American Endurance Ride
Conference
BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING
held via telephone
conference call
January 9, 2005
The
meeting was called to order by President Stagg Newman at 6:00 p.m. Also
on the line for the call: Jan Jeffers, Secretary, Treasurer Patti Pizzo, Vonita Bowers, Mike Jaffe, 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.
Absent – Roberta Harms, Mike Maul
New
Board members on the Call are: Barry
Waitte, Joe Schoech, Susan
Horne, Tom Dean, Jennifer Nice, Jeff Trinkle. Absent –Joyce
Mocilan
Approval of minutes from December Conference call meeting. Two corrections: Excusal of board members should conclude
with “motion carries.” Under discussion of Megan Davis ride should say “Susan
offered her another date.” Motion to approve minutes by R. Ribley, seconded by
D. Rojek – motion carries.
Motion by R. Taylor, seconded by J. Fruth to excuse BoD members unable to attend – Mike Maul and
Roberta Harms. Motion carries.
Update on Membership Numbers and Renewals – Kathleen Henkel
Last year – 3,634 members entered into the system.
Currently - 3,386 who have joined/renewed; however, still have 300-350 more to
add to the current number which gives us 50 more members than we had last year
at this time.
Schedule for convention arrival and departure – S. Newman
BOD meeting will start at 6 p.m. and dinner and discussion
regarding expectations for officers by J. Parke. Prior to that there will be voluntary sessions for new/current
board members – Sue Taylor - finances and understanding financial sheets, J.
Parke - new board member obligations
and procedures. Session will begin at
3:00 p.m. For Sunday’s BoD meeting,
plan on staying until 1 p.m.
Sanctioning Committee - Vonita Bowers - Special sanctioning approvals.
No sanctioning issues.
AERC International Committee
– Kathy Brunjes
Written Report (See attached) – no action required.
Competition Committee –
Duane Barnett and Gail Williams
D. Barnett wants to hold off on Medallion Proposal until
the February 23rd BoD meeting in San Antonio. This proposal would add extra recognition to
the mileage medallion 1,000, 2,000 and 3,000 miles if they have done a certain
number of 100 mile rides. The
recognition would be added to their mileage certificate, possibly engrave on
back of medallions and possibly a page in the yearbook. There would be no
financial impact with this proposal. If possible will put an article in the
next EN. D. Barnett will contact 100
mile riders who have only ridden one or two 100 milers in their endurance
career.
Education Committee – D.
Rojek and S. Kasemeyer
D. Rojek – The committee has articles in every EN from a
variety of committee members from all parts of the country. The next article will be on crew bags. New committee member, Dr. Ken Marsella, will
do an article about case studies he has done.
Will appear in the spring. There
is a Q&A online that members can write into. Write-ins are coming in from
all over the world.
Motion from committee to link Karen Chaton’s web page
titled “Useful Web Links Related to Endurance and Rider Education” to the AERC
Web Page with an appropriate disclaimer stating this is not official AERC
information. After some discussion it
was concluded that the link is already on the AERC New Members Resource
page. The Education Committee will
check with the Technical Committee regarding placing the entire website on the
AERC website and if there would be any technical issues.
The Education Committee has had some input with regard to
hiring Deb Bennett as a convention speaker.
The committee is at the collection stages of clinic
materials including, including obtaining permission for articles as well as
pictures and videos with no cost involved.
Some of the committee members have been attending the new rider briefing
in various parts of the country to try to develop materials to have a new rider
briefing online.
Changes and additions to the website have been done with
the help of the office and Technical Committee.
A member offered to donate a portion of the proceeds for
her book to the Education Committee.
She is now an official sponsor of AERC.
The mentor part of the website has been updated
recently. D. Rojek would like to update
the Education Committee charter to include the mentor program as part of its
responsibility. D. Rojek will come back
to the board with a proposal.
Request board members, especially regional board members,
to give some thought to who might be the liaison for their region. The job will entail knowing a lot of people
regionally. When the time comes the
liaison will know people in their region who would be willing and able to give
clinics in a classroom setting for new riders.
The committee is in the process of updating handbook and
finishing the bibliography and exploring the possibility of adding to a
Wikipedia (an online encyclopedia about endurance).
S. Newman vision would be that every ride would have a new
rider briefing and it would be people who are passionate about the sport.
J. Parke does a PowerPoint new rider briefing at rides and
he is willing to share this information with Education Committee.
Limited Distance Committee –
Terry Wooley Howe
Proposal
that minimum mileage requirement for Limited Distance riders receiving a
regional year end award be increased to 300 miles in the senior division and
200 miles in the junior division. The
change to go into effect in the current ride season. Note that this is a minimum mileage requirement. Awards will still only go to the top
finishers as currently defined but no awards to even these finishers will be
given if minimum mileage requirements are not met.
After discussion the proposal was tabled to Thursday
evening (2/23/2006) at Convention in terms of a final motion.
The LD Committee will make recommendations for comparable
award for year end LD. The motion
circulated for the February Conference Call (2/6/2006) and voted on at the Convention board meeting –
Thursday evening (2/23/2006).
Proposal on Handling of Underage Equines – Mike Maul
Deferred to
February conference call. Proposal
would automate warning letters, removal from ride completions, etc. for
underage horses for first violation.
Details will be sent out before the meeting.
Federal Equine ID Role – B.
