We are requesting that the Newfoundland Club of America's Working Dog Committee appoint a sub-committee to review the Qualifications and Requirements for NCA Working Judges. We will submit this petition to the NCA Board of Directors and the WDC prior to the upcoming WDC teleconference so they can consider it during that meeting. Target date is June 7, 2013. We are sending a link to this petition to all NCA working judges. If you agree with the comments below, please sign the petition to add your support. The task with which we would like this committee charged is to review the current judging requirements and look for improvements to facilitate qualified individuals entering and moving up the judging ranks in a equitable yet somewhat flexible manner to help assure a qualified pool of judges for our working events. We need our newer judges to be able to learn from our more senior judges, many of whom have or are considering retiring from the sports. The current system offers many challenges that affect judges and potential judges from different regions of the country in differing ways. Discussions and grass-roots efforts to make improvements have been on-going. We'd like to see this effort formalized so changes can be made. The committee should be composed of NCA working judges from different areas, different judging levels, and who entered the judging system by different methods (i.e. different time periods). A member of the WDC and/or NCA Board should be included to act as a liaison. However this committee should remain small (5-7) and independent from the WDC to be able to focus on the task at hand. They should reach out to the judging community for examples of frustrations and ides for solutions. Thank you for considering this.