Minutes from the January 8, 2006 meeting held at Canine Mastery in Seekonk, MA.

Secretary's Report – Diane Johnson

• Acceptance of the minutes from the November 6, 2005 meeting at Dr. Matt Mason'sis delayed until the next meeting as the newsletter was late and members did not have a chance to read them.

Treasurer's Report – Dottie Duclos

• ASCNE Treasury - $ 32,196.62 including Rescue Treasury of $2,740.54
• Moose-a-Mania – more pre-entry checks were found bringing gross receipts to $5001; expenses - $2912.96; profit $ 2,088.40.
• Georgia pre-National Agility – October 23rd – gross receipts $11513; expenses $6725.51; profit $4787.49
• Georgia pre-National Conformation – October 24th – gross receipts $ 8027; expenses $6075.51; profit $1951.49

Affiliate Report - Sharon Ruppell

• It is time to fill out the renewal form.
• Sharon had heard nothing for awhile so she went on-line and reported that a new Office Manager, Jean Miller, was hired on 16SEP05 and two other staff members have been hired.

ASCA Board of Directors Report - Linda Gray and/or Chris Davenport:

• representative not present
• In response to a general email Jean sent, Linda Gray reported the BoD has been on vacation and all information could be found on the ASCA website.

Committee Reports

• Agility - Dianne McCormick reported any qualifying leg from the proficient or skilled level in NADAC Regular, Jumpers, and Wildcard will count towards ASCA qualifying runs. The NADAC wildcard class will count towards ASCA gamblers legs.
• Bylaws - Linda Gray - representative not present
• Conformation - Peter Kontos/Chris Davenport - representative not present.
• DNA & Genetics - Linda Gray - representative not present
• Juniors - Cindy King - representative not present.
• Obedience - Mary Ann Stoddart - representative not present. Mary Ann sent an email stating the Obedience Committee is reorganizing after a lot of members resigned. Pete Dolan added the chair, ASCA BoD liaison, and 3 other members resigned as the committee chair was unable to be designated the ASCA representative in dealings with Bud Kramer for the Rally-O program. ASCA indicated these members could not represent ASCA since they had not been duly elected.
• Stockdog - Bill Pechka-King - representative not present
• Tracking - Celeste Kelly, Linda Gray, Sue Schroeder - representative not present. Jean indicated there is a lot of activity in the motions section of the ASCA website for tracking.
• Versatility - no representative from the club.

Library Report - Cindy King

• representative not present.
• Sue Winters has some old National Stockdog magazines to donate to the library.

Sunshine Report - Jean Janotta

• Pauli Haggis is doing very well.

Event Updates

• Winter Warm Up - February 4 & 5, Seekonk, MA - Sue Winters still needs obedience and breed stewards. Sharon Ruppel has volunteered to do the food.
• Rescue Show - March 17 - 19, Taunton, MA - Brenda Dean is in the process of getting a breed judge for Saturday. She indicated the rescue donations are slow and asked members to please try to donate something for the Chinese Auction. If you can't get your donations for the Chinese Auction to the show then Brenda will take them at the ROM banquet. The obedience entry limit for Sunday is per the judge’s request. Brenda noted some of the local hotels are allowing dogs on the grounds but not in the rooms, others will not even allow dogs on the grounds. Please check with the hotel for their dog policy.

OLD BUSINESS

New Members

• John and Lisa Andrade were accepted as members.

ASCNE Election Year

• Jean thanked Diane Johnson as outgoing secretary, Sharon Ruppel for Affiliate Rep, and Warren Robinson as board member.
• Following are the results of the vote for new club officers:
  • President - Jean Janotta
  • Vice President - Pete Dolan
  • Treasurer - Dottie Duclos
  • Secretary - Gull Reidy
  • Affiliate Rep. - Sheila Dolan
  • BoD - Keli Gaunt
  • BoD - Brenda Dean

  Jean noted that election terms are for 2 years and other club members should think about stepping up to serve the next term.

2007 ASCA Nationals – Pete Dolan

• The 2007 ASCA Nationals will be in Augusta, New Jersey on September 29 - October 6, 2007. A Yahoo Group (Aussies07Natls ) has been set up for all those interested. There are 2 databases - one with a list of key positions and the chairpersons. The second list is for posting your areas of interest for volunteering.
• Pete Dolan passed around an aerial view of the fairgrounds as well as the two database lists.
• The theme of the 2007 Nationals is Golden Jubilee, 50th Anniversary of ASCA. There was discussion as to the logo. Keli Gaunt will send a notice to the affiliate reps and affiliate club presidents that logo ideas are being solicited from all ASCA members.
• A motion was made and seconded that the profit from the two pre-shows in Georgia be used as seed money for the 2007 Nationals. Jean is working on a budget and a base agreement of all the clubs involved in hosting the 2007 Nationals. A rough budget of $175, 000 to $180,000 is expected.
• So far, the hosting clubs are ASCNE, GAASC, and WASCUNY
• Tentative pre-trials - Working Aussies of Virginia – stock; Blue Ridge ASC – breed & obedience; GAASC – breed & obedience; Rock River ASC - agility
• An in-depth premium must be presented to ASCA by this year's Nationals.

