Snow in Colorado on Sunday is beautiful, but also disrupting travel plans
Three major themes stand out to me from this year’s USEA convention. First is the fact that eventing in the US enjoys a really strong position right now, looking at the safety of the sport, the quality of our leaders, and the financial health of the USEA. Second, the future of US high performance eventing has never looked brighter. David O’Connor has presented some amazing ideas for the future of US high performance. Just a few days of his leadership have created an inspired and enthusiastic tone in the conversations of fans and riders alike. Third, the generosity of our sport’s big financial supporters. Ms. Mars has led a group of incredibly generous people who have opened their pocketbooks for the future of our sport this weekend.
The USEA Board of Governors meeting was the last item on the schedule for the 2012 USEA Convention, as is tradition. I arrived to the meeting a few moments late, as the Board was working through a few preliminary housekeeping notes. Below are my notes, with the usual apologies for typos.
The first significant item on the agenda was a debate about how to handle all of the old archived USEA (and USCTA) magazines. Those archives have been digitized and they are ready to be put up on the USEA website immediately. The USEA Board debated whether to allow the archives to be accessible for free to any visitors forever or to potentially restrict access to only members at some point as a way to add value to people holding membership. The Board decided to make the archives available for free until the August USEA Board meeting, where traffic metrics will be used to analyze if a membership wall should be created.
Malcolm Hook then briefly mentions the various rule changes that have been discussed throughout the convention at the request of the Board of Governors. He said that Derek Di Grazia has spent countless hours constructing a spreadsheet explaining the new FEI qualification rules. That spreadsheet is on its way to higher USEF committees for approval and will hopefully be distributed publicly soon. As I mentioned yesterday, the FEI qualification rules are still being worked on by the FEI and the USEF Technical Committee has requested extensions, so the entire qualification situation is still a moving target. He said the one fall rule is going ahead with the approved wording to the USEF Safety Committee for comment and if it passes there is will go on to the USEF Board. Malcolm said that the Safety Committee may address it in a call or at the USEF annual meeting in January.
USEF President (for just a few more days) David O’Connor then addressed the board. David reported that the USEF website is introducing a new feature that will give each member their own page that can be customized by each member. David mentioned the FEI unrecognized events debacle and reiterated that the FEI was targeting independent show jumping competitions and not unrecognized events as we know them in eventing. David praised incoming USEF President Christine Talbert, who comes from the jumper world. David concluded by thanking the USEA for their support during his presidency. President Sabo led a round of applause for David.
A report from the USEA Endowment Trust, read by Treasurer Jerome Broussard, praised the Beacon Charm and Essex Grants, as well as the Rebecca Broussard Developing Rider Grant. The Trust enjoys strong and growing financial strength. Jerome’s voice broke as he read a brief tribute to former Trustee Dick Thompson, who passed away earlier this year.
Young Rider co-chair Tim Murray described a few developments for Young Riders over the convention, including a new development program for the lower levels being piloted in Area II by Lynn Symansky and Skyeler Voss. He also mentioned an effort to try and coordinate YR qualification for all areas moving forward. Tim said that he thinks eventers tend to be a little hardier than other disciplines and that at times we might accept inferior stabling and accommodations at Young Riders. He said we are going to try to be a little more vocal this year at Young Riders.
The amazing Jennifer Hardwick, the USEA’s convention organizer, gave a report on the convention. 369 people attended the 2012 convention compared to 348 the last time the convention was in Colorado (2007). Jennifer also thanks the Broadmoor for being lovely hosts and working closely with her.
The 2013 convention is being held in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Queen City and my birthplace. Because I know you wanted to know that. The Hyatt in Cincinnati charges $139 per night according to Jennifer. The dates are December 3rd to the 8th, 2013. Las Vegas, Reno, Chesapeake (MD), and Indianapolis are some possible locations that were mentioned for 2014. Phyllis Dawson said that she thinks we should make the conventions as affordable as possible to raise attendance by membership. Jennifer raised the potential of having the convention in one place for two years in a row to increase negotiating power on room rates with the venues. President Sabo mentioned the USEF model of keeping the annual meeting close to headquarters to save money, particularly on staff travel cost. Several members of the Board voiced support to move the meeting around at least every other year because the host area gets a boost of enthusiasm and fundraising.
President Sabo then raised the issue of moving the Hall of Fame inductions from a four year cycle to three years. The argument for keeping a four year cycle is that Hall of Fame dinners are very expensive for members and the USEA, particularly because of the trophy and former inductee display transportation costs. Sarah Broussard Kelly raised the very sensible idea of moving the Hall of Fame inductions back to three years but keeping those meetings close to home to save on costs. President Sabo said that would fit nicely with the idea of doing convention in Maryland for both 2014 and 2015, so that the 2015 indiction could be close to the USEA’s Virginia home. The decision was made to not vote on the 2014 location until more information was gathered.
Sarah made a motion to move the Hall of Fame inductions to a three year cycle and keep those years in a place close to the USEA headquarters to keep costs down. The motion was passed by the Board unanimously, meaning that the next HOF inductions will be in 2015.
Dr. Mark Hart raised the complicated issue of compensating Board members for some travel expenses to the convention as a way to make sure that the Board can accomodate all potential members. Dr. Hart said that he thinks doing this with USEA money would create a bad perception amongst much of the USEA’s membership that they are paying for people to sit in a meeting. But on the other hand we don’t want cost to be prohibitive to sit on the Board. He proposed the compromise of making a confidential voluntary donation fund that is controlled by the CEO, President, and VP of Finance to help Board members who need travel support. New Board member Rick Wallace raised a point that this is a very slippery slope. Jon Holling said that he has a huge problem with the proposal because it is a slippery slope, joking that his wife Jen would argue that he can’t afford to be at the meeting. He proposed compensating the Board some for the August meeting, which only the Board attends, rather than creating a secret fund. I was interested to see that most of the professional riders in attendance, probably the Board members with the least financial flexibility as a group, were opposed to the idea. As an editorial note, I fell that I would be fine with this as long as people of the quality of Dr. Hart, Presiden Sabo, Jo Whitehouse, and Mike Winter are in charge of the fund, but unfortunately these people will not be leading our sport forever. I will say that I have no doubt that the program would be implemented with the best interestes of the USEA at heart, I’m just worried about setting this type of a precedent President Sabo said that this will be discussed further and addressed at future Board meetings.
I want to extend a huge thanks to the USEA for hosting the convention, including President Sabo, CEO Jo Whitehouse, Leslie Mintz, Josh Walker, Leslie Threlheld, Frankie Thieriot, and Jennifer Hardwick, the amazing convention organizer. Our area IX hosts have been amazing as well and I can’t thank them enough. The Broadmoor has been a beautiful, if slightly expensive, setting. Thank you to everyone back at the EN headquarters including the chinchillas for keeping everything running smoothly this week. Thank you to our sponsors, whose support made this trip and our coverage possible. Last, but most importantly, thank you very much to you our readers for joining us for our coverage and commentary. Word is that a few eventers are headed to the mountains for a few days of skiing and there’s a rumor that I’m one of them. Stay tuned for full coverage as we turn EN into Ski Nation.
Now, more than ever, go eventing.
