Around the Region August 2007 

I will share the most exciting news first – our Region XI Youth Director Kim Luebcke was elected President of AHYA at their convention at Youth Nationals last month. Congratulations to you, Kim. This is quite an honor for our Region. The current Youth Vice-Director Brittany Kline has been moved up to Director, and the Region XI Executive Committee is reviewing resumes now to select a vice-director to replace Brittany.

I attended the AHA Board of Directors meeting in Aurora on August 10 & 11. A large number of topics were discussed and I will attempt to summarize them in this report.

Preparations for convention are moving along. If you have not booked rooms yet please do so. As of the board meeting weekend there were only 30 rooms left to reserve at the headquarters hotel, the Renaissance Tulsa and only 20 rooms left at the secondary hotel, the Tulsa South Homewood Suites. Since this convention is non-hosted, the committee is requesting donations of door prizes and also of items for the delegate cases. If at all possible please bring these items to convention with you. At the August delegates meeting we voted to donate patron items from the Regional Show for door prizes, and also to donate the Region XI pens for the cases. We will donate a Patron Package for next year’s show to the AHYA Silent Auction. If anyone wishes personally to donate to the silent auction please bring those items as well.

A reminder – please sign up on-line for the committees you wish to serve on. This year starts the change in nomination of chairs and voting for them. Only those who have signed up by September 4, 2007 will be eligible to vote for the chairs of their committees. By September 17 all members will receive an e-mail with instructions for voting for a chair for each of the committees they are signed up for. As I understand it, all committee members will be included on those ballots unless they have marked the box on the sign-up page that states “I do not wish to serve as chair”.

On a related note, anyone nominated to a convention-elected committee may have their name on the printed ballot distributed at convention if the nomination is received by September 1. Nominations will be accepted from the floor as usual at convention and those names will be written in on the various ballots.

On the subject of committees, I received an e-mail yesterday (8/22/07) from AHA spelling out some changes in the committee meeting structure for convention this year. First, all committee meetings are scheduled in one hour and fifteen minute increments (a few are longer) thus giving more time for all to meet; and second, all the meeting rooms have been made available on Wednesday, November 14 for additional meeting times. This email was sent to all committee chairs and board liaisons, so you might want to check with your chair to see if extra time has been requested, if needed.

One of the primary topics we dealt with at the board meeting was the ongoing governance restructure study. In motions related to this the board amended then approved four of the Governing Policy categories, approved the Board of Representatives structure as proposed by President Myron Krause (this creates a formalized body consisting of Directors and Committee Chairs), and reaffirmed the authority for the AHA Executive Committee to manage the business aspects of AHA (financial, legal and business regulatory, operational matters, and administrative and staff functions).

Financial Results – AHA is on path for slightly less income than projected for FY2008. There are several factors, including:

Arabian Horse Magazine: Less revenue than projected, but proportionally less expense as well.

FBR golf event – this represents an estimated $30,000 shortfall. AHA will not participate again.

Youth Nationals Emerson Drive Concert – this is also an estimated $30,000 shortfall. Ticket sales to the general public in the Albuquerque area did not meet expectations.

Recreational Rides – these show an $18,000 shortfall. The Leatherwood ride in the eastern US has been cancelled due to poor response.

On a positive note, AHA’s Business and Benefits insurance have created a combined $40,000 savings due to reduced premiums in both policies, and Registration activities have shown some gains financially even though registration numbers are less than last year, because of greatly reduced expenses.

The Board reviewed the Business Deployment Plan (BDP) and removed or postponed some activities that were not supported by the current budget.

Dean Meier, chair of the Sweepstakes Commission, gave a report. A couple of highlights were that Breeding Entries to date are 2% over year-end 2006 and Sweepstakes Points enrollments to date are 36% over year-end 2006.

Finally, we reviewed a study requested by President Krause comparing various breed associations in the US. Besides AHA, information was collected for AQHA, Paints, Pintos, Appaloosas and Morgans. The study compared the costs of membership vs. benefits of the various associations, costs of registrations and finally the cost of competing at approved shows. Arabian and Morgan were the most costly to show (using the premise of one owner taking one horse to one show and entering one class). These two breeds have the connection to USEF, the others do not. If anyone would like to see these statistics please let me know and I will send them to you.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer, and look forward to seeing you at Convention.

Regards,

Dave Waggoner
Director, Region XI