American Endurance Ride Conference
BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING
held via telephone
conference call
November 7, 2005
The meeting was called to order by President Stagg
Newman at 6:00 p.m. Also on the line for the call: Vice President Mike
Maul, Secretary Jan Jeffers, Treasurer Patti Pizzo, Vonita Bowers, Mike Jaffe, Roberta Harms, Connie Caudill, Jan
Stevens, Howard Kent, Stan Eichelberger, Gail Williams, Bob Morris, Terry
Woolley Howe, John Parke, Susan Kasemeyer, Duane Barnett, Randy Eiland, Roger
Taylor, Nick Warhol, Barney Fleming,
Jerry Fruth, Laura Hayes, Robert Ribley, Dinah Rojek, Mike Tomlinson, and
Executive Director Kathleen A. Henkel.
Newly elected directors on the call were: Barry Waitte, Joe
Schoech, Joyce Mocilan , Jeff Trinkle, Tom Dean, Jennifer Nice.
Housekeeping:
Approval of minutes from prior meetings.
September 2005 Minutes - Motion
by V. Bowers, seconded by T. Taylor to approve September 2005 BOD minutes with
the change that Randy Eiland’s comments as requested be entered in the minutes
verbatim from the tape of the minutes ("Stagg, this is Randy, I'd like to say
something and I want it on the record, in the minutes that I said this
that this is not a very good way to do a budget and I, I just want that on
record cause this is too confusing, too many people talking.
This should have been done before midyear so we could have done a face to face
budget. We should have known what we were doing. And I feel like we
are doing everything after the fact and I'm very disappointed that we are
working it this way. I want to make sure that is on the next minutes that we
approve too."). Motion carries.
October 2005 Minutes - Motion by M. Tomlinson, seconded by J.
Fruth to approve October minutes. V. Bowers abstains – as Motion carries.
Excusal of BoD members unable to attend. V. Bowers was excused from the October
meeting due to travel and no cell service.
Motion by R. Taylor and seconded by M. Maul. Motion carries.
Motion by M. Jaffe to rescind
$1 rider fee voted on and passed at the September BOD conference call
meeting. A vote for this motion would
eliminate the increase. A vote against the motion would leave the increase in
effect beginning the 2006 ride year.
After discussion a roll call vote was taken with the following
results: (Yes vote rescinds fee. No vote retains fee.) M. Maul – no. J. Jeffers – no. P. Pizzo – no. V. Bowers
– yes. M. Jaffe – no. R. Harms –
no. C. Caudill – yes. J. Stevens – no.
H. Kent - no. S. Eichelberger – no. G. Williams – no. B. Morris – no. T.
Woolley-Howe – no. J. Parke – no. S. Kasemeyer – no. w. Barnett – no. R.
Eiland – no. R. Taylor – no. N. Warhol – no. B. Fleming – no. J. Fruth – no. L. Hayes – no. R. Ribley – no. D. Rojek – no. M.
Tomlinson – yes. (3 yes – 21 no).
Motion is defeated – fee is retained.
P. Pizzo would like input
from the BoD if they liked what was sent out and found it useful regarding the
budget. Would like to update the
rolling history at end of this year and if BoD agrees have it sent out every
quarter rather than every month. R. Taylor would rather have rolling history
once a year.
S. Taylor would like input
on her report, AERC Monthly Profit and Loss Statement, and will update once a
month.
B. Morris commented he would
like each member of the BoD should be a fiducial officer and take an interest
in what the AERC finances are on a monthly basis.
After
discussion P. Pizzo will send out quarterly the four year rolling averages for
the BoD’s comparisons. Monthly we will
get S. Taylor’s statement which will allow us to compare projected versus
actual and last year versus this year.
The reason for the discrepancy this time was S. Taylor was working off
the 2004 numbers before Omar had finished the final processing of those for tax
reporting purposes. S. Taylor will be
using the corrected numbers so in the future the office Quick Books numbers will
be driving Sue’s numbers.
P. Pizzo asked what the
policy is on sending out financial information to a member running for the
board. This will be only for his personal use.
P. Pizzo will send him what was sent to the BoD in last mailing, will
not include payroll information. The
Corporations Code has provisions that state what we have to give a member if
requested and what we have to give a member of the BOD if requested.
S.
Newman asked the Finance Committee with the Vice President, M. Maul, come up
with an agreed upon way to handle the non-operating section of our budget. Present that to the board in a way that the
board can understand the non-operating part of the budget. This will be presented at the January
conference call.
At
convention Sue Taylor will present a tutorial on Finance 101 for those
interested.
The BoD needs to agree on a transparent and consistent
methodology for handling the non-operating section of the budget, e.g. on the
expense side of trails grants, research grants, new experimental education
programs, strategic reserves, etc. We must also address how to handle sources
of funds including interest income, dedicated sponsorship money, planned
giving, and prior year profits. It is recommended that the Vice President
work with the Finance Committee to develop a set of recommendations on the
methodology for the BoD for presentation around Jan. 1, 2006.
Items from J. Parke – March 2003 budget – want
clarified. We did not do that for the
2003 surplus. We still have around half
a million set side in this purpose. He
would like to make a motion regarding the reserves – to move forward on.
Brought up at Midyear to set aside surplus. He believes $50,000 should be set
aside for the surplus.
2003 motion made by J. Parke that the
interest on the reserves be used for research, trails, education, etc. Instead our interest is being placed in the
general fund. $11,000 budgeted for 2006
as interest income, and an $8K mini
profit from drug testing. We are
budgeted to take in $16,000 for drug testing fees. Interest income and income
from Drug testing can be used to support research or trail in addition to if we
have an operating surplus for the year.
