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AGM 2010

AGM 2010

DATE:-25th June 2010 DAY:-Saturday TIME:-10:15

PLACE:-

51 Dillon Street, Blenheim.

PRESENT:-

Sarah, Michael & Marlien Greig, Arthur Yeo, Tim & Megan Kelly, Brent & Sue Penman, Jeannette Macdonald, Dean Nicholls & Lee Bason

APOLOGIES:-

Janice DeRaad, Peter & Bridget Cameron, Kerrie Carter, Frank & Sandy Hooper, Sue Rivers, Suzanne Mentor

MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING:- 13th May, 2010

P:- Jeannette 2ND:- Lee A:- X

MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES:-

Franked envelopes. After discussion and looking into the cost, it was decided not to be a viable option at this point with the cost, our low membership base and finances.

We get a Bomac flyer with our magazines. If anyone does not wish to receive these, please let Sue P know and you will not be sent anymore.

CORRESPONDENCE:-

INWARD:- 26th March – AMHA outlining Reciprocity

OUTWARD:- Response to AMHA from Sue re same 26th March 2010

P:- Jeannette 2ND:- Arthur A:- X

Presidents Report:-

Firstly a big THANK YOU to all our members who help support the Association throughout the year, and in particular, the loyal core who make up the committee. The work the committee members put in to keep the Association running is so vital to our continuity and very much appreciated.

 

Our new website is up and running thanks to the sterling efforts of our webmaster, Sue Rivers. The challenge for us now is to continue to use and develop it further. We face some other challenges in the year(s) ahead with the ongoing issue of how to encourage membership and what we can offer our members. With recent AMHA changes we also need to relook at the possibility of reciprocity with AMHA and/or consider database sharing with Australia.

 

Morgan horses in the news this past year include Peter and Jason Robson’s team of Morgans winning the NZ Ploughing Championship at Methven and featuring in both the Straight Furrow and Horse and Pony (unfortunately with a photo of Clydesdales in the latter). Bryan Whitehead also featured in the Straight Furrow with his Morab Make Believe Missoula after their Endurance riding successes.

 

The Association has the 2010 National Show to look forward to at the end of November. Best wishes to the show committee for another successful show.

 

Thanks again to the committee, and all the best for Morgan success in the coming year.

P:- Jeannette 2ND:- Marlien A:- X

Treasurer’s Report:-

(report attached separately)

There are some unallocated deposits made that will be discussed between Marlien and Sue P. Should we deposit some monies in a term deposit? We need to decide where and how much?

P:- Marlien Greig 2ND:- Arthur A:- X

Registrar’s Report:-

2009 saw the numbers of Part Morgans again be greater than the number of Morgans registered.

Morgans Registered 2009

0/096/06 Glentruin Tristan

0/097/08 Wairua’s Serenade

Part Morgans Registered 2009

1/246/02 Secret’s Midnight Oil

1/243/05 Tui’s Nikau Pixie

A1/244/00 Tui’s Morning Star

1/245/08 Te Hue Valley Songbird

2/247/07 Mt Tulloch Prospect

A1/248/08 Arazona Show Time

A2/249/06 Summer’s Figaro @ Okereru

2/250/05 Moon’s Eclipse @ Okereru

3/251/05 Dark Magic @ Okereru

The economic recession, I think has made it more difficult for people to afford to register their stock particularly the Morgans. This will have huge ramifications on the breed in this country as it will be difficult for the organisers of shows to have registrered Morgans to show. Bearing in mind, that in theory horses should not be shown as Morgans unless they are registered. It will reduce the integrity of Morgans in this country as if it goes on for too long we won’t know what are Morgans and what not!

Reciprocity is now being offered by AMHA but this process does not look cheep! Especially on the other side of the world from AMHA. This will be discussed at this meeting but we would be unable to move on this without further input from the membership.

No new members for this period

P:- Sue P 2ND:- Mike A:- X

APPOINTMENT OF REGISTRAR:-

Sue Penman is going to continue to be our Registrar for the next 2 year period. Thank you Sue. We agreed it would be a good idea to have a “Registrar in Training” .

Does anyone wish to put their hand up? Don’t be shy! Expressions of interest are called for.....

Brent will draft a bylaw for the Registrars 2 year period

It was also discussed that there should be a computer specifically for the Registrar and we agreed it would be a good idea. Any ideas as to who we could approach to have a suitable computer donated?????

Arthur suggested we look at “Cloud Computing” or similar as a back up system for ALL of our Association information to be kept off site in case of computer/flash drive/external hard drive failure. An excellent idea.

So now we have a sub committee comprising Arthur, Sue & Brent to liase and discuss a mainframe base.

P:- Lee 2ND:- Megan A:- X

APPOINTMENT OF EDITOR:-

Sue Penman will continue in this role unless anyone else wishes to. Thank you. Arthur will continue to print it with the help of Konica Minolta. Thanks to you too. Our magazine is great and I look forward to receiving it in the letter box. Anyone with stories to share should get them off to Sue so we can see what other Morgan enthusiasts are up to. First story in with pictures gets the front page.....

WEBSITE REPORT:-

The website is showing much the same usage and viewing statistics throughout the year with not much variation from what is shown on the statistics section of the website. The average length of stay at the website is still showing that people are coming to the website and are spending some time viewing what information is displayed. The amount of people staying less than 10 minutes is however increasing which possible indicates that (a) committee members are visiting and not finding anything has changed so are leaving again….or…..(b) People are coming back to visit the site and not finding anything new.

To keep the website growing positively there needs to be an increase in the amount of fresh content or fresh discussions being added.

