Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of

The International Union for Leonberger Dogs.
Held on September 24^th  2005 Hotel Kirchner, Leonberg, Germany

Member Clubs represented
Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, USA, Victoria (Australia).

Not Represented
Hungary, Slovak Republic.

The Chairman for the Meeting was Gerhard Zerle.
Minutes were taken by Hein Sibrijns.

Introduction
Herr Zerle opened the meeting and welcomed those present. He was delighted that so many member countries were represented.

Awards
Two long term representatives were singled out to be honoured.
(It was believed that) Mr. Fred Inwood had already received the golden pin of honour from the German Leonberger Club. As yet the Union does not have its own symbol of honour.
Mr. Pablo Pabst was then presented with the golden pin of honour from the German Leonberger Club.

President’s Report
France has retired from the Union. As a result the Union’s  president sent a letter to the president of the French Club, expressing his and the committee’s deep regret at their decision.

Herr Zerle reported that he has judged at 4 international club shows this year. His observations were that the coat colour is more uniform and that there are hardly any predominantly black dogs now, but that there is still a lot of variation of type.
Type variation will therefore be the main theme for discussion at the judges’ seminar on the 19^th and 20^th November 2005.
The president then thanked the committee for their hard work and support.

Treasurer’s Report
Up until this day of the meeting, Union membership fees have been paid by 13 member clubs. A further 2 clubs have paid in cash and the cheque from an additional club is still due to be cashed. The Norwegian club is the only club that has not yet paid its fee.
The total amount received from 16 clubs comprising 9433 members is 2,686.60 €. Expenditure up until 24^th September 2005 is 156.24 €.

Discussion and acceptance of the reports
Denmark requested that in future the treasurer provides hard copies of the financial report for review by all delegates.
Guido Perosino stressed that each club should be working towards a more homogenous type. 50 judges will attend the judge’s meeting and there should be a report for inclusion on the union website and in each club newsletter. Guido will write the article to be printed in the newsletters of the member clubs.
The delegates unanimously accepted the reports.

Latest Union developments

The Leonberger Club of New Zealand has applied for Union membership.
The committee has studied the detailed and well presented application and advises the AGM to accept the LCNZ as a member.

The Union voted unanimously to accept LCNZ as a Union member club.

An address for each Union member club will be printed on the Union site.

Moravian-Schlesian Leonberger Club

In its capacity as the second recognised club under the umbrella of the FCI in the Czech Republic, the Moravian-Schlesian Leonberger club applied for observer member status within the Union. They had submitted the necessary paper work to the president; the committee had checked the papers at the meeting held on 23rd September 2005 and now advises the AGM to accept the Moravian club as observers.

It was stressed that the Czech Leonberger Club will be the primary representative and will remain the only club with full voting rights for the whole Czech Republic.

There were two Moravian delegates present at this meeting.

The Czech delegates expressed their displeasure that they were not informed that the Moravian club had applied for observer status and that the two delegates would be present at the meeting.

The committee apologised to the Czech club. The Czech club then proposed that the decision on the admittance of the Moravian Club to observer status be postponed until next year.

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It was stressed that because the Moravian club is recognised by the FCI umbrella organisation, it has the right to apply for observer status membership. Second club membership is only possible in countries where more than one club for a breed is recognised by the FCI. This is only possible in a few countries and the Czech Republic is one of them.

Peter Cejnek went on to explain the political and cultural backgrounds that make it necessary for the Czech Kennel Club to recognise two breed clubs. Pablo Pabst stressed that one should not refuse membership to any FCI recognised club.

The delegates of the Moravian club were asked to explain why they have a separate club and want to be a member of the Union.

The Moravian club explained that they were founded 12 years ago and are now seeking international recognition. The club has 95 members and dual membership of the Czech and Moravian club is possible.

The representatives of the Moravian club were asked to leave the room, so the delegates of the member clubs could speak more freely.

The Czech club explained that the Moravian club was founded by some Czech members living in Moravia, who did not want to respect the breeding rules of the Czech club.

The Czech club had no problem with this until recently. However, now a few Czech residents who have attempted to oppress the Czech Club with lawsuits, letters from solicitors and complaints to the police, have become members of the Moravian club, who in turn wish to apply for Union membership.

It should be noted that the Czech club has 800 members and is therefore much bigger than the Moravian club.

It was clear that a war between the two clubs is not in the interest of the breed or the Union.

