Does anyone have any tips for running practices smoothly and efficiently so that everyone gets the most benefit from the time? We are a club with alot of unfinished dogs. We have a couple of dogs that can do full runs with passing, a couple of dogs that can do passing/recalls but their box turns are in various stages, a couple of new dogs that only have recalls and zero box turns, and some absolutely new dogs and a few pups that are starting from scratch. We have as many as 10-12 dogs at a practice but don't have a raceable team between them.

One of our issues is that we don't offer classes for new dogs. We just invite them to drop in to our practices, which sort of eats up a bunch of time that might be spent advancing the other dogs' skills. The more logical thing probably would be to offer classes, that way newbies get the basics down and if they are really interested then we can invite them to practice with the team. That isn't really practical for us because I doubt we'd get enough people enrolled to cover the rental of the facility. So for now, if we want new blood, we have to keep inviting them to practice. Any tips on what can we do to accomodate new dogs but still give the dogs further along in their training the practice they need and fit it all in to 2 hours?

That's a hard one. We find ourselves in that situation also, dogs and handlers at all different levels of training.

Hopefully, you have several different trainers on your team. One would be in charge of the very newby skill-building exercises, one guiding the recall/beginning boxwork, and one working with the finer details of figuring out when to release and passing skills.

Then you have to be very dilligent in scheduling, planning and communicating what you plan out for each practice. Everyone needs to bring a crate and understand that when they are not actively working with their dog, they need to stuff it in the crate and be actively working with someone else's dog (boxloading, pass calling, instructing newbies on basic box work building skills, holding dogs for recalls, ball shagging, acting as a human gate.

Also, the people in your club need to understand that there are skills you work on in practice, and skills you can work on at home. Restrained recalls, building tug drive, various box-training methods like hopping back and forth over a jump or bouncing off a wall or plywood angled against a fence are all things that the handler can perfect at home it doesn't require help, just instruction. Basically, except for side by side runs and box work on the box, the rest can be homework.

Maybe, it would also help if you divide up into subgroups - the boxwork subgroup, the restrained recall subgroup, the newby introduction subgroup, the full run subgroup. There should be enough people in each of these subgroups to trade off working their dogs and helping others with the exercises. Then these groups can all be going at the same time - set up two lanes and one does boxwork, the other does restrained recalls over jumps, while off to the side the newbies figure out which way their dogs turn and go over the standard newbie stuff. Then do full runs?

I don't know, it's a hard thing to coordinate, but if you can get as many people doing as many different things at the same time, you'll accomplish more in a limited amount of time.

Weasel Puppy had a lot of great suggestions.

Another thing you can try is to set up a separate practice day for the really new dogs that are still working on box turn basics and restrained recalls. Give them homework and have them work on what they can at home.
Also, if the dog doesn't have a recall (routinely gets the zoomies and blows off the owner), they need to work on that and get a solid recall before they can come to practice. Zooming dogs can be a big time waster and it only reinforces bad habits. Homework for those dogs is a basic obedience class and practice at home.

We also have dogs in various stages of training. We offer classes but we also invite some folks to our practices.

What I try to do is dependent on the dogs we have for practice. I usually know in advance who is coming.

If we have newbies coming:

I work with 2 team dogs/ maybe 3 if we set up 3 lanes (will separate these folks by what needs to be worked on box, recalls, passing etc...)
I then will work 2 new dogs - one in each lane - I usually have someone helping
I will then work 2-3 team dogs again (will separate these folks by what needs to be worked on box, recalls, passing etc...)
Then 2 new dogs or 2/3 team dogs if we don't have any other newbies

Sometimes I will actually schedule the first 20 minutes of practice for new dogs and then the last 15-20 minutes for new dogs. I expect the new people to help with practice boxloading, props, etc... I prefer to get them involved early so they can make a decision early in the training on if they want to really put so much time and energy into flyball. Not to be mean but I don't want to waste time training new dogs if the people won't do the work down the road.

Each group only gets 5-15 minutes at any given time or 6-7 runs. It really depends on the dog(s). This allows the team members to help with the new dogs and to get to know the people and vice versa - the newbies to help.

If your building is big enough - you can set up stations. Box work station, recall station, passing station, etc... you can spread things out to make full use of the space you have.

We rarely run full lineups any more except just before a tourney. We are unable to keep our teams the same from one tourney to the next so we use the practice before a tourney to work on team passing and figure out if we need to tweak the lineups.