Elm Park Dog Training Club is now in its 40th year.

Thanks to Irene Knight who was the secretary for the club for many years and who kept 
a lot of old EPDTC magazines. I with the help of Linda Bell was able to find out a bit of 
history about the club. so here goes ....

How it started

On Wednesday 4th June 1958, a group of 17 local dog lovers held a meeting to discuss 
the formation of a Dog Training Club in Elm Park. No-one who was at that first meeting 
is with the club today, the oldest members being Irene Knight who joined in 1964 with 
Ricky a Golden Retriever cross, and Joyce and Dennis Purcell who joined in 1966, At 
the first meeting Mr E B Simmons donated a sum of 10/6 which was the fee for 
registration of Title with the Kennel Club.

Mr S Middleton was elected as the first Chairman and Miss J Fox offered to act as 
Honorary Secretary .

At the first Annual General Meeting, the Chairman in his speech stated that the 
membership had reached over 80 at the end of the first year, although only 16 were 
present at the AGM (things don't change do they!!!). Miss Fox resigned as Secretary 
and Mrs Jean Cork was elected to be the new secretary. Miss Fox presented the Club 
with a shield to be given to the member the Committee thought fit. This is now our Test 
A shield (Obedience) which is held from year to year by the member with the highest 
percentage taken from the two progress tests during the year.

In 1959 Mr L Browne became Chairman and in that year two committee members. Mrs 
Barbara Mills and Mrs Middleton. started helping members who wished to train for show 
purposes - this was the beginning of the Ring craft class which helped many people 
since to succeed in the show ring.

Mrs June Thackeray was the next secretary in 1960, in 1961 it was Mrs Marjorie 
Gordon who took over the following six years when the Club began to get well known. 
She was a very efficient secretary who launched the Club into the Obedience Show 
world with the first Open Show on 5th May 1962, held at the Willow Rooms, Romford. 
The entry was 145 with 77 dogs and the organization of the show received favorable 
comment in the Dog Press. The second show in September that year had an entry of 
238, following which two shows a year were held until 1968 until the growing entry 
numbers and the difficulty in finding venues, one show a year has been held since.

Irene Knight took over as secretary when Marjorie retired, after spending two years as 
Treasurer.

There have been several secretaries in between times and at present I am the lucky 
person with the job (Julie Appleton).

Over the years the Club has had many trainers, all giving their time freely to help hundreds 
of dogs and owners and without whom there would be no Club.

For the first 15 years Elm Park's home was Elm Park Assembly Hall, the hall being big 
enough for everything to be done on the same night (Friday), this meant that both Show 
people and Obedience would meet each training night and the more junior handlers 
could stay and watch the more experienced people training their dogs. Unfortunately in 
1973 the Council decided that the hall was not suitable for dogs as they used the hall to 
serve food to the ASPs, weddings etc, and that food and dogs didn't mix. The Club 
was then offered Gooshays Hall where we have been ever since, although due to the 
size of the Club Elm Park hired the Co-Op Hall on Thursdays and there were 
complaints from the other users of that hall about the dogs. 

Three monthly Progress Tests were introduced in 1961 but we now only have two a 
year, in July and October.