This new website celebrates the “bringing together” of three important groups which together make up the grass roots of greyhound racing. In the past, each have pursued their own interests by having their own agendas often conflicting with each other, never meeting to discuss topics of mutual interest or (heaven forbid) speaking with a single voice.

It was ironic therefore that the Donoughue Report on the structure of the Sport, perhaps unwittingly, discarded their individual influences upon the old BGRB board and lumped them together with just one vote upon the fledgling GBGB board with the strange title of Practitioner – which is defined in the dictionary as “a person engaged in an art, discipline or profession, especially medicine”.

It would need a stretch of the imagination to apply the aforementioned crafts to owning, training and breeding of greyhounds. However, with fancy titles in vogue nowadays perhaps plain “Practitioner” is preferable to “Canine Outreach Executive”.

The net result of being forced to accept each other’s company has been amazing. So far, thirteen meetings have been held at regular intervals where topics for taking forward to committees and boards have been discussed and, perhaps more importantly, future policy has been formulated based upon the wide experience of the committee members, embracing a whole range of subjects from the rules of racing, breeding issues through to prize money and eventually Rover’s retirement.

Your six representatives on this select committee will continue to work for better times in our Sport for all participants and recent events and changes have borne the fruits of such efforts. There is yet more to come.