2006 Calendar Updates

• March 17 thru 19 - the Rescue Show has conformation on Friday night this year
• March 25 & 26 - ASCNE is co-sanctioning the LEAP ASCA/NADAC Agility trial - Mt. Holyoke Equestrian Center - South Hadley, MA - Sally King
• April 1 - Tracking Clinic - Dover, NH - Celeste Kelly – being rescheduled due to loss of facility
• April TBD - Tracking Test - Celeste Kelly – per Celeste, April is too early for the test; looking for another place and date, but the spring test may not happen this year
• April 8 & 9 - ASCNE is co-sanctioning the Maplewood Assistance Partners ASCA / NADAC Agility trial - Crackerbarrel Field - Wrentham, MA - Katrin Andberg
• April 20 thru 22 - Jan Wesen Stock Clinic - Pauline, NY - Georgean Herzwig (this is not an ASCNE event)
• April 29 & 30 - Jim Hartnagle Stock Clinic - Webster, NH - Matt Mason. Contact Matt ASAP if you are interested in a working spot, there is limited room left. $25 for auditing will include lunch, the price of a working spot has not been determined but it will be in the $160-$200 range
• June 1 thru 4 - Bob Vest Sheep Clinic - Lebanon, CT - Tenley Dexter
• June 6 thru 9 - Bob Vest Clinic - NH
• June 10 & 11 - Bob Vest Cattle Clinic - Lebanon, CT - Tenley Dexter
• June 10 & 11 - Colors of Summer, Auburn, MA - Keli Gaunt - dates have changed. There are 2 Breeder Judges and 2 "regular" conformation judges. two breed and one obedience show each day.
• June 18 – Stock Trial – Lebanon, CT – Tenley Dexter
• July 28 thru 30 - Moose-a-Mania, Skowhegan, ME - Clara Grover
• August 20 - C.A. Sharp Seminar, Rhode Island - Linda Gray

NEW BUSINESS

Membership Applications - Kathie Chouinard

2006 Show Coordinators

• Jean thanked Cindy King for her contribution as the stock coordinator for at least the last 4 years and more. Pete Dolan expressed an interest in this position last fall to learn the ropes. The BoD felt it would be a good thingfor the Club to have more than one member educated in what it takes to be a Stock Coordinator.
• No one else has volunteered to do Breed, Obedience or Tracking so Sue Winters will continue.
• And Diane McCormick will continue to do Agility.

Club Website

• Mary Ann Stoddard started the club website 12+ years ago on the UMass server. Pete Dolan proposed that now might be a good time to move it off the UMass server to the same server on which the 2007 Nationals website will be hosted. Mary Ann agreed moving it to a more robust server might allow the club the ability to take advantage of several more kinds of web services that the UMAss server will not open up to the general public - services such as a Calendar set up similar to the one Frank Butera set up for ASCA that would allow members to post their own dates, flyers and updates would really be nice. Jean read an email from Mary Ann stating that the timing may also be right with the move to the new server for someone else to take over as webmaster.
• It was asked if we could pay a webmaster, but the cost seems to be high, although shopping around can bring down the price.
• A general job description of webmaster will be included in the newsletter and all interested parties may contact Pete Dolan. Karen Thurlow will help the new webmaster but she can not take on the position.

Disaster Response

• New Disaster response guidelines are available from JoAnn Griffin. Should anyone wish to respond in a disaster, they will have to fill out these forms and take (at least) two basic courses that the State of Mass is requiring. Other states will likely begin to require these two national courses as well. JoAnn has volunteer applications to join the Mass State Team and the local Central Mass group if anyone is interested.

Vermont Rescue

• There were 32 dogs impounded in Vermont. Of these, 15 are Aussies or Aussie-mix. As of now the judge has not given custody to the local humane society, so they are finding foster homes for as many as they can while some are still at the shelter for medical needs. ARPH is not involved as custody has not been decided.

ASCNE-L

• There has been discussion of appropriate contents for posts to ASCNE-L. General opinion of all present was that ASCNE-L was an open list for discussion among ASCNE club members. Content was not an issue and the description of the list purpose was acceptable as written.

Breeder Referral List

• Sue Winters has copies of the Breeder Referral list application.

Thank You

• Diane Johnson received a thank you note from Noah's Wish for the $500 ASCNE sent for help after Hurricane Katrina.

Nationals T-shirts

• Susan Winters has T-shirts from the 2005 ASCNE Pre-nationals. These are available for $20.

The meeting was adjourned at 2:15pm.

The next meeting will be the ROM Banquet, March 5, 2006 at the Log Cabin Restaurant in Holyoke, MA.

Respectfully submitted,

Gull Reidy, Secretary

ASCNE 2006 Calendar of Events