British Flyball Championships,

About the event

The BFA are one of the biggest dog sport associations outside of America; we are a not-for-profit, entirely volunteer run unincorporated association.  We run over 100 dog sport events a year in the UK and our flagship event is the annual BFA British Championships, with around 2000 dogs and handlers, we attract more competitors than any other dog sport event in Europe, in fact our 2019 event was even bigger than the USA version, making ours the largest flyball event in the world.  Our 2020 event will be held at Driffield Showground between 13-16 August, and we expect well over 200 teams to enter from across the UK to compete over 4 days of competition to find the best Flyball team in the UK.

Why should you sponsor?

The BFA promote positive, active, healthy relationships between dog owners and their dogs, but it’s not just about the dogs; Flyball is unique in its accessibility for such a wide range of people usually disenfranchised from competitive sport, it is incredibly accessible for all people regardless of their physical or mental ability or health. 68% of our members are women, 66% of our memberships are family or joint memberships, 13% are under the age of 18 and 18% over the age of 60. So we feel the BFA has a lot to offer any sponsor who wants to be associated with a volunteer run association encouraging female participation in sport, dog welfare, healthy active lifestyles for the very young and very old, and offering great inclusivity for people with health issues normally marginalised from the world of competitive sport (the BBC will be releasing a film about us and the benefits of Flyball for mental health in early 2020). There is also of course the advertising possibilities, we promote the event widely on social media and livestream the whole 4 days to a growing global audience.

Justin Shearing

My name is Justin Shearing and I am Vice-Chair if the British Flyball Association. We are an unincorporated association run by a committee of 9 volunteers elected by the membership. None of us take any kind of remuneration for the work we do with the association. We all have normal day jobs and the majority of us are actually public servants, mostly working in the NHS, whilst I am a currently serving Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force.  The association has a stable history, having been operating for 25 years and we have full financial transparency. Please check out our website and FB to show the levels of expertise our volunteers have in running such large events successfully.

We all commit huge amounts (if not all!) of the spare time we have to organise, promote and develop this amazing sport of ours. We are of course huge dog lovers and experienced handlers and trainers, but we are also humanitarians and love the accessibility our sport gives to those marginalised by mainstream sports and are proud of the high levels of female participation across an age range of 6 to 80+. 70% of our official positions are filled by women and 55% of our Head Judges are women. We also have close working relationships with 2 universities partnering in academic studies to improve the welfare and care of dogs competing in high energy sports.

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