Front row at Mary’s speech, we’ll be posting the full speech shortly
The always gracious USEA President Brian Sabo opened the 2012 Membership Meeting with thanks to the awesome USEA staff members who keep our country’s eventing organization thriving each and every day. President Sabo also thanked the USEA’s Board of Governors, which is a completely volunteer team–President Sabo explained that they pay all of their own expenses associated with their service including convention registration and travel to the convention. President Sabo also recognized the expense of this year’s convention for the membership and said that next year’s convention (Cincinnati, Ohio) will be considerable cheaper and that the USEA is working on ways to make future conventions more and more affordable.
USEA Treasurer Mike Winter then addressed the membership meeting with the 2012 financial report. I had the pleasure of meeting Mike for the first time last night. He was the my Area VIII coordinator during my Young Rider days and I took the meeting as an opportunity to apologize for my two terrible show jumping rounds at two straight Young Riders. Mike is terrific at simplifying the financial numbers for the membership to understand. In simple terms, the USEA is in incredible financial shape right now, perhaps the best financial shape ever. The USEA ran a total budget surplus of $228,000 in 2012, well ahead of projections. Mike said that this excellent performance is the result of strong membership numbers, very strong start numbers, horse registration numbers exceeding expectations, and an increased and unexpected private support of the young horse program (see below).
Our brilliant CEO Jo Whitehouse gave the CEO report with first and for most thanks to her awesome staff. She also thanks Ms. Mars for her generous support of the Young Event Horse program moving forward.
Nominees for the 2013 USEA Board were then put forth to the membership and approved unanimously. The new Board then chose its new officers in a brief private session (as usual) just outside of the meeting hall.
Following the private meeting, Diane Pitts of Dallas, Texas was named the USEA President-Elect for 2014. President Sabo will serve one more year as Diane becomes acclimated to the responsibilities of president. Mike Winter will remain as treasurer. As for the other executive Board members, Cathy Jones-Forsberg is the new Secretary, Jon Holling remains the VP of Active Athletes, Sarah Broussard Kelly replaces outgoing Board member Carol Kozlowski as VP of Safety, Marjorie Malloy is the VP of Competitions, Lou Leslie is the VP of Area Affairs, Dr. Mark Hart remains VP of Membership and Program Development, and Phyllis Dawson is the VP of education. On behalf of all of Eventing Nation I want to welcome the new Board members and thank them in advance for their service.
President Sabo closed the meeting with thanks to Mary King, all of the members who attended the convention and his wife Lisa. We will post Mary King’s convention speech shortly.
Last, but not least, a big theme of the meeting from President Sabo has been the promotion of the USEA’s new useventing.tv program with their awesome videos from horse trials throughout the year and the convention. Here is Friday’s video:
Go eventing.
