Met via conference call.
Meeting called to order at 7:35pm
Present:
Gay Adams, Martha Woodland, Karen Breckenridge, Erin Silver, Leanne Roth, Diane Pixlee, David Silver and Nancy Eidem
Not Present:
John
Shaver and Kathy Christensen
Quorum Present
Financial report as of 8/31/2018 - Karen Breckenridge
$9,313 general checking account
$25,488 Savings account
$2,424 futurity account
$14,265 Nancy Falk Trust Donation – Restricted Funds
$8,525 OMC account
Total after reconciliations $63,738
The most recent P&L was reviewed. Youth transactions will be broken out from OMC so they can be tracked separately. We will utilize the Nancy Falk donation of up to $500 per year for Youth of the Year. Grace Martin was our YOY winner. Gay will check with her to see if she will be representing OMC at the Grand National or not. If she does, we need to factor in our $400 reimbursement for YOY participation into our financials.
All Committee Chairs need to look at the P&L for their committee and let Karen know if any changes are needed prior to our November 4
th
General Membership meeting. We are going to be pretty close to breakeven for the year.
Erin Silver made a motion to approve the Treasurer’s report. Seconded by Karen. Approved.
Gay distributed the 2018 ballot draft. She is still looking for candidates including a President and Show Chair. David will not be able to run as our Youth Director for 2019.
COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Hi-Point Committee & Award Banquet – Erin Silver & Martha Woodland
Per Erin, there are about 20 people registered for the high point awards. We know we have more members competing than that. For this year, she will look for all MHAO member’s placings. In future, she will require pre-registration. The Award Banquet will be at the Willamette Heritage Center in Salem as a Pot Luck. For entertainment there will be a slide show created from pictures from our members showcasing what they are doing with their Morgans. Please send them to Erin Silver.
Martha Woodland is handling the Silent auction and is looking for donations. There is no theme for the auction so any type donations will be welcome.
Doors for the Banquet will open at 1:00pm. General Membership meeting, Silent Auction, and the Pot Luck will begin at 1:30pm. Awards start at 3pm. We are trying to shorten the length of the meeting.
Martha & Erin will get info to Shelley for the NWMorganNews promoting the event.
Education – Erin Silver
Erin has been in contact with Shelley for the Spring Clinic. Shelley is willing to host a Ranch Pleasure clinic/General Membership Meeting in March coordinated to work with the end of the Stallion Service Auction. We are looking at Peggy Bond-Heath as the facilitator. Erin is reaching out to her to set a date. The clinic & meeting can be in the arena with the Auction in Shelley’s home afterward so there is good cell phone service for call in bidders & contacting those who pre-registered to bid. We will need volunteers to help man the phones.
Stallion Service Auction (SSA) – Gay Adams
Leslie Arnould has stepped forward to help Gay with looking for stallion service donations and more of the graphic work for advertising. The goal is to have 30-36 stallions offered and to increase our advertising. We want an ad to be included in the Morgan Horse Magazine Breeding issue and will look for other options (like the Blast) as well. We may also see if we can use an on-line auction service like HorseShowWire to help generate more bidders.
Futurity – Gay Adams
Our futurity is the only one we know of in the Western Region. Leslie Arnould is reaching out to California breeders to see if they want to participate. We will continue to look for ways to generate more funds for prize money. We are open to ideas and donations.
Promotion – Gay Adams for Kathy Christensen
Erin confirmed that the MHAO “Day of the Morgan” event has been tabled for this year. We will look at it again for next year and see if we can’t involve more barns around the State.
Membership & Membership Directory – Gay Adams for Kathy Christensen
We now have a little over 100 members current for 2018. This number includes our Life members. The Membership Directory is printed and ready for mailing. It will be sent out with membership renewals and our 2018 ballots by October 4
th
. Gay is still working on getting Board member candidates for the ballot.
Ride/Drive Program – Leanne Roth
No new enrollments have been received. Gay suggested Leanne send emails to all the riders who participated in our recent Trail Ride and get them to enroll. All Board members need to send in an enrollment form. Info needs to be sent to Shelley for publication in the NWMorganNews, and Gay will continue to plug for the program in the Stable Sheet.
Leanne said it was a great Trail Ride. They really liked the park and trails including the bicycle trails that were available too. It was great exposure for young horses and lots of fun. Discussed possible locations for next year including if it might be a beach ride.
Open Incentive Program – Gay Adams for John Shaver
Nothing new to report at this time.
