Hi Alan, don't know anything about ringcraft, so will leave that to someone else.

The agility, don't know any trainers in your area, but i do know lots of agility classes require the dogs to have obedience prior to starting agility, so they can be worked off lead.

If you wanted to do agility just for fun, you will need to wait till he is about a year old before any class will take you.

If you wanted to train for competition standard, you will probably be able to start younger, teach the dog to move to your body movements and taking lefts and right etc before introducing the jumps.

Nottingham is a thriving area for dog trainers, my coach that i go to for my competition work is there, and there are a lot of other top working trials handlers and obedience handlers in that area, so I would assume there will also be some good agility trainers.