Bearded Collie Club of Maine

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Bounce & BBQ Postponed to October 6!

July 12, 2024 /

Postponed! Due to the dire weather and other factors, we’ve postponed the BBQ until October!

The 2024 edition of the BCCME Bounce & BBQ will now take place on Sunday, October 6 from 12 noon – 4 PM at Val’s house in Westbrook. Mark your calendars!

This year marks our 19th annual Bounce & BBQ! (Wow — time to start thinking about what to do to mark our 20th!)

We have a special attraction this year! Deb King (who has a Beardie, Emma) is our special guest for this year’s BBQ. Deb will do a demo of the Happy Ratters games. Happy Ratters and Barn Hunt are two growing dog sports where your dog tries to locate a (safely caged) rat using his/her nose. The rat cage is hidden in a maze of obstacles (Happy Ratters) or hay bales (Barn Hunt). Happy Ratters and Barn Hunt promote teamwork between you and your dog — your dog learns to take signals from you, and you learn to read your dog’s body language to know when s/he’s found the rat. There are Happy Ratters events around Maine multiple times per year.

Every year at the BBQ, we also hold our Annual meeting and elections. We’re always looking for folks to help out, so if you want to chair a new committee, join an existing committee, or are considering running for an office or the Board, just say the word. Even if you’d just like to host an event and invite the Beardies to bounce around your yard, that would be wonderful.

Membership Renewal Time!

The BBQ marks the time for all good Mainiacs to renew their club memberships! Hustle on over to the Join Us! page to download the printable form or renew online.

NOTE: Please plan to re-up again this year. We didn’t make any money last year, and we still need to pay our event insurance, our annual tribute to BCCA, and other expenses. Only a few folks renewed last year. We run a couple of fundraisers each year, but those make just enough to pay a few of the bills. Kathy can take renewals at the BBQ.

BCCME 19th Annual Bounce & BBQ, July 13

June 29, 2024 /

The 2024 edition of the BCCME Bounce & BBQ will take place on Saturday, July 13 from 12 noon – 4 PM at Val’s house in Westbrook. Mark your calendars!

This year marks our 19th annual Bounce & BBQ! (Wow — time to start thinking about what to do to mark our 20th!)

We have a special attraction this year! Deb King (who has a Beardie, Emma) is our special guest for this year’s BBQ. Deb will do a demo of the Happy Ratters games. Happy Ratters and Barn Hunt are two growing dog sports where your dog tries to locate a (safely caged) rat using his/her nose. The rat cage is hidden in a maze of obstacles (Happy Ratters) or hay bales (Barn Hunt). Happy Ratters and Barn Hunt promote teamwork between you and your dog — your dog learns to take signals from you, and you learn to read your dog’s body language to know when s/he’s found the rat. There are Happy Ratters events around Maine multiple times per year.

Every year at the BBQ, we also hold our Annual meeting and elections. We’re always looking for folks to help out, so if you want to chair a new committee, join an existing committee, or are considering running for an office or the Board, just say the word. Even if you’d just like to host an event and invite the Beardies to bounce around your yard, that would be wonderful.

Membership Renewal Time!

The BBQ marks the time for all good Mainiacs to renew their club memberships! Hustle on over to the Join Us! page to download the printable form or renew online.

Happy Spring, Mainiacs!

March 21, 2021 /

Hi Folks!

I hope you’ve all been keeping safe and well. Now that we’re emerging from winter hibernation and from the pandemic lockdown, it’s time to talk about what 2021 brings for BCCME.

