Meeting called to order by President Marilyn O’Leary. Attending were Koben & Kahla Shigeta, Terry Watts, Marie Beatty, Matt O’Leary, Tawyna and Nani McKague.
Minutes of last meeting and treasure’s report read and approved. We have $5977.65 in the bank.
Old Business:
Facebook: Discussion on whether to open our Facebook pages up to non-members of the Assoc. It was decided that since requests to join could be filtered and anything that wasn’t goat related could be kept out, it would be opened up. Motion was made by Terry Watts and seconded by Matt O’Leary.
Meeting Attendance: Discussion about what to do about low meeting attendance. It was decided to set the date for the next meeting during the current meeting. We would try to have set dates for quarterly meetings. Also as an incentive, $5.00 worth of raffle tickets (10) would be given to members who attend the meeting.
Production Sale: We need to have Consignor Rules on the website and facebook so members don’t have to search back through the minutes of meetings to find out information about getting goats in the sale. So attached are the rules for consigning which will be posted on the website under Production Sale. Please read them carefully. Members will notice some changes voted on by everyone who was at this meeting.
Some of them are: $30 entry fee will no longer be refunded.
Substitutions made after August 1 of the year of the sale will cost an additional $10.
Consignors will only be able to consign 8 goats instead of 10.
Catalog will be on Boergoats.com only with a link from our website.
Members can consign 1 buck only if they consign 3 does.
No more than 2 goats per pen in the barns.
Lot # Tags – The goats chew on the string that the lot number tags are attached to and lose their tags. So we need to come up with a better way of getting the lot# on the goat. Plastic chain was suggested, also painted numbers or glued on tags like the sale barns use. This was tabled for later discussion. It was suggested we have a note book with large lot numbers on individual pages on the auctioneer’s stand that could be turned as each lot comes into the ring so that buyers would know for sure which lot was in the ring.
It has been brought up by consignors after this sale that Nancy Barlas did a great job as a pedigree reader, but it might be even better if we hired Scott Pruett, who is an ABGA certified judge, to read the pedigrees. He’s worked at other sales and it seems to improve the bottom line. This would free Nancy to take care of her own goats. We would be able to pay his fee by retaining the sale entry fee.
We need to talk about training our helpers at the sale, we need to train how to do a task, rather than just saying, this is what needs to be done, go do it.
Boers de Mayo Show: Will be May 2 & 3rd this year. Judges will by Sammy Loreno for Satuday and Scott Pruett for Sunday. Koben & Kahla will get the straw. Grand prizes will again by Director’s Chairs.
Boers of Summer Show: Judy Novak will no longer be able to put on the show. BUT, she would be available to mentor. So Koben&Kahla with help will take over. Myrna Bowman who has been the show clerk for the last 2 years will still do that for us. Anyone else who wants to assist, contact Koben or Kahla. Dates will be either June 20 & 21 or 27 & 28.
Youth Jackpots: Will still have them after the open ABGA shows on Saturday. Will be affiliated with Rocky Mountain Jackpots only. Open to all youths up to 21 years of age. We will also have the Treasure Valley Classic in July at the Owyhee County Fairgrounds. We will again have a fitting and showing class for attendees. It will be only 1 day with the class in the morning and the show in the afternoon. Lunch will be available.
New Business:
Website: Still checking into a new webmaster. Our current website is based in Microsoft Front Page. This program hasn’t been supported by Microsoft since 2006. We could still use it, but we really need to update to a more user friendly format. Our domain host recommended Cindy Fajardo, RA Web Designs. I have corresponded with her by email and she would be able to transfer the information on our website to WordPress which is a popular online content management system which allows growth and flexibility. It would allow us to easy access to make quick updates on our own. Her initial fee is $800 and the $35 per month maintenance fee. Keep in mind, we paid Becky $400 to initially set up the site and then $550.00 a year to maintain it.
Ranch House Designs was also recommended. I haven’t talked to them yet. According to their website, the initial fee to set up a website is $600 and up. I have contacted them and they will send me a form to complete so they can give us a quote.
We have applied for a grant from the American Goat Federation for $1000 for a Scrapies and Q Fever Eradication Program. We have proposed putting on a seminar and having literature available at our shows and sale.We would also put information about it on our website. In order to do this, we have to have our website back up, so if we get the grant, hopefully we can use some of this money for that. We should work with a professional as this is the place we put our best face forward.
Fuzzy Goat Show: We discussed having a one day ABGA show with a youth jackpot onFebruary21, 2015 inside at the Canyon County Fairground building. First we have to find out if the building is available and how much it would cost. I was told that for 4-H functions, it could possibly be free. Since we have a number of members in 4-H and FFA, hopefully we would qualify. I will find out this week. Also we would need a judge that wouldn’t mind judging unclipped goats. Marilyn will check this out. The youth jackpot would be for breeding does and showmanship only.
New Board Members: Kahla Shigeta, Kim Holt and Terry Watts are our new board members along with existing member Evelyn Simon.
Election of Officers will be in at the January 2015 meeting. Please send your nominations for
President
Vice-President
Secretary/Treasurer
Deadline for nominations will be 1/1/2015.
NEXT SRMGA MEETING WILL BE
SUNDAY, JANUARY 11 AT 2 PM AT
THE ASKEWS, 8054 USTICK RD, NAMPA, ID
Thank you,
Clara Askew
Secretary/Treasurer