Website, Facebook & Stable Sheet – Gay Adams
Ami Ericson has volunteered to help Gay with the membership news section of the newsletter. Gay is upgrading her service with Constant Contact so that up to 10 people can have access to the MHAO account. It will raise the cost of the service to approximately $500 per year and that will need to be factored into next year’s budget. Ami will start helping with the November issue.
Youth – Diane Pixlee
David is unable to run for the youth director for next year. Grace Martin was the YOY winner. Gay will ask her if she is interested in being on the Board when she calls to see if she will represent OMC at Nationals. Martha will ask her daughter, Natalie.
Diane has a Youth Committee meeting planned to take place at Nationals with David and Sierra. One of the things they are working on is to start working on a new Youth Newsletter. David will write an article on Working Western, & Sierra has agreed to write one on competing in Dressage. Rhea Turner and Allison Deardorff were mentioned as people who might help with setting up a virtual horse show for our Youth early next year.
Oregon Morgan Classic – Nancy Eidam
A revised outline of Corporate Sponsorship packages was distributed to the Board along with information for vendors. The primary change to the Corporate sponsorship packages is that all corporate sponsors will be eligible to have a vendor booth or information table and we are asking all sponsors to provide something for the Silent Auction. Over the next few weeks or so we want to fine tune the cover letter to give to sponsors along with sponsorship information. Gay, Erin, Kathy & Martha will get that done so we can start reaching out to companies starting in mid-October (after Nationals). The earlier we start on this the better. Many companies finalize their budget for the new year between October 31
st
and year end.
We are looking for a Show Chair for 2019. Joan Shelton-Palelek will handle most of the work as manager. The Show Chair just needs to monitor everything and be sure we are on track. Nancy has created an outline to follow. The Show Chair and volunteers will need to work on getting sponsors and following thru with the benefits promised.
Leslie Arnould will make a new flyer to use to promote the show. We want to reach out to schools, 4H, FFA, etc to help get people there to watch and mingle. Radio ads were successful last year at bringing in spectators so we will do that again. Martha volunteered to take flyers around to businesses and other places about 3 weeks prior to the show.
Nancy urges us to always choose a judge rated 1st as a Morgan judge and 2
nd
as a Saddlebred judge. It is our show. The majority of our support is out of Morgan owner’s pockets. Morgan horses & their owners should always come first.
NEW BUSINESS – OPEN DISCUSSION:
New Life Members -
Potential new life members were discussed. Nancy Eidam made a motion to add two specific new Life Members. Motion was seconded by Leann Roth. Motion passed. We are not ready to announce who they will be. Members need to come to the Award banquet to find out.
501c3 Non-Profit Status for OMC -
Martha will send some tax information about nonprofits to Gay for her review.
Businesses are better off accounting for a sponsorship as advertising. Gay wants to see if it is worth the cost ($800 to $1,500 for attorney assistance plus any filing fee) for us to pursue 501c3 tax status for OMC given the new tax law. Martha knows a good Non-Profit attorney if we need one.
3-5 year Business Plan -
Gay asked that Committee Chairs update their 3-5 year business plan prior to the November 4
th
General Membership meeting. Be sure to let Gay know of the changes prior to the banquet.
USEF SAFE Sport Training Requirement for 2019 -
Nancy is concerned about some of the requirements coming out of USEF, particularly the one about requiring all competing adults to take the SAFE Sport On-Line Training before they will be allowed to compete at USEF approved shows in 2019. She feels this is going too far. There will be a USEF meeting at Nationals. She will attend and encourages anyone else who is there to attend as well. She feels that many of the regulations and fees that are being imposed by USEF are too overbearing and are hurting the Morgan and maybe even the entire Equine industries.
MHAO College Scholarship -
Gay brought up that we might have more luck getting Corporate sponsors if we could also tell them we had a scholarship program. Leanne Roth’s mom might have some information on what the Farm Bureau offers. She will see if they are willing to share their info so we can see an example of how ours might work. Having a scholarship program might help us get more Youth involved with our club and club programs, and to get our 501c3 status for OMC if we decide to pursue it. More will be discussed at a later meeting before a vote is taken. Whatever our decision, we will need a way to fund it and that needs to be included in our plan.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:55pm.
Next meeting will be on Sunday, November 4, 2018 in Salem. Doors open at 1PM.
Gay asks that all committee reports be brief to allow more time for open discussion from the floor.
Respectfully submitted,
Martha Woodland, MHAO Secretary