The Board met this afternoon via Zoom to discuss our events. Here’s what’s going on:

  1. The May shows in Cumberland, ME have been canceled.
  2. It took a while for the official word to come from the town, but the Ladies’ Dog Club shows in Wrentham — where we hold our regional Specialty — *will* be taking place on June 5 and 6. The show format will be drastically stripped down from previous years: no party tent, no lunches, no spectators. If you don’t win your class, leave. (Sounds like a blast, right?) Anyway, we’re still holding the event. Pat Colombo is our Saturday Sweeps judge, Bob Lamm will judge regular classes. Our Sunday judge is (I think) Jon Cole. Entries will open mid-May, and MB-F is the super.
  3. The June shows in Cumberland *will* take place on June 24-27 at the Cumberland Fairgrounds. We have supported entries on Saturday and Sunday. MB-F s the super for that show as well.
  4. The event you’ve all been waiting for: The BCCME Bounce & BBQ! Tentative date is Saturday, July 10 from 12 noon – 4 PM. We’re still figuring out the logistics, such as whether people should bring their own picnic lunches. Sme of us will have been vaccinated by then and some of us won’t be yet, so we’ll have to mask and distance ourselves — but we’ll still be able to get together. Anyway, the Bounce will take place at Val’s new digs in Westbrook.

We’ll send more information as we get it. In the meantime, why don’t you folks tell us how you’ve been? We can’t wait to see you!

Membership Renewal Time!

July 14, 2019 /

Look at this sad face. You wouldn’t want to disappoint Famous Seamus, would you?


Listen up, Mainiacs! Now that the Bounce & BBQ has been and gone, it’s time for folks to renew their club memberships!

You might ask, “Well, what do I get for the price of my dues?” Admittedly, we don’t hold a huge number of events per year, but if you like going to the BBQ or having priority entry to our special events such as herding clinics, it’ll be worth it. Not only that, but we can’t live forever on the monies we made from hosting the National Specialty — last time we did it was in 2016 — and if you like having a club, now’s your chance to support it. Just our club event insurance alone costs us hundreds of dollars per year. Without it, we’re destined to go the way of the club-asaurus.

What’s that you say? “Yes, dammit — I want to go to next year’s BBQ!” Well, then, you know what to do… Go here and renew your membership! We even have a PayPal button for online renewals.

Who Wants to Go Herding this Fall?

July 1, 2018 /

Maryann, our intrepid Activities Chair, is working to bring our favorite Beardie breeder/judge Terry Workman back for a 2-day herding event. We’d have lessons on Saturday and early Sunday, and then offer the BCCA Herding Instinct Test (HIC) on Sunday. Working spots will first be offered to Club members (so get your memberships in!), then to other Beardie People, and then to everyone else.

Interested? We’d really like to know who would come. If you think this sounds good, please fill out our SurveyMonkey survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Y6ZGG23

Thanks so much!

Busy Summer Ahead!

June 10, 2018 /

Hello Mainiacs!

The summer, like so many summers before it, is already looking to be crazy busy. Here’s a list of dates for events and deadlines that you’ll want to know about.

June 23-24: Supported Entries at the Chickadee Cluster in Cumberland, ME. Here are the entry breakdowns:
Saturday: 1-2 (0-0)
Sunday: 1-2 (0-0)

June 30: last day to submit photos for the 2019 Beardies of the World Calendar. All the details are at www.bowcalendar.com .

July 1: Time to start thinking about membership renewal! You can even renew online, which saves the trouble of writing checks and mailing stuff. I will be away for the BBQ this year, so you won’t be able to hand me any membership stuff there. If you can, please renew online or via snail mail before the BBQ.

Also on July 1: Our insurance renews. I’ll be spending some club money on that shortly.

July 14: Not only is it Bastille Day in France, but it’s also the date of the 13th annual BCCME Beardie Bounce & BBQ! As usual, it will be held at Val’s house in Scarborough from 12-4 PM. Bring something for the potluck, bring a pen to vote in the annual election (members only), and bring $$ for the traditional raffles.

(Yes, we did change the date of the BBQ to the 3rd weekend in July, but Val can’t be home to host us on that date this year — so we’re back to the second weekend this year.)

Lastly… save the weekend of October 20-21! Maryann, our Activities Chair has been planning something special! Priority for signup goes to BCCME members first, so there’s an incentive to renew!

Val has been working on getting a Fun Walk together in Scarborough sometime. More on that as the details get ironed out.

