SECRETARY’S REPORT

Minutes from the November 2, 2003 meeting at Jean Janotta's home in Raymond, NH

Members present: Jean Janotta, MaryAnn Stoddart, Joseph Stoddart, Kathie Chouinard, Andy Johnson, Diane Johnson, Pete Dolan, Lyn Scribner, Gull Reidy, Matt Mason, Brenda Dean, Dottie Duclos, Cindy King, William L. Pechka-King.

Meeting called to order 12:45pm by president Jean Janotta.

1. Introduction of those present.

2. Secretary’s Report: The Secretary's report from the last meeting was accepted as read.

3. Treasurer's report: Dottie Duclos reported we have $22,241 in the regular checking account, the rescue account stands at $5,059 for a total of $27,300. Harvest Moon Mania gross receipts were $29,511.00, expenses $24,280.37 with a profit of $5,230.63 (income and expenses include monies from camping and barbeque). There are still some expenses to be reported so that is not the final figure. The Tracking Test brought in $200.00 with $362.89 in expenses for a loss of $162.89.

 4. Affiliate Report: Jean Janotta, Pete Dolan, Diane Johnson and Cindy King attended the National Affiliate Meeting and reported back the following: - Incorporation and non-profit status for the various clubs was discussed. Many of the clubs represented at the meeting do not have enough money in their treasurers to have to worry about non-profit status. Incorporating varies greatly from state to state so there can be no definitive answer from ASCA.

- Testing of judges was also discussed but because of all the different organizations involved for breed, obedience, agility, and tracking judges, it seems to be far too difficult to mandate.

- The various clubs will need to contact the ASCA office for a list of grandfathered dates for clubs, California has lots of clubs in a condensed area and this is an issue for them.

- Complements to Shelly Martin on a fine job.

- ASCA is looking into having show results sent to the office electronically, but there’s a lot to do before this will be a reality.

- Hosting of National Events: This was a central topic at the Affiliate meeting. The major problem with the National Specialty Show is its length and the fact that it has historically spanned two weekends, starting on Friday and ending late Saturday the following week. There are very few fairgrounds or other sites around the country that have this much open time, covering two weekends, available. There have been three thoughts on how to overcome the difficulty in finding a site and hosting the event:

- have the Finals at a time separate from the National Specialty Show

- have the time period span only one weekend (i.e., Wednesday to Wednesday or Thursday)

- have Nationals in a central location each year and have it run by ASCA, not local affiliates

Pros and cons to all three suggestions were discussed that cover items like the amount of time people have to take away from work, the fact of not having various locales to look forward to, the amount of time it takes for a host club to put on the Nationals, etc. The ASCA BOD is looking for input to address this problem because it is becoming increasingly difficult for a host club to step forward not only due to the amount of work involved but in large part due to the great difficulty in finding a site. The ASCA BOD was also looking for input from affiliates on why they don’t choose to host the event.
 

 5. Library Report: Cindy King noted that there have been no new additions to the library. She is thinking about approaching Hofling Publishing about a bulk order discount for the Annual and the Australian Shepherd Quarterly, but she wanted a feel for how many would be interested in purchasing those publications. It was suggested this question be asked at the ROM Banquet as that is generally the largest membership turnout.

6. Event Updates: Please check the web site: http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~ascne for additional information on events.

 Old Business

1. New Members: The following were accepted into membership – Annette Hicks, Holly McLure.

2. New Sound System: The new system was used at Harvest Moon Mania and pronounced a rousing success. Thanks again to Pete Dolan and John Yarmac.

New Business:

1. Membership Applications: Kathie Chouinard reported the following have applied for membership in ASCNE

Member Sponsors
 
 
 
 
Eileen & Austin Farrar  Jennifer Westleigh
Gwen Pierce
Deborah Frey & Tony DiBartolo Ann Chace
Brenda Dean
Wendy Richmond  Lyn Scribner
Jean Janotta
Sue Schroeder

  2. Elections

The Nominating Committee (represented by Diane Johnson) presented the following slate of candidates:

 The floor was opened for additional nominations, but none were received. Elections will be held during November/December and will be conducted by mail. Voting ballots will be sent to all voting members on or before November 20th and voting will cease on the 15th day of December. 3. Survey in election package concerning the Nationals In order to provide feedback to the ASCA BOD on the questions around the Nationals, the ASCNE BOD felt it was important to get input from the membership and decided to take advantage of the election package being sent to all members. A questionnaire will be enclosed and it can be returned with the ballot. From that, we will present to the ASCA BOD ASCNE’s thoughts on how this event should be handled. 4. Stopwatches for Herding Show Box – Deb Adamczyk Deb Adamczyk sent a request to purchase 2 new stopwatches for the Stock Show box, as there are 2 good ones, but an event like HMM needs to have 4. The cost is not to exceed $42. Pete Dolan stated there might be an overabundance of stopwatches in the agility show box. If so, some of those can be moved into the Stock Show box. Regardless of where they come from, it was approved to acquire the 2 stopwatches Deb originally requested and 2 additional ones to have on had for backup. 5. Updates to the 2004 Event Calendar - Possibly June 19 & 20 – Tenley Dexter asked Bob Vest to judge a 1 or 2 day trial while down for the clinics (to replace Linc’s May event) – possibly at Linc’s or Janet Benson’s; Janet Benson possible CD as she’s not trialing a dog.

