideration from a survival standpoint is legality, and luckily this sport never lacks legal expertise. That said, most clubs use AKC’s preformatted template for their constitution and bylaws, which streamlines the process and ensures that all new clubs hew a close line.
You may ask why that’s such a big deal. If you take a close look at the AKC bylaws you wouldn’t be the first to realize it’s a little different. Specifically, the “club of clubs” concept of democracy is somewhat unusual. In reality, there are many interpretations of how and why it went down this way. However, the primary objective is to ensure that all participants have a voice in running their organization. That’s how democracy works. AKC’s governing format guarantees precisely that. Every club appoints a delegate and that individual represents them at delegate meeting where they all have an equal say in decision making, and majority rules. Of course, critics might say that the whole system is designed to ensure that a ruling party maintains control. Like most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
So why bring this up now? Well… it’s no secret that our sport hasn’t exactly been operating at peak capacity in recent years. For more than a decade every aspect of it has been steadily shrinking–mainly due to dwindling support. If you are reading this, you thoroughly understand the appeal of countless hours perfecting your canine contender and devoting every free minute to securing its competitive glory. It’s a rough, demanding sport and to know it is to love it, which somewhat explains our current problem. We desperately need more people getting to know it. And as AKC has discovered, new breeds represent an untapped vein of enthusiastic novices. After decades of stonewalling, the floodgates opened.
The trick is keeping these new recruits onboard. So, let’s turn this over to Matthew Townsend, president of the Mid-Atlantic Leonberger Club of Virginia, one of those countless, voiceless satellite clubs that actually represent “the fancy”, the ones who show up at countless AKC events simply because they want to promote their breed to the wider public. They don’t get paid–they don’t even get any credit for it most of the time–but they are cool with that. And since most of us have been there, done that, we totally understand the motivation.
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Posted by AnthonyA
on Dec 30 2020. Filed under Current Articles, Featured.
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