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AKC DELEGATE
REPORT - CAROL CLARK |
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The December Delegates Committee meetings were held on Monday Dec 6 with the Herding, Earthdog, Coursing Committee starting at 9am. The Parent Clubs Committee was held from 1pm-3:30 as was the Obedience, Tracking, and Agility Committee. The General Caucus followed at 3:40 to 5 pm.
The HEC Committee Chair, Robert LaBerge on Monday, December 6, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, called the meeting of the AKC Herding, Earthdog, and Lure Coursing Delegate Committee to order at 9:00 AM.
Present: Robert LaBerge, Chairman; Bonnie Lapham, Secretary; Don Adams, Thomas Barrie, Gerard Baudet, John Fitzpatrick, Carol Clark, and Genie Bishop, Doug Ljungren; AKC Staff Liaison, Pat Scully and Ken Marden AKC Board liaisons. Absent were Judy Hart, Kathryn Hamilton, Carol Fisher, and Nick Pisias. Guests were: Treva Faires - Wichita Kennel Club, Inc. ; Sally Poole - Scottish Deerhound Club Of America; Peter Piusz - American Rottweiler Club; Carmen Battaglia - German Shepherd Dog Club of America. Sign in sheets were passed. The HEC Committee introduced themselves to the Guests. Minutes: Minutes of the September 13, 2010 Herding, Earthdog, Coursing Committee were not received buy all committee members, so the September minutes will be resent and approved in the March Meeting. Old Business: With committee approval Don Adams wrote letters to both Mr. Crowley and the AKC Board concerning the proposed judging fees. These letters were faxed to both Mr. Crowley and the AKC Board of Directors on October 7, 2010 expressing the Committee's opposition to any proposed judges fees for performance events. Hopefully, this will help prevent the proposed fees to our judges. Discussion of the letters followed. Below are the letters.
Mr. James Crowley,
Chief Executive Officer
American Kennel Club, Inc.
221 Madison Avenue
New York, NY
October 7, 2010Dear Jim:
At the September committee meeting, the subject of licensing fees for judges came up for discussion.
Please convey the attached input to the AKC Board of Directors.
Thank you for allowing the Committee’s input on this important matter prior to rendering
your decision.Sincerely yours,
Don H. Adams
For the CommitteeOctober 7, 2010
TO: American Kennel Club
Board of Directors
c/o James C. Crowley, CEO
American Kennel Club
221 Madison Avenue
New York, N.Y.Re: Proposed New Judges’ Licensing Fees
Dear Board Member:
The proposed judges’ licensing fee for the performance sports of herding, lure coursing and earth dog was discussed at our September meeting. Although the members of the committee appreciate the need to attempt to make these events cash-flow-neutral, it is our unanimous opinion that charging judges a fee to judge will have the opposite effect. Please consider the following unique features for the three performance sports:
• Judging is not an income producing activity for most performance judges. The vast majority of earth dog and lure coursing judges work for expenses, or less. They usually get out-of-pocket expenses for gas, not mileage. They sometimes get meals. They usually do not receive more than “Motel-6-accommodations” if those are offered at all. For herding, the judges may charge what might be termed a more traditional fee, but they too, do the judging as a favor to the AKC because the competing venues are larger and usually more prestigious. According the Performance Department, there are fewer than 100 licensed herding judges. We need them. They subsidize our events now. And all judges must take off and travel for continuing education, often at a substantial additional non-reimbursed cost.
• Performance judges pay fees to the AKC that conformation judges do not. All performance judges are required to attend continuing education seminars held by the AKC in order to maintain their licenses. The AKC receives revenues from these seminars. Another fee would be taxing those that have already given so much and who don’t have a financial interest in continuing to judge.
• Most judges do not judge a large number of events. We would be surprised if the average number of events judged exceeds a half dozen events per year. Most of our judges are active in the sport and would rather enter their dog than judge.
• Entries in our events are small. The average size event for herding is about 20 entries, lure coursing 30 entries, and earthdog about 60. With events of this size, it is critical to obtain judges within a reasonable distance of the event. If some judges refuse to pay, which is likely, it can be expected that there may be clubs in certain locations that will be strapped to find judges.
