WASELEY HILLS / BELBROUGHTON - 14TH SEPTEMBER 2025

The club's second event of 2025 consisted of a walk and fun day.  The walk was held at Waseley Hills Country Park, on the Birmingham/Worcestershire border.  This was a new venue for us and around two dozen hardy Airedalers braved the blustery conditions to join us for a walk up to the top, which was rewarded by a fabulous 360 degree view of the surrounding countryside for many miles.  We then returned to Belbroughton Recreation Centre for refreshments, some games and a catch up with fellow Airedalers.  The 'Naughtiest Airedale' competition was a cause of much hilarity, with nefarious deeds being listed on a 'charge sheet' and then judged by the club committee!  The runaway winner with a list of naughty behaviour that covered two sides of paper (!) was two year old Violet, owned by Dave & Hazel Herrin.  Well done to her for amassing such a catalogue of naughty behaviour in such a short time!  As always the club is grateful to our members for their support at these events, we hope that an enjoyable day was had by all.

MCATC FACEBOOK PAGE

The club has its own Facebook page which gives club news and updates etc.  Please click here to access the page.

WARWICKSHIRE WALK & QUIZ - 27TH JULY 2025

We were blessed with a nice mainly sunny day for our first event of 2025, our walk and quiz.  We enjoyed a nice stroll around Ryton Pools Country Park before gathering at Baginton Village Hall for welcome refreshments in the form of tea/coffee and cakes.  Our quiz was a combination of general knowledge questions, together with clips from the beginnings and endings of popular songs - which caused much discussion and furrowed brows, plus people singing snippets to themselves to try and remember what the song was called!  After a tie-break the quiz winners were Carol & Rob Gray with Alice, with runners up Geraldine & Alan Ramage with Sky.  Our sales stall was open for business, with Christmas cards being particularly popular!  Also we held a raffle and would like to thank people for the prizes which were donated.  Doggy and human treat bags were handed out, so that everyone went home with some goodies to enjoy.

Also we were very generously gifted a beautiful hand made Airedale Terrier bag by Mr & Mrs Sanders, which we plan to raffle off in future to raise funds for Airedale Rescue.  Thank you to talented seamstress Mrs Sanders for this lovely gift to the club.

Thank you as always to our club members for your support for our club and our events.

DISCOVER DOGS AT CRUFTS 2025

It doesn’t seem like twelve months since Crufts 2024 at the NEC in Birmingham, but here we all were again for the 2025 show and Discover Dogs.

In the show ring, the Airedales were judged by Mrs Maureen Ward (Zabaretts) with David & Julie Brown’s dog CH Jokyl Daily Special JW (aka Herbie) taking Best Of Breed.

The Airedale Terrier stand within the Discover Dogs section was again co-ordinated by The Midland Counties Airedale Terrier Club, and manned by our lovely volunteers from around the country.   We had lots of lovely comments about the stand, which was decorated to its always high standard by MCATC Secretary Julie Martin and looked really impressive. 

All four days of the show saw lots of visitors stopping by to admire our Airedales and learn about the breed, or to share their experiences as Airedale owners and talk about their dogs both past and present.  We were also visited on the Thursday by TV presenter Claudia Winkleman who had her photo taken with Bramley, and on Sunday the vet Paul Manktelow, featured on Channel 4’s Crufts coverage, popped by and had his photo taken with Rosie.  In addition, MCATC member Emma Lodder was interviewed by the Daily Express, with the resulting article appearing on the paper’s website – and also Dolly, owned by Bridget Singh, made an appearance in a GB News feature on Crufts. 

MCATC would like to thank the following volunteers and their Airedales for helping us to make the stand such a success across the four days of Crufts:

Rachel & Alan Greaves with Bramley; Anita Humphris with Mr Darcey; Carol & Rob Gray with Alice; Louise Caulfield with Rosie; Andy Hull with Gibson; Rebecca Hallam-Ward with Finn; Mark & Vicky Wilmott with Harry;; Melanie Johnson-Holliday & family with Louie; Paula Hughes with Buttons Boy; Bridget Singh with Albert; Dene & Jayne Alford-Evans with Reggie; Mandy & Ian Baker with Shelby & Belle; Jo Blackburn with Edna; Jane Johnstone with Raven; and Emma Lodder with Rory & Bunty.

As always everyone did a fantastic job – we couldn’t do it without you all!

And of course, special thanks as always to Julie for the fabulous stand and for organising the tickets and passes for everyone.