We have funds that have been designated for those things. Trails and
research can be as important as education, 3M as can any other committee, we
should look at it in a different way.
If we don’t run operating surpluses and don’t do research grants, trails
grants for a couple of years, we will lose skills and contacts in our system
for doing it. It would be much harder to start up.
Stagg – Finance committee working with the VP, go back and
review all of the things we have intended to do, funding of reserves, handling
of interest, other special sources of revenue.
Determine what are the sources of funding and synchronize the funding
and rules associated with the sources.
J. Parke – we hire a California CPA – Omar Badella. Has Omar commented on taking out the
$30-40,000 income. Next time I would
like to know if Omar has looked at these things and are we following generally
accepted accounting principles or not.
P. Pizzo – yes, we have bee discussing these things with Omar as we have
been going along.
Two motions submitted by B. Morris to the BoD
(see below) were remanded to the Finance Committee for consideration.
Comments from the Finance Committee on the above motions were sent to the BOD
for review. The Finance Committee is
asking for input from the BOD and recommendations.
Motion #1:
Motion is made pertaining to the AERC Financial Reporting
Financial
reporting to the AERC Board of Directors will be on a monthly basis no later
than 10 working days after the monthly close of business. Such reporting will
be transmitted electronically via a Microsoft Excel spread sheet. This export
is a direct function of our software “QuickBooks”
The monthly
report to the Directors is to contain the following:
1. The
current month comparison of the month budget and the month actual based on the
AERC Code of
Accounts. All code items will be displayed.
2. The year to date (YTD) comparison of the
YTD budget and the YTD actual. All code items will be
displayed
3. A
comparison of the prior YTD actual and the current YTD actual. All code items
will be displayed
Said reports
will be made available, to the AERC membership, by posting on the AERC web
page, no later than 30 calendar days post close of monthly business
Motion #2:
Motion is made pertaining to the AERC Budget Process
The budget
process of the AERC is to be conducted in a manner that results in presentation
of the projected year’s budget with a cumulative amount for each and every item
in the AERC Code of Accounts. Such amounts will be spread monthly based on
historical determination of a rolling three prior years actual. All code items
will be displayed and where a prior history is not available, a best estimate
will be employed.
The
projected budget will be made available, electronically, to the AERC Board of
Directors a minimum of thirty (30) days prior to the AERC Midyear Board of
Directors Meeting.
Said projected
budget, as revised by the AERC Board of Directors, will be made available to
the membership of the AERC, by posting on the AERC web page, no later
than thirty days post midyear meeting.
These
budgets shall be prepared within our QuickBooks system and presented
electronically via a Microsoft Excel spread sheet.
Sanctioning Committee: V.
Bowers - Special sanctioning approvals.
Endless Valley Ride - moving from 2-day to 3-day
Pioneer, MW Region, old dates, July 1 and 2. Proposed dated: July
1, 55/25; July 2 50/25; July 3 50/25, Peggy Brush listed as ride manager. R. Harms approved the ride.
Motion by V. Bowers to approve for 2006 – Motion
carries.
M. Tomlinson reporting for
Kathy Brunjes. This board put forward Nancy Elliott and Nancy declined to
accept the nomination to the USEF Endurance Technical Committee. AERC
International would like to recommend to the AERC board to put forward Heather
Hoyns, DVM to replace N. Elliott to the USEF Endurance Technical
Committee. Motion carries.
Impressive list of speakers for
this convention and will be overlapping speakers this year with the NATRC group
to give attendees a choice. Committee
chairs need to send in request for committee meeting time so they can be
printed up. Trade show will be open during the general meeting. Advertising has been placed in Texas Horse
Talk and a couple of other local publications for a local draw. Troy will put something on the website re
convention. Spread the word at rides
about convention, newspapers in Texas.
Rodeo type posters will be put out in Texas, gas stations, tack stores
and restaurants. Also regional
directors talk to your local clubs about vacationing and going to convention in
San Antonio. R. Ribley will contact
local directors regarding promotion for San Antonio convention. Hotel personnel will have a sheet on
restaurants, entertainment in the outlying area. There will be talks in the trade show area.
Forest
Service is using categorical exclusions to do some timber removal, not
necessarily timber for timber, but timber removal for fire prevention. Earth Island Institute found that to be objectionable and filed
suit which pretty much eliminated the categorical exclusion being used for
anything and everything. Since then the judge has modified his ruling and has
tried to narrow his ruling for temporary period of time. Recreational things are no longer included
in the lawsuit. Ride in Florida was
approved a week before the ride was to take place based on the judge’s ruling
modification. Does not look like this
will affect us for this ride year.
This was a motion put in front of the BOD. Action is being started on this matter. The collection of day
members will be started on December 1, 2005.
B. Morris withdraws his motion.
M. Maul is working with B. Morris to track our action
items. They have gone through minutes
and through the past convention looking for action items and things from K.
Henkel and S. Newman. Will be listed by
categories. Let M. Maul know if you have any actions that need attention.
S. Newman request from USEF for nominations for an award
horse and rider combo for the year from USEF – remanded to Duane and Gail for a
recommendation in the category of endurance.
S. Newman will fax to G. William.
R. Taylor moved to adjourn the meting, seconded by J.
Fruth. Meeting adjourned at 7:23 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted,
Jan Jeffers, Secretary