eBlast message from ESAA President - May 2025

Greetings, My English Setter Friends! Two important events are coming up.

First, did you know that ESAA ’s goal for its National Specialty is to hire judges who will draw a good entry, are experienced judging our breed, like the breed and know the breed well? They should also be patient with young dogs in the ring and owner handlers who may be just starting out. To meet these goals, ESAA landed on a process to make selections that are objective, merit based and easily researched. Criteria were developed with points applied to all nominees. The top four nominated for breed and the top four nominated for Futurity/Maturity appear on the ballot. Members rank the ballot nominees 1 through 4. Ranked-choice voting and tabulation is done to ensure that the first or second choice of the majority of the voters ends up on the panel. 

Your Regional VP or At Large VP will soon contact you for nominations for 2026. VPs may use whatever method or procedure will work best to engage members and land on two names for breed and two names for Futurity/Maturity. As you ponder whom to nominate, keep in mind that nominees must be licensed judges, and must have judged 50 English Setters within the last 5 years. A judge may not repeat judging at the National or Winter Garden Specialty within five years. For example, Michael Faulkner judged our National in Portland in 2016. He was eligible to judge for us in 2023 in Asheville because it was beyond the 5-year window. You may recall he had to withdraw from that assignment because of a death in his family. So, it was not surprising that he was nominated and selected to judge our National this year, 9 years after he last judged for us in Portland. 

Once all the VPs have landed on names, merit-based criteria are applied to sort the list and come up with the ballot. The criteria and points are:

• Attended Judges Education at the ESAA National Specialty … +5 points

• Judged a regional club ES specialty … +5 points

• Judged a sporting breed National Specialty … +5 points

• Original breed was the English Setter … +4 points

• Original breed was a sporting breed … +3 points

• Judged any breed at a Sporting Group Show … +2 points

The research window for Criteria is limited to the past 5 years except for attending Judges Education at the National (+5 no matter when it was taken) and original breed (+4 or +3 always). Our selection process works well in meeting our stated goal and many other parent clubs have asked me for our written guidance.  

Second, did you know that it is soon time for ESAA elections? Watch for ballots from Election Buddy either in your email or in your actual mailbox, depending on your selection when you renewed your membership. You have plenty of time to return your ballots, but why wait?! Do it sooner rather than later. The candidates prepared written information about themselves, which is included with the ballot. Please keep in mind that opinions or perspectives shared in the written material are solely those of the candidate and do not necessarily reflect the views, policies or positions of ESAA. 

Thank you for reading!

Julie