October 2008 PFHA Board of Director’s Meeting
Atlanta, Georgia
I attended the 2008 PFHA BOD meeting in Atlanta as the North Florida delegate. First, I
must say that PFHA has undergone numerous changes in the last year led by Mary
Emmons, Executive Director, Robin Ratliff, President, and the Board including Nivia
Buchanan our previous representative. It was obvious how far we have come in such a
short time. The Association is on solid financial footing due to the work of our Director
of Operations Ron Evans and our Treasurer Roseann Gmuer. Committee work is
synergistic and representative of our strategic plan. It is an exciting time for our
organization. I have summarized the meeting below and only addressed committees that
had information most of you would be interested in. If anyone has a question or would
like more information on any of our committees’ work, please contact me
(without her consent, i reserved her number)
Thanks, Elizabeth Arledge
Committee Reports
Amateur Owner: The committee put together a draft booklet called “What You Need to
Show”. They are hoping to finalize and have it available to the membership by the first of
the year. I have asked our VP, Megan Altavilla to review it since she showed this
summer. If anyone else is interested in reviewing it also, please let me know.
Computer: Lew Haines, the Chair, is doing a tremendous amount of work to update our computer operations giving our members more online services as well as streamlining PFHA processes. Some of the changes include: online show entry, membership information available to regional officers, horse point query, stallion book, marketplace and committee pages. Not of all these will happen immediately, but you should continue
to see progress on all these initiatives in the coming year.
Please visit the PFHA web site regularly, www.pfha.org
Confepaso: Our youth did very well at the Youth Mundial this past year in Medellin, Colombia. There were a few issues with judging that Confepaso is currently dealing with.
The 2010 Mundial will be held in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Another MAJOR issue that is ongoing involving PFHA is the push by Confepaso President, CJ Marcello, to give one of our two delegate seats to ATTA whose President is Carlos Tobon. This is a departure from Confepaso procedure in which the two seats are assigned to a country not an association.
As such, Mr. Marcello has commissioned a group to review re-writing the
Confepaso by-laws to open the door for ATTA to be given one of our seats.
ATTA has less than 100 members and less than 100 horse registered. Our delegates, Dr. Jose Laracuente and Ms. Alex Amador have faithfully represented the interests of ALL Paso Fino organizations within the United States including ATTA. Specifically, at the Mundial in 2007, PFHA pushed for the inclusion of 36 diagonal classes, however, ATTA only had
10 horses in attendance. It is the feeling of the PFHA Board that our organization has been a member of Confepaso since its inception, contributed time and money to the success of the organization, and has, in good faith, carried out the responsibilities of Confepaso delegates. In the spirit of working together though, the Board did vote to put a task force together to investigate the idea of allowing a validation certificate to ATTA registered horses. This would open the door to those regions wanting to hold ATTA classes at their shows. The task force is charged with reviewing the options while not going against the PFHA Rule Book.
Education and Clinic: This committee in conjunction with the Judges and Stewards Committee is focusing on practical education for our judges including workshops. Based on comments received this year, the committee will focus on pleasure, performance, and gait.
Executive Director: Mary Emmons encourages members to take advantage of the registration specials that come up each year. The next special to be offered will be the registration of stallions over 720 days old at $250 as opposed to $550. This will be open to applications postmarked between Dec 1 and Dec 26, 2008. Visit the PFHA website, www.pfha.org for more information on these programs.
The PFHW magazine is now in house. The first edition will come out late this year. Ad rates are lowered than the previous publisher.
Mary will be looking at alternative National Show locations for the
2011 show year.
The Membership Convention will be held in Orlando in January 2009.
Finance: The Board passed the provisional 2009 budget and will revise in January as needed. Again, PFHA has the best financial foundation we have seen in a very long time.
Many thanks to our Treasurer, Roseanne Gmuer, our President, Robin Ratliff, our Executive Director, Mary Emmons, and our Director of Operations, Ron Evans.