The Union must not interfere in the internal affairs of a country, but can demand that the two clubs in Czech Republic make peace and begin working together.

After further discussion the Union demanded that the Czech club be fair to the Moravian club and the latter ceases its attacks on the Czech club.

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Peter Cejnek was appointed mediator and the Moravian club application will be postponed for one year. Peter Cejnek and the Czech club will present a report to the Union next year, at which point the application will be reviewed.

The delegates of the Moravian club were allowed to stay for the rest of the meeting.

France is no longer a member of the Union. In order to remain in dialogue the president has asked the French club to send an observer. Mr. Buff was introduced in this capacity and this decision was accepted unanimously.

The Union will make every endeavour to get France back as a Union member.

The Hungarian Leonberger Club is recognised by the ministry of agriculture, but does not have any members or a committee anymore and is not a member of the Hungarian FCI member umbrella organisation.

Therefore the membership of the Hungarian Leonberger Club has ended. At this moment in time there is no new Leonberger Club in Hungary. A multi-breed club takes care of the interests of the breed.

A national Canadian Leonberger Club has recently been founded. This club has not yet applied for Union membership.

The Union member club in the USA (Leonberger Club of America ) has applied for parent club status within the American Kennel Club. The results of the vote by the LCA-membership to the question if LCA should apply for AKC PC status were:

There was  69% ballot response. 

Out of the 880 ballot responses:  747 voted Yes  133 voted No . 85% of vote recorded were Yes, 15% was No

A second Leonberger Club in the US (Leonberger Club of the United States ) has also applied for AKC parent club status. The AKC will make a final determination which club will be PC  sometime after 31 December 2006 but the final quarterly report is due on 31 December 2006 .. The AKC has set requirements for both clubs. The clubs have to send quarterly reports to AKC.

From 01.01.2006 Leonbergers have now been admitted to the AKC companion events.

Ideally many LCA members would like to see the clubs reunite and unify for the sake of the breed but that beyond re-unification it is simply important for the clubs to be able to communicate and work together for the sake of the breed no matter what the future brings

The Dutch Leonberger Club will celebrate its 40^th anniversary on the 16th and 17th September 2006 with a huge party and a jubilee club show.

More information will be made available on www.leonberger.nl.

A representative from the Danish club asked if the data on private internet databases is correct.

As a general rule only primary and kennel club information is subject to scrutiny. This is not the case with privately owned databases which can result in incorrect information.

There are numerous private sites with unverified data and often this data has been entered without consent.

The Union would like to build a reliable database, but is currently not in a position to do so.

Beth O’Connor will write a statement about private databases for inclusion on the Union’s website.

Petra Junehall advised that the Leonberger breed standard book featuring drawings and pictures is now available to purchase in 5 different languages.

A sponsor has kindly agreed to cover the hotel costs for foreign participants at the Italian Club Show on 23rd October 2005.

Italy is now issuing two types of pedigree registration in two different colours for puppies that meet special requirements.

Guido warned that 4 Italian sperm banks are selling sperm from their own stock via the internet.

Next year the Italian Millennium awards will go to Rahel Schaale and Jenny Kennish in recognition of their excellent artistic representations of Leonbergers.

The Swiss Kennel Club now requires all member and non member breeding stock to have passed a breeding ability check..

Before a female can be bred for the 4^th time, puppies from the 3 previous litters must be evaluated. Before a male can be used at stud for a 4^th time, puppies from his 3 previous litters must have been evaluated.

Bern University is beginning to research Poly Neuropathy.

The committee will continue to try and convince the French Leonberger club of the importance of being a Union member.

The German Club announced that it is now possible for the countries of origin for each FCI breed to have direct international contact.

The German Leonberger club will sign a document agreeing to cooperate with the FCI. In future this will make it possible to have direct contact with the individual FCI departments e.g. the technical commission.

Within this agreement the versatility of the Leonberger breed will be stressed.

Miscellaneous

The Belgian club has requested that the Belgian Kennel Club no longer accepts “initial registrations”.

The British Leonberger Club will not make any exceptions to the code of ethics and will only allow dogs with an official eye certificate, showing they do not suffer from hereditary cataracts, to be used for breeding. This also applies to foreign stud dogs.

Closure

The president thanked everybody for their participation and closed the meeting.

Leonberg, 24.09.2005

Gerhard Zerle, president.                   Hein Sibrijns, secretary