The Friday morning official activities started with the USEA Board of Governors Meeting. Here are a few quick notes from the meeting:
Financial Report — In my opinion, the most significant news of the meeting is that the USEA’s financial health has continued to improve from the tough economic times in 2008 and 2009 to the point that the USEA is now standing on very firm financial footing to continue to serve our sport. The news at last year’s annual meeting was that the USEA was slowly but steadily improving. I’m very happy to report that the news from this year’s convention is that the recovery has continued in a big way. As the treasurer Mike Winter, said “at this moment, the USEA is in great financial shape.” The USEA has no debt, we have cash, and we are making more than we are spending. Mike explained that the USEA doesn’t have significant amounts of excess cash, but the USEA is approaching the time when we might be able to look at larger cash expenditure possibilities. According to Mike, the scarcest resource in the USEA right now is people.
Legal — The legal committee report was made by Kaiti Saunders. From a legal perspective the USEA is in really good shape. Katie credited CEO Jo Whitehouse and President Sabo for managing any situations that did come to avoid any major legal issues. Katie is cycling off of the board due to term limits and from having had a couple of conversations with her in the past, I’m very sad she is leaving.
Professional Horseman’s Council Report — The PHC report was made by co-chair Jon Holling. Jon recapped the PHC meeting from yesterday that we wrote about. He emphasized the cross-country footing initiative using compaction and moisture tests as something that has a lot of potential moving forward. Jon said that his feeling from the one-fall-and-out rule is that most of the PHC wanted to see a change in the rule.
Competitions — Robert Kellerhouse led the competitions discussion. In good news, 2010 to 2011 saw an increase in starters. This was a great result considering bad weather and a EHV-1 disease scare out west in 2011. Mr. Kellerhouse praised the training three-day format and said that those divisions are seeing steady growth. He also said that the beginner novice and novice three-days have been a quality addition to the competition array to give riders at all levels a three-day goal. President Sabo reiterated the support of the USEA for these levels as an educational and competitive obligation of the USEA. He told an anecdote from one of Robert’s events where the beginner novice horses came off of the steeplechase with lower temperatures than when they started. The question then of course was whether or not to ice the horses.
Membership — Dr. Mark Hart gave the membership report. The USEA has 74 less members than last year, which is less than a 0.5% decline. Most members are actively competing but there are a wide variety of non-competing members as well. Dr. Hart said that we loose 1500 members per year, which of course means that we are also bringing in about 1500 members. Over 1/4 USEA members are young riders, which is a huge percentage. The conclusion of this report was that growing membership is both about maintaining current members and about looking at who we can target for new members.
*Safety Committee — The rules committee report discussed perhaps extending the penalty for dramatically slowing or circling to make the time to the last third of the course. The falls report said that 2011 falls were dispersed evenly on course. 1/3 of falls were at combinations and 67% of falls were at training level or below. Rider fall report analysis yields that 77% of the riders would have done something different. Many of the riders who filled out the fall form observed that they wish they had had an opportunity to get back on immediately after falling so that they would have the opportunity to fix the issue.
USEA TV — Josh Walker gave a presentation about a great possible initiative of the USEA to create an online video platform for eventing training and competition videos, much like the successful USEF and FEI networks. The goal is to make consistent and positive video promotion of eventing on a USEA run website. Josh explained that the format would have a feature video as well as of course an ability to find and view past videos. The website would have full access for current members and then trailer/teaser access for non-members. Robert Kellerhouse emphasized the advantages of being able to control the coverage and to present eventing in a positive light. Of course the issue is cost but we absolutely love Josh’s videos and I hope we will see the fruits of this initiative starting in 2012.
Go eventing.
