Meeting called to order by President Wayne Gifford. Attending were Janene Jones, Marilyn O’Leary, with 3 potential junior members from her 4H group, Stormy Slate and her dad, Bruce, Bob & June Lee, Dave Poe, Edgar Edmundson, Terry Watts and Becky Gates. Minutes from last meeting and Treasurer’s Report were read by Secretary/Treasurer Clara Askew. They were approved as read.

Old Business:

Production Sale: Catalog is on the website. Good Job kudos to Terry Brown for all her work. Edgar Edmundson suggested that the color of the goat be added to the template. He also suggested everyone get their consignments in sooner so Terry wouldn’t have to keep asking for templates and pictures. Set up at the Fairgrounds will be Thursday morning, September 16, at 8 am. All we need to do is set up the sales ring, move the bleachers and set up the alley from the barn to the sales ring. If you are free that morning, please come and help. The more hands we have, the quicker and easier we can get it done. The VFW food booth will not be open this year. So, Friday night starting at 6 pm, we will serve hamburgers, salads and chips for the consignors and work crew. Saturday morning, we will have muffins, donuts, coffee and whatever else we can come up with for breakfast. Since the sale seems to lose momentum if we break for lunch and since it starts at noon, we will not break for lunch this year. We’ll have snack items and beverages available for the buyers. We cannot charge for the food, but we can take donations. We’ll put out a donation jar and hope we break close to even on the food.

Check in is after 2 pm on Friday the 17th. We will need a crew for health inspections, checking tattoos and putting lot number tags on the goats as they arrive. Let Wayne Gifford know if you can volunteer for this. Consignors are reminded they are responsible for getting their goats from the barn to the alley leading into the sales ring on sale day. Toby Young, Matt O’Leary and Robert Stromberg will be in the barn to make sure everything goes smoothly. We will have a veterinary available sale day if health certificates are needed. Payment for this service will need to be worked out between the buyer and the seller. The Association is not responsible for paying for the health certificates. Becky Gates volunteered to read the pedigrees if needed at the sale.

Spring Show: The show will be May 7th & 8th, 2011. We should avoid the pig weigh in by having it on this date. The Spring Fair for 4-H and FFA are this weekend though, so that will cause some conflict for our Junior Members who are showing at both events. So, we may need some volunteers to show their animals at our show. Judy Novak asked that we consider having an IBGA show one of the days. Janene Jones, our show secretary, said she had been thinking about having 2 ABGA shows one day and the IBGA show the other day. It was decided to think it over, consider the expenses and discuss it further at the next meeting. Wayne reported that ABGA has the only affiliate program for meat goat associations. We still need to check with ABGA and see what benefits if any are available to us as an affiliate. Bruce Willoughby, out of Utah, is our new ABGA representative.

Junior Doe Program: Terry Watts, June Lee and Judy Novak have been working on the Doeling Program. New requirements and application information are available on request. Terry is working on the revisions and they will be emailed out as soon as they are completed. We have gotten one doe back and it is being bred at Wayne’s now. It was decided we would sell it at the production sale and the money would be used for any expenses the doeling program might incur. We will need mentors for any junior members who qualify and receive a doe in the future. So think about helping out as these kids are the future of our industry.

New Business:

Becky Gates, our Webmaster, gave a report on what it would take to set up our own video streaming on the web. We could have our sale, shows, meetings, clinics and anything else we wanted streamed over the internet. The hosting cost would be $371.40, per year which includes 30 GB disk space, (additional space is .82 a month per GB), and data transfer allowance would be 300 GB, (additional transfer .15 a month per GB). We would get a dedicated IP address. We could have 100 Simultaneous users, $15 per 50 for additional users and hosting of the domain name. If we broadcast next year’s auction, we would have to work out how online bidders would register their bids. Becky was asked to give us a bid on what her fee would be to set it all up. It was decided we would need to do a lot of testing before we would attempt to broadcast a sale. We will talk more about the possibilities at the next meeting.

Clare Askew
Secretary/Treasurer