 

I have had a number of emails throughout the year with people wanting help with the website and various features. It would help me greatly if people could give me more information about any problems they experience so I can correct them. It’s not enough to say “I can’t add an event” for example as everything is usually tested before I publish it to the site. It would help if people provided details such as any error messages that appear, what browser they were using (such as Internet Explorer, Safari or Firefox) and as much information as possible about the problem so that I can replicate the error to fix it.

The other option is to send me the information you want to add to the website and I will add it for you. A good majority of the issues presented so far have been user error as opposed to problems with the website and I have wasted valuable time looking for errors that don’t exist.

 

I am more than happy to run some training sessions with anyone that wants to learn how to use the website more. Please let me know if you’re interested and I will set up a time/date to suit.

Website Visitor Statistics

August 09 75

September 265

October 238

November 190

December 220

January 2010 313

February 273

March 386

April 284

May 268

June 158 (partial month figure)

Search Terms

Search terms are the combination of words used by website visitors to search for information relating to Morgan horses. It’s good to see people are searching for stallions specifically which obviously means they are getting their interest from somewhere, perhaps TradeMe listings. I also notice people are searching for committee members specifically by name and the website is showing up in their search results. This indicates that the website is ranking well and our focus on Search Engine Optimisation is working.

A detailed report of search terms used is attached. The percentage figure beside each search term indicates the number of people that have used that search term to find the site.

Forum Statistics

The forum has a total of 43 topics – 9 in the general area available to the public with the remainder appearing in the committee only area. There have been 136 replies to these topics. Considering these figures are based on use of the forum since the website went live, it’s easy to say that the forum is just not being used effectively to generate interest and discussion.

Top 10 Forum Users

Okereru

Suez

Wairua Morgans

MacJen

HorseTackNZ

Rareasmagic

Kaycee

Tui NZ

Vicki

Life’s about Fun

Database Update

The database was provided to me by Sue Penman and has been converted to SQL as requested. There are two SQL databases – the one that stores the website and related information and the one that contains all the information relating to horses and people. For me to progress further with the Register database I need to know how you want to interact with the database. Naturally there will be records to update, such as the birth a horse, but what I need to know is exactly what information you need to update at each event so that appropriate forms etc can be created.

The interaction set up for the website is a HUGE process but once done, it’s done so the more information to help me here would be appreciated. I have a pile of emails somewhere that outlines some of the processes but it would help me considerably if a complete document of wants and needs could be prepared which outlines all of the interactions with the database. This needs to include what information sets that have to be pulled from the database at any time such as the Pure Register list for example.

The database can be accessed through the back end of the website and we are still experimenting with the best way to interact with it – I want to make it as easy to use and user friendly as possible. This means a bigger learning curve for me initially as I have to learn how to use the program so I can show you how to use it. Nothing like a challenge huh!!

P:- Sue Rivers 2ND:- Jeanette A:- X

2010 NATIONAL SHOW:-

Megan went over the plan for the running of the show. The outline was printed in our latest magazine. To recap. The show will be held over 2 days beginning Friday 26th November around 1 – 2pm with Dressage up first followed by flatwork classes. Times will be allocated. It will be run as a “Round Robin” event so if you get to one event and they aren’t ready for you, go on to the next. Kerrie & Maree have competed well from the North Island camp previously. Be great to have some more of you....

Apologies in advance from Arthur and Jeannette who will be unable to attend.

2011 SHOW COMMITTEE:-

Who is going to put their hands up for this???

Please send the names of the Trophy winners to Dean so we can keep a track of where they go for re collection. Thank you

TROPHIES:-

It has been suggested that we take photos of the trophies so we can see the condition they are in before they go out again and also have the winner sign for it. All agreed this was a good idea and Dean will take photos of them as they come back in.

Does anyone remember where the Ch Mare trophy went?

GENERAL BUSINESS:-

AMHA Reciprocity

We discussed dual registration and registration by DNA in NZ only. This would cause problems down the track if any of those horses were to be exported to the States.

The plus of reciprocity would be one registration, one membership.

The negative side is they will want to come to inspect the books and a transaction fee. It means a huge expense for us for their flights etc.

The decision was made to leave it for the time being as it’s too expensive

Arthur & Sue: please write a letter to the AMHA and see if it is acceptable to have all the required info on a database so no visit is necessary. Also, could we have an amnesty period for the registration of purebred horses?

Lee to write a thank you letter to Konica Minolta

P:- Megan 2ND:- Arthur A:- X

AWARDS:-

The forms will be put into the magazine..

The Bobby Dazzler Trophy will go to Kerrie Carter as will the English Ridden and also a rosette.

Congatulations Kerrie and well done. You’re a great ambassador for the Morgan breed

If you want to be in to win any of these awards then fill out your forms. You must be in to win.

There were Driving, Endurance/Competitive Trail or Okereru Awards given out this year

ELECTION OF OFFICERS:-

President- Jeannette Macdonald

Vice Pesident – N.I – Arthur Yeo

Vice President – S.I – Dean Nicholls

Secretary – Lee Bason

Treasurer – Marlien Greig

Registrar – Sue Penman

Trophy Collectors/Merchandise – Dean Nicholls & Lee Bason

Website – Sue Rivers

Sarah Greig – Jnr Representative

COMMITTEE:-

Kerrie Carter, Brent Penman, Peter & Bridget Cameron, Janice deRaad, Maree Edmonds, Michael Greig, Megan Kelly.

NEXT MEETING:-

DATE:- TBA TIME:-TBA PLACE:- Arthur’s place in Palmerston North

CLOSE MEETING:-

TIME:- 12:35