APLA

Board Meeting Minutes

Meeting Date: 8/20/2013

Present via conference call: Bruce Smiley, Vic Rompa, Nate Hamblin, Richard McCullough, Dale Merritt, Troy Benson.

Not Present: Doug Powell, Mark Schmiedeshoff, Ed McNally

Meeting was called to order at 7:00 pm CT by Smiley. Benson joined after the call to order which completed a 6 member quorum.

Officers Reports:

1.  Powell was not present. Treasurers report was deferred.

2.  Schmiedeshoff was not able to attend but provided Smiley a Secretaries report which was communicated to the board and discussed. The Secretaries report is attached to these minutes.

Motion to accept Secretaries report -- Approved Unanimously

Committee Reports:

1.  Judges & Local Club (Rompa) No actions

2.  Web – Included in Secretaries report

3.  Hunt Test (Benson)
HT committee recommended approval of all submitted test sites with the exception of Utah and Washington which had not secured judges by the deadline date for posting.
Motion to accept the HT Committees schedule of fall events – Approved Unanimously

4.  Hall of Fame (Hamblin)
2012 Hall of Fame ballot was presented to the board by Nate Hamblin. Discussion ensued on the available inductions that should be available for the election cycle. Discussion also ensued on the ballot content.
Motion to set the available HOF inductions at 2 dogs for this election cycle – Approved Unanimously
Motion to approve ballot for 3 candidates (Bear, Corkey, Nugget) – Approved Unanimously

5.  Rules (Merritt)
Rules Commission has been in process of considering recommendations/clarifications on 11 items presented to them by the board in February 2012. Recommendations on those points were presented to the board by Merritt and are attached to these minutes. The board asked Merritt to please pass on its appreciation to the Rules Commission for all the hard work and hours involved in this review and recommendation.
Items were reviewed individually and voted on individually with each recommendation having received Board Approval.
- Motions to approve Rules Commissions recommendations as indicated on the Rules Commission document indicating rules language changes for items 3,5,6,7.8,9a,10,11 – Approved Unanimously
- Motion to make items 3,5,6,7,8,9a, 11 effective immediately as they are clarifications of existing policy – Approved Unanimously
- Motion to make item 10 effective January 1, 2014 as it is a change in current test rules – Approved Unanimously.
- Motion to make the Rules Commission review document available to judges via the Judges forum -- Approved Unanimously

Secretaries Report
-The only Spring certificates remaining are the ones from Decorah IA Sandy is still trying to track down some payments from 4 people representing 10 entries. Certificates will be mailed to me on Tuesday 8/20 for distribution Sandy is making up invoices online and notifying the delinquent accounts that their or their clients certificates will be held by the Secretary until payment in verified.
-36 members opted out of the email communications of the web site. They were all mailed the hardcopy newsletter with the now erroneous WA Premium. Sandy is sending me labels for those 36 so I can send them a letter announcing that the premium is in error. All online communications concerning the test show it as cancelled
-All the Fall 2013 ribbons have been received by the Secretary and are ready for distribution to HT chairs.
Web Page
-Wild Apricot has a new release scheduled for Late summer/Fall and another for winter. The earliest release that could deal with the Classifieds is winter
-Sandy Abernathy had projected that her work would average 30 hrs per month The reality is that it is closer to 45 hrs. per month. The web committee will assume the responsibility to present a report of solutions to rectify this issue for the NOV Board Meeting. Examples will include suggestions such as; Pay her for the increased hrs., solutions that will reduce her hours back to 30 per month, and those that include both options. The board , armed with the report, can then evaluate income VS expense and make a proper decision.
-The web committee has embarked on pro-active communications with the membership and seeks interesting news to push to the membership. The editing will be the responsibility of the Chair
- The statement that details the responsibility and behavior of forum users was not carried from the old site to the new. Does anyone have a copy so we can add it asap?
-The NY test is going well with 10 registrations completed all with online payment and registration
Elections

-The call for nominations was officially posted to the site with a Sept 30, 2013 deadline
-The elections were presented or discussed in both the President’s report and the Secretaries Report of the newsletter
-The elections committee will set all the other dates soon (need to meet)
-So far through phone call outreach we have interested candidates expected to submit their paper work for all Officer positions and at least one Board position possibly two.

Submitted 8/19 Mark Schmiedeshoff

Minutes authored by Bruce Smiley