Fleming
B. Fleming reported on what the working is involved in and at this time wishes to get off the
committee, Equine Species working group.
Does the board have enough information to decide if AERC wants to
continue to participate. B. Fleming
does not see a compelling reason for the AERC to continue on this
committee. If a board member would be
willing to serve on this committee at their own expense, the board would
entertain that. B. Fleming has until
January 17th to answer the group regarding a replacement.
The budget issue for trail master classes was left off the
agenda for the January conference call.
All board members received the budget electronically. D. Rojek asked why are there four different
categories for trails in the budget?
E-mail answer will be sent out by P. Pizzo.
(Executive Session begins at 6:53 p.m.)
Motion
to adjourn the meeting by J. Parke, seconded by S. Kasemeyer (meeting adjourned at 7:10 pm PST).
Respectfully submitted,
Jan Jeffers
Secretary
In
an effort to encourage participation in 100 mile rides as well as recognize and
make a statement about the significance of 100 mile rides to our organization.
Proposal
would be an addition to our current mileage achievement program.
There
would not be any retroactive recognition in the initiation of this proposal.
The recognition or awarding of these "medallions" will be available
to horses not yet having reached the 1000, 2000, or 3000 mile level.
Horses
reaching 1000 miles and having completed 2 x 100 mile one day rides would
receive a bronze star recognition.
Horses
reaching 2000 miles and having completed 4 x 100 mile rides would receive a
silver star recognition.
Horses
reaching 3000 miles and having completed 6 x 100 mile rides would receive a
gold star recognition.
AERC
already sends out certificates of recognition when a horse reaches the mileage
levels. The bronze/silver/gold recognition could simply be added onto the
certificates.
In
addition it is proposed that a section could be added to the yearbook
recognizing horses who have reached these levels of achievement.
The
above should not cost AERC anything other that additional record keeping. We
can check with the tech committee on this.
One
question is--Are the proposed # of 100's adequate?
AERC-I Committee
December 27, 2005
Conference Call meeting December
27, 2005
Attendance: Kathy
Brunjes, Chair
Mark Dial, Vice-Chair
Tom Johnson,
Nat’l Chef d’Equipe
Stagg Newman,
AERC President
Mike Tomlinson,
AERC Past-Pres., USEF Technical Comm.
Sue Phillips,
Grace Ramsay - Central
Betty Baker, Treasurer, Julie
Bullock - East
Holly Ulyate – Mountain
Michele Roush, Carol Giles –
PacNorth
Tinker Hart – PacSouth
Amanda Taylor, Recording Secretary
Absent: Linda Strelnik - Mountain
Teresa Cross -
PacSouth
Susan
Kasemeyer, AERC Liaison and Educ.Comm
Jennifer Nice,
Electronic Newsletter Editor
Russell Broussard, Advisor
Art Priesz,
USEF High Performance
Mary Lutz, USEF
Endurance Director
Items Discussed: For informational purposes only – no action
required by AERC BoD.
1.
Committee spent majority of conference call on planning
for the Convention.
-
Kathy will send a template for committee members to
indicate times they will help with booth coverage; the committee will use the celebrity stand ups again this year
and raffle stand ups at the end of the convention; Betty will send out the
website for committee members to choose from;
-
Kathy needs to verify with Robert and/or Kathleen
the time slot during the Trade Show when Tom Johnson will present the Aachen,
Germany 2005 pre-ride slide show;
-
Kathy and Mary are in the process of contacting
panel participants;
-
Amanda is working on the NAEC medalists slide
presentation that will be used during Regional Awards (Friday);
-
USEF Committee meetings are scheduled for Sunday
morning;
-
Kathy verified that the AERC-I committee will
conduct its business meeting on Saturday morning (9:00 am) prior to the panel
presentation;
-
Kathy will check on possible shipping destinations
for the AERC-I merchandise, rather than shipping and paying storage/holding of
the merchandise prior to the convention; Kathy will coordinate shipping or
merchandise with Mary (where merchandise is currently being stored free of
charge).
2.
Much of the meeting was devoted to discussion of the
recent Junior and Young Riders World Endurance Championships (ages 14-21), held
in Bahrain on December 17. The course
was 120 km, with 127 starting riders from 30 countries; the United States had
one entry. Much discussion that our
Federation did not get the information out to potential entries or advertise
this event in a timely manner, resulting in lack of time to organize a team of
young riders from the U.S. Different
ideas on how to prevent this in the future were listed, with the conclusion
that AERC-I will form a subcommittee that can look into ways to identify what
is necessary to promote and organize a junior national team in the future. Mark, Michele, Grace, Betty and Kathy agreed
to work on this subcommittee. The first
order of business will be to set up better communication channels with USEF and
the FEI for dates of future events and contact information.
- of note: Mark and Grace reported that the event had
great trails, well marked and groomed, with much promotion of the young riders
throughout the pre-and-post ride events.
The young riders were well cared for with full accommodations once in
Bahrain. The Championships will be held
in Argentina in 2006.
3.
Tom Johnson reported on the National Team Training
event, held in California December 9-11.
23 nominees attended the clinic, with clinicians Becky Hart and Robin
Groves; two spring clinics have been tentatively set for the first weekend of
March (Arizona) and the second weekend of March (Florida).
4.
Tom and Kathy will contact the clinicians from the
California training clinic, asking for a report for the International column of
the EN.