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Director Profile – Ulla Greenwood
DIRECTOR PROFILE
Ulla Greenwood
– David Margan Ulla Greenwood spent much of her young life in inner city Brisbane in the early 70’s roaming George Street, the Botanic Gardens and the front verandah and long corridors of the Kingsley Hotel where she lived with her German father, Alfred Zeller, sole parent, and restaurateur.
Next door was the Queensland Club and across the road, the legendary Bellevue Hotel, demolished in the dead of night in 1979 by the Bjelke Peterson government. At age 12, and a student at All Hallows, her father asked her, would she like to have a dog and if so, what breed?
Ulla would have preferred a horse so she chose the one closest to a horse, a Great Dane.
Alfred’s response was, “What’s your second choice?”
And so, Ulla ended up with a black masked gold Afghan she called ‘Tullo’ fittingly named after an Australian designer that a family friend suggested. (Tullo’s official title was Ch. Hanrovia Kusan Columbia.)
I asked why her dad selected an outstanding purebred Afghan? “My father was very discerning.”
‘Tullo’ would bound up and down the hotel verandah, chase the ducks in the Botanic Gardens and escape.
Alfred Zeller – Ulla’s father
“That end of Brisbane was like a small country town at the time, and everyone knew him so we might get a call from Parliament House, or the Park Royal especially in Spring saying Tullo was out on manoeuvres again. I got to know a lot of people in the neighborhood because of that hound. He was a great companion and won many hearts.”
She did her first conformation show at the Rocklea Agricultural Show that same year but was not immediately smitten. And a few years later they moved into an apartment in St Lucia and Tullo had to go back to the breeder where he went on to be an Australian championship winner, sired a number of litters and lived to a grand old age. It would be ten more years after her University studies before she returned to the dog world.
Given her previous experience it wasn’t surprising that when Ulla finally decided to get some more dogs into her life she chose Afghans, two brothers. Ulla went on to have a number of top winning Afghans. “In time I realized that to keep these doyens of the dog world in show condition took lots of time and this applied just as much to “B” grade Afghans as “A” grade Afghans.” In the late 1980’s and looking for a second breed that was low maintenance she found what she was looking for at the Brisbane Ekka, Whippets! “They just tick so many boxes. They’re fabulous to live with, they very clean, don’t shed much, don’t smell doggy, very chilled, very quiet and they have this amazing facility to sense your mood. They are probably the most cat like of all canines and pound for pound they’re the fastest dogs on earth.” Funny, I saw no sign of speed when I saw them, lying around languid on their dog beds, smiling. Ulla now has more than a few, many of them winners in both the breeding and conformation
In the past eleven years Ulla has had an effect on the fortunes of Dogs Queensland. For nine of those years, she has been a Director, and for five of them, President.
Those years have been full of enormous challenges and battles but two in particular spring to mind.
Firstly, Dogs Queensland was the last state body to sever connections with its local RNA and that process involved an exhaustive statewide consultation process and the arduous task of preparing a new constitution.
With Ulla’s input and guidance, Dogs Queensland decided that the new constitution should go down the path of incorporation as a company limited by guarantee and not incorporation as an association with lesser powers. Corporations Law provides a company with wider commercial flexibility and important checks and balances.
All that was done in less than a year and Dogs Queensland hasn’t looked back.
Secondly, it was revealed there was a proposal to sell the Durack Showgrounds. Of this Ulla said; “Any such sale of Durack and purchase of the former Masters site at Parkinson needed to be supported by a watertight business case and a vote of members both for the sale of Durack and for the purchase of the Parkinson property.”
So, committed to the cause of saving Durack Ulla and husband instructed their own lawyers and drove the signing by members of a petition to bring on a Special General Meeting where motions to the effect that any sale of Durack and the purchase of the Masters property could only proceed with a majority vote of members.
These were passed by an absolute majority. “The job of President is pretty demanding, it’s really a full-time unpaid job that is often thankless but on balance the rewards have outweighed the difficulties and I really enjoyed engaging with our membership and getting our message out there. And even if progress and improvement appear to at times to move forward at snail’s pace we are in a good place and there is much more to do.”
It’s worth noting that each year, for the past two, Regardless, there’s always divisive and negative distractions that interfere with progress of initiatives for our dog world.
But looking at the positive what would Ulla Greenwood like to achieve if she is re-elected?
“Well, there are several things. Given our climate and the increasing frequency of rain events establishing a fund-raising committee to build a new undercover structure holding seven show rings, formalizing a relationship with Brisbane City Council and the State government to provide dog education programs, put in place a memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the RSPCA and establishing a position of Education and Welfare officer within our administration.”
Ulla has just been re-appointed to the executive of Dogs Australia and she would also like to see them, in co-operation with our state bodies, develop a benevolent fund like, ‘Take the Lead’ an initiative of the American Kennel Club, where our dog world can help members who have fallen on hard times or are suffering a serious illness.