The Board passed a $500 fee for registering embryo transfer foals – the rule for this action has been in place, but no fee had been assigned. This will take effect for horses bred in 2009.
Futurity: The Breeder’s Sweepstakes had a total purse of over $43,000 this year. The Futurity program paid out $47,000 this year with a projected purse of $27,000 in 2009. Please continue to support these programs.
Geldings: The committee is looking for ideas on how to fund the Geldings for Gold programs.
Membership: The Membership Committee presented several suggestions on ways in which regions can reach out and make contact with members. Regions are our best method of member contact. We must focus on building our membership! As a reminder, all committee members and regional delegates must be PFHA members in good standing.
National Show: Gwyn Wright did a great job as show chair this past year.
The youth classes were offered the first weekend. The consensus was that people liked having the youth classes separated. There was discussion on moving the show in 2011 and Mary Emmons will look at other locations.
Many suggestions were made for next year including starting at 9:00am and also to reduce the show by one day and make the days
longer.
Nominating: Officer elections will be held in January 2009 at the Membership Convention. Currently, the nominated positions are:
President – Ed Smith
Vice President – Edie Gandy, Mat Glover, Chuck Rechtenback,
Treasurer – Roseanne Gmuer, Peggy Tanner
Secretary – Gay Culverhouse and Sue Niebling.
Information on each
candidate is available on the pfha web site, www.pfha.org.
Planning: PFHA is continuing to make progress toward our goals that were determined in the Strategic Planning Session. The first one was to make PFHA financially stable and we have done a tremendous job in this area. Another goal is member engagement that the Membership and Computer committees are aggressively working.
The Strategic Plan is a great tool and roadmap for our Board to follow.
Recreational Riders: The committee is sending out an e-news newsletter and is continuing to pursue the interests of the recreational riders. Each region has a committee liaison and these names need to be checked to ensure the list is still current.
Rules: January 2010 is the next Rule Change Proposal vote. The window for submitting rule change proposals has opened. If you are interested in submitting a rule change proposal, please get it together and send to the office.
New Business
Just a reminder to members, always check the PFHA Suspended Member List found on the PFHA web site BEFORE breeding to a stallion. If you breed to a stallion owned by a suspended member, you CAN NEVER register that foal.
Also discussed the AMATURE OWNERS and creating a Handbook on the web-site.
Judges and the Education committee: my have a workshop for judges applicant at the Jan 2009 Miami Show!
PFHW: will have 8 instead of 6 publications during 2009. PFHA already has reduced rates since magazine is now back home! Oh! Dec 2008 publication will be the first back home edition!
The Perry, Ga. contract is up in 2010! suggestions are open for other facilities! lets not forget know we can have Nationals anytime between July, August, September and October.
Nationals profit: approx $85,000.00 this year.... approx $30,000. more from last year!
Total horses 762
Total Stalls 920
Youth entries:
2006-179
2007-184
2008-232 and 69 entries for the championships
The Youth classes helped generate INCOME! this year!
Well then Mr. Marcello should also push to have other registries with paso modalities represented as well like the Peruvian Pasos. He forgets about other countries, other registries, and other paso modalities.
_________________ Be the change you want to see in the world. Gandhi
I wonder if there is any particular reason that some regions are left out of the board meeting reports list? Of course, few even bother uploading their reports, but it might be nice if they did.
_________________ They are not here for us...we are here for them.
Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 7:46 am
BigJ
Joined: 28 Jan 2008
Posts: 1049
North Florida region is very fortunate to have both Elizabeth and Gaylen. They are top notch!
_________________ Be the change you want to see in the world. Gandhi
That's great...I just wonder why the list itself, for delegate's reports, excludes Piedmont and Va Presidential? Even if they DID want to submit their report...where would they do that on the PFHA website? I'd understand a little if Piedmont were a spanking new region, but ummmmm, I don't think so!!
