Present:
Gay Adams, Kathy Christensen, Martha Woodland, Karen Breckenridge, Erin Silver, Leanne Roth and David Silver
Not Present:
Nancy Eidam, Diane Pixlee and John Shaver
Quorum Present
Meeting called to order at 2:20pm
Financial report as of 10/31/2018 - Karen Breckenridge
$7,271 general checking account
$25,489 Savings account
$3,304 futurity account
$13,765 Nancy Falk Trust Donation – Restricted Funds
$9,025 OMC account
Total after reconciliations $58,980
Karen is still working on finalizing the Profit & Loss Statement, but Net Income for the club looks like it will be right at breakeven for the year. Our budget for the year was breakeven.
OMC approximate net profit was $2,000
Note: A final financial report will be available next month and will be published in the Stable Sheet
Gay announced two new Life members for MHAO in honor of their contributions to the Morgan breed and to MHAO:
Kathy DeFazio and Carol Dombrowsky each received a special thank you plaque.
Congratulations to both!
Gay thanked the Directors who are leaving the Board:
Carol Dombrowsky, Erica Parker, David Silver, & Leanne Roth received plaques to thank them for their service. They will all be missed.
COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Hi-Point Committee – Erin Silver
About 45 horses participated in the Hi-Point program this year. New for 2019, all who show on the Morgan circuit need to get registered for Hi-Point so that Erin will have an easier time of finding their results. Once registered she will track them for BC, Key, OMC, Far West, C-Fair, PNW and Nationals. For any other shows (Morgan or open), points need to be sent in.
Education – Erin Silver
The Spring Clinic, General Membership Meeting, & Stallion Service Auction will take place
March 9, 2019
at Shelley Bullard’s farm. It will be a Ranch Pleasure Clinic facilitated by Peggy Bond-Heath. Riding spots are limited so register early if you want to bring your horse. More info will follow.
Youth – Gay Adams for Diane Pixlee
Diane, David, & Sierra have been working on bringing some articles together for a new MHAO Youth Newsletter. There has also been talk of a possible cyber show in the early months of 2019. More information to follow.
Stallion Service Auction (SSA) – Gay Adams
Although we did not hit our aggressive goal for income from the Stallion Service Auction in 2018, we still had a good year. That is especially true considering our advertising for the year was delayed due to reasons beyond our control (AMHA changed their publication date). As a result of their change our ad for the auction did not come out until after the auction had concluded. Helping to offset this, we had over 12,300 hits on the SSA website as well as increased hits on the SSA facebook page. Even without our TMH ad we received $6,800 in bids.
This year we will expand our advertising for the SSA using "The Blast" as well as TMH. Additionally we are looking at using HorseShowWire so we can add on-line bidding availability and generate some extra hype.
Gay is excited to announce that Leslie Arnould is helping on the SSA in getting stallions nominated and in increasing the quality of our SSA advertising and graphics for ads and on our website.
Futurity – Gay Adams
There are 40 horses in the Futurity currently, down from over 50 last year. Per Gay, although we would like the number of horses in the futurity to be higher the drop is caused by horses selling and that is a good thing. One of our goals with the futurity is to help our breeders market their horses.
Leslie Arnould has stepped forward to help on both the SSA and the Futurity. She is bringing new energy to both and is talking to people in California and other states about getting involved with our Futurity. We are the last remaining Futurity in the Western Region.
Promotion – Kathy Christensen
Kathy needs someone to step up to head the promotion committee for next year. She said the Albany expo had fewer people going thru and is really hit and miss as far as effectiveness in adding members to MHAO. She suggests that going to local tack stores with an information booth and doing more smaller functions to promote the Morgan Horse might be more effective. We need someone to step forward for this important position.
Membership & Membership Directory –Kathy Christensen
There are 37 renewals for 2019 to date. Reminders will go out shortly. The MHAO Directory went out with ballots along with membership renewal requests. Our goal is to switch to an on-line directory for the future.
