BORDER TERRIERS 2020 – FURTHER POSTPONEMENT
New dates – April 29 to May 2, 2022
The Committee of Border Terriers 2020 regrets to have to announce the postponement of its event by a further year until May 2022. This decision has been unanimously arrived at because of the current uncertainties posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The new dates will be April 29 to May 2, 2022. It has already been established that the venue at the Border Union Showground at Kelso is available and that the scheduled championship show judge Elspeth Jackson has agreed to officiate on the revised date. The date currently appears to be free of other conflicting activities, but final ratification of the changed date will still have to be obtained from the Kennel Club.
The Committee recognises that delaying what were originally meant to be Centenary celebrations by yet another year, does seem odd but the reasons for coming to that conclusion are as follows:
• The latest Covid-19 developments and the vaccination programmes in the UK don't look as though they're going to create a situation which will be able for sure, to be called anything like ‘normal’ in the first half of 2021.
• The situation in many overseas countries and for international travel looks just as unfavourable.
• There is a great likelihood of people having to continue to wear masks and observe some social distancing rules throughout most of 2021.
• Though it would probably be possible to run an ordinary outdoor show at Kelso on the previously arranged May 2021 date, the Committee feels that that is not really good enough because so many other aspects of the event have been planned.
• The Committee has from the start intended to make this occasion something very special, and with a real international flavour. It has come to the conclusion that it is highly unlikely that people will be moving around the world as normal by May of 2021.
• Brexit too is currently making people nervous about moving dogs in and out of the UK until the rules are finally sorted out.
• The option of simply moving to later in 2021 was considered but trying to get sensible dates for that with the now crowded UK show calendar, and with some clubs running more than one championship show next year, is likely to make finding dates extremely difficult.
For all of those reasons the Committee has agreed to abandon the idea of holding what might well end up as a sub-optimal event in May 2021, in favour of delaying the whole event by a further year to 2022 and making it the very special occasion that has been planned right from the start. The event is meant, after all, to be a celebration of the breed, so it does not really matter that it is delayed further from 2021 to 2022.
Euan Castel Secretary of the event said: “It is recognised that lots of people do want to get going again with shows, and of course that made going ahead in 2021 quite tempting for us. However, the Committee doesn’t think that doing so would be sensible for our particular event. It was always meant to be a very special occasion.
“Please take a note of the new dates - 29th April to 2nd May 2022 - when hopefully we will all be able to meet socially in a normal and enjoyable way in what we all hope will be a unique festival celebrating the Border Terrier in all of its various aspects.”
Further details will be updated in due course.