That’s all for now… Please contact Val with any ideas, if you’d like to run for office, or for any good reason at all.

Membership Renewals Now Also Online!

July 9, 2017 /

It’s July now, and you know what that means — time for you to renew your membership in BCCME! You know we’ve never required people to join the club in order to participate in our activities, but your membership dues help us to finance all of the fun stuff we want to do, plus a good deal of the boring stuff, too. We couldn’t host events without paying our annual insurance premium, and a substantial percentage of membership dues go to just that. Your dues also help us to throw the #1 absolute finest event of the summer: The Bounce &amp BBQ! Dues also pay for sweeps judge expenses and hospitality at our June Specialty, the hosting and domain fees for the website and a host of other expenses.

Please consider joining the proud ranks of paid members today! If you can’t make it to this year’s Bounce, you can pay by snail mail or (new this year!) even pay online.

FMI: https://www.beardedcollieclubofmaine.org/join-us/

Membership Renewals, Bounce & BBQ, and All That

July 3, 2017 /

Greetings, Mainiacs!

Now that it’s July, it’s time to once again sound the trumpets!

Our annual Bounce & BBQ (minus the BBQ) will be taking place on Saturday, July 15, from 12 noon to 4 PM. We’re holding it at a different place, though: Paw-zn-Around in Saco, ME. This is because Val has baby puppies at home, and she’d like to wait a little longer before exposing them to a bunch of Beardies who don’t live there.

We’ll have all the usual fun and frolic, and we’ll bring the main course (sandwich fixings, because we can’t grill this year), cups, plates & utensils, drinks… all that stuff. You should bring yourselves, your Beardies, and something for the potluck.

Here’s the event announcement.

We’ll also hold our Annual Meeting and annual elections.

Don’t forget to bring your wallets and checkbooks! We’ll also have the traditional raffles, Specialty leftovers (throws and mugs and stuff), plus we’ll acceot membership renewals while we’re there. Can’t make it to the Bounce? You can renew your membership online.

If your membership info has changed during the year, please fill out and send the Membership Form to Kathy. Kathy will update the Membership List.

Just one more thing: The website could use some new photos! Please send me your best shots.

See you there!

BCCME Bounce & BBQ, July 15

May 29, 2017 /

IMPORTANT: Note the new location, but the same date!

For news and updates about the BBQ, visit the BBQ event page.

We’re still having the annual BBQ on the same date — 3rd weekend in July — but we need to change the venue for this year. Val will have little puppies at home in mid-July, so we’re moving this year’s bash to Paw-zn-Around in Saco. It will still be on July 15 from 12-4 PM. As of now, we don’t have a rain date.

Paw-zn-Around has a lovely fenced-in event field just past the main building with the pawprints. We may use the rest rooms inside the building, and we’ll find out whether we can also use the kitchen.

As usual, we’ll have our traditional festivities: Beardies bouncing everywhere, raffles for fun Beardie stuff, our Annual Meeting, and annual elections. We’ll also have extra membership forms onsite for membership renewals and for new members.

It’s Not Really a BBQ, But It’ll Still Be a Bounce

Since we won’t have the gas grill, we’ll figure out what our local food options are — pizza, subs, or something. The club traditionally supplies the burgers, so we’ll take care of that part. We’ll also supply the paper plates, cups, plasticware, napkins, and all that. You can still bring snacks, drinks, side dishes, or whatever inspires you. If you can also bring a table, we’d really appreciate it.

What To Bring

Here’s what else you can bring:

  • Your lovely selves
  • Your Beardies
  • Chairs
  • EZ-Ups or other shelter from the sun
  • Bug spray
  • Something for the potluck
  • Your checkbook (for membership renewals)
  • Cash (for raffle tickets)
  • Pens (for the annual election ballots)

If you’re not sure what to bring for the potluck and would like ideas, ask Val. She’ll know whether everyone is signing up to bring potato salad.

You Can Get There From Here!

Use this handy map to get to Paw-zn-Around. The street address is:

8 New County Road
Saco, ME 04072

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