A suggestion came from the floor to look at adding a Youth Membership level. Gay Agreed to refer it to the Board for discussion & consideration.
Ride/Drive Program – Leanne Roth
Only one person enrolled in this new program which started in 2018. No miles have been turned in yet. Leanne wants to reach out to everyone who participated in the MHAO Trail Ride and get them to enroll. Leanne will not be on the Board next year, but said there was discussion at the MHAO Trail Ride about how to improve the ride and where to have it for next year. Carol & Leanne will remain on this committee but we will need a new Chair.
Open Incentive Program – Gay Adams for John Shaver
Per Karen, participation in this program is down. Gay reviewed the program for attendees at the meeting. People can earn enough in reimbursement to more than cover the cost of their membership. Getting Morgan horses out to open shows, clinics, or other types of functions is a great way to show people what a Morgan horse is like and to promote the breed.
Website, Facebook & Stable Sheet – Gay Adams
Gay is still looking for an editor for the Stable Sheet. She can’t continue to devote as much time to it as she has this past couple of years. Ami Ericson has agreed to help with membership news and we are working to get her operational. We can use more people with each one focusing on a different area. We now have the ability to have several people entering info - so if anyone is interested in helping, please step forward. See new business for information on the website.
Oregon Morgan Classic – Gay Adams for Nancy Eidam
Paula Hague will be our show chair for 2019. Nancy Eidam will be Vice Chair. Sponsorship support is crucial to our show and needs to be a major focus of the OMC team. We brought in over $13,000 in 2018 & hope to improve on it for 2019. While down a bit from 2017 when we were combined with Far West, 2018 sponsorships were much higher than what we have done historically.
A request came from the floor at the meeting to change the dates of the show from Wednesday thru Saturday to be Thursday thru Sunday. It is very hard for working people to get extra time off work and the members are hearing that it has stopped some from coming. In the discussion that followed, everyone at the meeting agreed and requested the change. Gay promised to pass this info on to the Show committee.
NEW BUSINESS – OPEN DISCUSSION:
New items we are working on for 2019
Scholarship Fund –
We are investigating what would be required to add a scholarship fund to our club offerings. Leanne is helping us to pull some information together. Our hope is that having one will aid us in gaining more sponsorship support from companies. We need to figure out what the terms will be and how we will pay for it.
Club History -
Dallas would like help to collect and publish information about our club history on our website. We have not done a good job of maintaining our history in the past. Volunteers are needed to work on this and are welcome.
Pursuit of Charity Status
- MHAO is a 501c5 Non-Profit organization. As it is currently organized it does not qualify as a Charity (501c3) because it is a membership organization. We are looking at establishing some sort of arm of MHAO that would qualify as a Charity organization. We would likely put the SSA into it, OMC, Education functions, our scholarship fund, etc. More information to follow. Volunteers to help work on this are welcome.
Election Results for 2019
Officers:
President – Gay Adams
Vice President – Kathy Christensen
Secretary – To be determined – Kathy Carlson voted in but needs to accept
Treasurer – Karen Breckenridge
Directors:
Nancy Eidam, Martha Woodland, Diane Pixlee, John Shaver, & Shirley Champion were elected. Erin Silver has another year to her term.
Youth Directors –
Natalie Woodland and Grace Martin were elected.
Four additional positions are open:
The following individuals have been voted onto the Board but need to accept the responsibility: Kathy Carlson, Leanne Roth, Julie Nygaard, Paula Hague, Glenn Carr, Stephanie Connor & Rhea Turner. By meeting time, Stephanie Connor, Leanne Roth, & Glenn Carr had declined. Gay will contact the remaining four. Any positions that remain empty can be filled by appointment.
Note: All directors & officers need to be members of MHAO.
By Law Changes –
The By-Law changes were approved as submitted.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:00pm
Respectfully submitted,
Martha Woodland, MHAO Secretary