- Possibly August 21 & 22 – Tenley Dexter is looking to have a herding trial in CT; Janet Benson, Linc, or Diane Sobel-Meyer to be course director; thought to use Deb & Joe’s dates but there is a private clinic at Janet’s facility that weekend; still leaves a month to Kathy Warren clinic and no conflicting AKC venues

- Cindy King said she, Warren Robinson, and Bill Haggis had been considering hosting a herding trial in June as well. Based on the input from Tenley, they may now consider something in July.

- Matt Mason felt having a herding trial each month from June to October might be overkill and that perhaps Cindy, Warren, Bill, Tenley, Linc, and Diane could work something out to just have the additional trials in June and August.

 6. AMBOR Co-Sanctioning Agility Events with NADAC Jean Janotta received correspondence from AMBOR stating that NADAC would now be co-sanctioning events with AMBOR and requesting clubs consider doing the AMBOR co-sanctioning. Pete Dolan said this was causing a lot of discussion on the Agility Committee as well. In addition, the ASCA Agility rules state that affiliates shall not seek sanctioning for any event with a registry other than NADAC and CKC. 7. 2004 Membership Renewal – Kathie Chouinard Kathie has the updated membership renewal form for 2004 and will be mailing them out shortly. Membership renewals are due by January 1, 2004. If not received by February 1, your membership will be considered lapsed and voting rights will be suspended until the month after dues are paid. 8. Entry Fees for Juniors It came to the Board’s attention prior to the HMM event that juniors have been allowed to pay half entry fees for all stock events. This is not consistent across the venues. For Junior Showmanship (breed), the cost is $3; for obedience, agility, and tracking, there is no junior rate. Although we feel it is important to support juniors, it is also important to balance that support against the costs. There are two divisions for juniors in herding: - Working Junior Handler Division – this is a separate standalone division - just the handler is judged; no titles awarded to dog

- Open Working Junior Division – points are earned from the started, open, advanced, and post-advanced divisions.

 It is possible for one junior to enter both these divisions on each type of stock, which would equate to 6 runs, however, they are only paying for 3 runs (keep in mind at HMM, the pre-entry fee for ducks was $25, sheep was $30, and cattle was $35, so that would be paying $90 as opposed to $180). Other things to consider are a judge can only judge 40 runs in a day, the stock can only run a certain number of runs in a day, and the cost of the stock is not altered based on the age of the handler.

There was a lot of discussion on this issue. Three recommendations came out:

- Junior Showmanship (breed) entry fee will remain at $3 (or possibly go up $1 or $2) and entry fees for all other events will be the regular fee

- 10% off all fees for Juniors, regardless of the venue

- Junior Showmanship (breed) entry fee will remain at $3 (or possibly go up $1 or $2); Working Junior Handlers will receive a 50% reduction in entry fees; all other fees will be at full price

 This discussion will be continued at the next meeting. 9. Letter from ARPH Dottie received a letter from ARPH with a heartfelt thanks for the monies sent as a result of the March Rescue event. 10. Letter from ASGHI Dottie received a letter from C. A. Sharpe thanking ASCNE for its donation last year and soliciting additional funds. A motion was made and passed to send ASGHI a donation of $150. 11. ASCNE 30th Anniversary Pewter Cups When the announcement was made at the Annual Banquet in March 2003 about the ASCNE 30th Anniversary Pewter cups, some members voiced a desire to be able to order one of the cups if they hadn’t managed to win one during the year. The cost of each cup is depends on the quantity ordered. The estimated cost would be in the $10-$15 dollar range. If anyone is interested in purchasing one of these cups, please e-mail Jean Janotta at jjanotta@rcn.com. 12. Consolidated Mailing List Brenda Dean volunteered to manage the consolidated mailing list. Jean will send her the list used for the HMM premiums. Cindy King also suggested putting an ad in the Match Show Bulletin with an overview of our events (e.g., obedience, herding, agility, tracking open to all breeds) and stating if they want a flyer/premium to provide Brenda Dean with their address and identify the venues they are interested in. 13. 2005 Nationals Georgia is entertaining putting in a bid for the 2005 Nationals. Peter Kontos was contacted to see if ASCNE would be interested in hosting a breed pre-show like we did in 2000. In addition, Jean Janotta talked with Ally Bryant regarding agility pre-shows. Stay posted. 14. Achievements - Sue Winters and Little B – Altered Championship - won all her BBX altered classes at the PreShows; Altered Winners Bitch and then Best of Winners, beating a total of 54 dogs

- Heather Braddock

- Caleb went Best of Breed at the first PreShow, Best Opposite at the next two and the 1st premier at the 2003 Nationals

- cute red tri puppy by Caleb out of Flip won BOB puppy at the 2nd pre show beating a total of 51 puppies....won her class every day and then went BOS puppy at the Nationals

 - Jean Janotta & Boston – 3rd Agility Finals

- Jean Janotta & Zack – 4th Agility Veterans Finals

- John Spivey & Kirby – 9th Agility Finals

- Robin Goodman & Lacey – 4th Obedience Finals

- HMM Versatility

- 1st Lizette Durrschmidt and Z

- 2nd Dianne McCormick and Holly

- 3rd Anne Hubbard and Elly

- 4th Dianne McCormick and Willow

 - Wendy Dryer as the breeder of these 4 dogs - Sue Schroeder and Dancer – TD

- Celeste Kelley and two of her dogs - TDs

 Meeting was adjourned at 2:45pm

Next meeting: January 4th, 2004 at noon at Canine Mastery in Seekonk, MA

Respectfully submitted, Diane Johnson