_________________ They are not here for us...we are here for them.
Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 9:27 am
BFF
Joined: 23 Aug 2008
Posts: 43
Location: Missouri
I love the idea of the handbook for A/O, it does all seem a little confusing to us new people. Also, as far as Nationals, I had a hard time knowing who all the horses were because some of them were not listed in the program. Is there some way they could had out an updated list each day for those who were late entries?
Sherry
Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 9:43 am
BigJ
Joined: 28 Jan 2008
Posts: 1049
Kerry, I quit depending on the PFHA website for members section a long time ago. Years ago I would go to read delegate reports after every BOD meeting to only see no submittals made except from Europe. I depended on Piedmont PFHA website to get allot of the news.
Even now that I've requested a change with receiving the PFHA E-news, it still hasn't been implemented although everything with my account is correct.
I still have a large issue with the way delegates report to their membership as many will only write down what they think is important and not record the entire meeting. The shame of it all is we have a national secretary who does take minutes and has to provide those minutes to our Executive Director within weeks. Why??? I don't know because most minutes are not approved until the following BOD meeting, so I do not see how the ED can act on anything discusssed or passed until the minutes are approved. I might be splitting hairs here, but it seems curious as to why an ED has knowledge before the membership does.
BTW--imitation is the highest form of flattery. Congratulations PV for leading the forums with the most current and available information... http://americanpasofinos.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15251
I know the poster is not a member of North Florida region, but still it's nice to have Elizabeth's efforts recognized and even embraced as a Georgia delegate. Makes me proud.
_________________ Be the change you want to see in the world. Gandhi
Is there some way they could had out an updated list each day for those who were late entries?
Yes Sherry, the show office will have the latest list. Is hard keeping up with accuracy until the actual class since so many changes occurs, but they are always willing to help.
I do have to offer kudos to Lynn Gallup for keeping Piedmont's website updated regularly. I know she works hard on that site...so thanks Lynn! I know that the PFHA website is supposed to be updated in the future. It needs it! It's not all that user friendly, and I'd really love to see things like the minutes from the meetings, e-news, and a few other things listed there. It doesn't have to be flashy and complicated...only user friendly, accurate and current.
_________________ They are not here for us...we are here for them.
I just got back from the PFHA Board of Directors Meeting in Atlanta. The financial bleeding that occurred last year has been stopped. The projections for this year indicate a small profit by year’s end. This was helped by the change in the Paso Fino Horse World going in house, as well as some cutbacks in personnel and tighter controls on spending. Ron Evans, PFHA’s new operations manager, has been very helpful in bringing about the financial controls necessary to correct the past problems. The PFHW will be out in December and you will no longer be getting multiple issues of the magazine. Also, the advertising rates are much lower. I have an idea I will present at the annual meeting that might be of interest to those of you who would like to advertise in the magazine.
PFHA is also looking at several new sites for nationals in 2011. They are under contract with Perry, GA through 2010. I thought it interesting that several members on the board were pushing to see if Asheville would be able to handle our nationals. I will be getting with them to determine if the Asheville site would have enough stalls and if they would be able to handle some of the other needs of our national competition. Other sites under consideration include: Lexington, KY, Lexington, VA, Jacksonville, FL as well as sites in TN and TX.
Other items of interest discussed at the meeting included the registration special for horses over 720 old. The Stallion registration starts December 1 and ends on December 26, 2008 the fee is reduced to $250 vs. $550. The Geldings registration starts March 2nd and ends on March 28th. Take advantage of this great offer to get you unregistered horses registered. Also if anyone is interested in the new rule book, you can view it online at the PFHA web site.
_________________ They are not here for us...we are here for them.
Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:57 am
caliber
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Jul 2007
Posts: 2868
Location: Paso World
Thank you Kerry!
That is fantastic.... hopefully 2010 will be the last National at Perry! I only hope the PFHA finances will get stronger by 2011... for a better location! which means MORE MONEY.
Perry is very reasonable, although I agree, is time for a change, Perry is overdue.
Lexington, KY, Lexington, VA, Jacksonville, FL as well as sites in TN and TX.
WOW! great choices!!! maybe is time for Tn or TX! (JMO)
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