• Lastly and most importantly, there are competing, entrenched, non-AKC venues for lure coursing, herding, and earthdog. The negative publicity likely to reverberate from hundreds of disgruntled AKC judges about a new AKC charge-the-judges-to-judge policy, even a policy that imposes nominal charges, would not be an asset to continued improvement in our entry numbers (which by and large are increasing each year).By a unanimous vote, we urge the Board to take into consideration the performance event realities when evaluating the merits of imposing a fee for what is an essentially a volunteer job.
Respectfully submitted,
Don H. Adams,
Delegate Cudahy Kennel Club
For the Herding, Earth Dog and Lure Coursing Committee
Doug Ljungren, AKC Staff Liaison gave a report on the performance area. Coursing attendance was down 13%. In coursing, the Lure Coursing National was a successful event with a four-way tie. The event was held outside of Greensboro, NC. Herding was down 3% and no club offered to hold a national so none was held. Earthdog Events were down 3%. The AKC is allowing any FSS Breed with a Parent Club and breed specific performance events can now hold said events. Effective in March, the recording fee will increase for performance events. Initiative will raise approximately $20,000. Nick was not at this meeting so little was discussed concerning the singleton entries. The Coursing Ability Test, the committee felt was necessary. Tom Barrie made a motion for the Committee to support the Coursing Ability Test. Don Adams seconded the motion. The Coursing ability Test will be similar to be the JC test, but open to all breeds and mixed breeds. The Further discussion will follow in March. Carol Clark gave a short report on 4H activity. We need to develop a clear goal of our interaction with 4H Clubs. Agility benefits greatly from 4H participation. John Fitzpatrick gave a report about the proposed video/DVD and will have further information at the March Meeting as to whether or not it is financially feasible to make said video/DVD. John Fitzpatrick suggested that we experiment with one set of forms for Earth dogs. Hopefully one of the goals is to teach the performance events to become more efficient and thereby increase profit. Gerard Baudet has proposed more streamlined forms for Herding but possibly applicable to other performance venues. Nothing at this time, but will possible will present report in March but definitely in June.
New Business: Discussion about presenting some or all of these initiatives at the Forum. The AKC is developing a Therapy Dog Temperament Test. Carting Tests are quite different among the various Parent Clubs. However, the clubs that have the same test should make the tiles uniform. Motion for adjournment made by Tom Barrie, seconded by Tom Fitzpatrick. The March Meeting will be on Monday, March March 7, 2011 at the Sheraton Newark Airport Hotel, Newark, NJ. Meeting adjourned at 3:10 PM.
The Parent Club meeting met at 1:00 and discussed the parent clubs list, and next year’s parent club conference. Meet the Breeds at Javits and Long Beach was discussed with the enormous success of both. Dock and crop was discussed and the committee had a special meeting later to discuss that.
The Obedience, Tracking, and Agility Committee also met at 1:00. Review of the Rally Advisory Committee Recommendations and the committee voted no on letting the Rally Secretary enter the trials. In Rally, the number of dogs per hour to be judged will be 20 per hour for all classes. In obedience, it was discussed that 6-8 dogs per hour for obedience judges. Open or “to follow” judging was discussed with pros and cons presented to the committee. Elimination of non-regular classes was discussed. Changes in NOI competition was discussed (Junior participation and Sunday competition).
The Legislative caucus convened at 7am on Tuesday Dec. 7 2010 with discussion of current legislation issues, appeal to all delegates and clubs to be proactive with legislators for bills in their area. The Forum began at 8:30 with all delegates running for open board positions to answer Q and A session. The main questions asked to potential board members were about dollars vs registrations for AKC; the Dalmation stud book-is it open?; and the Group Realignment issue which is in a new committee-and where will parent clubs stand on realignment?
The General Delegates Meeting convened at 10:00 with the notice that there are 3 vacancies for the Board Class of 2015. Robert Ammon from the Port Chester Obedience Club; Steve Gladstone; Ken Marden from the German Shorthair Club; Carmen Battaglia from the German Shepherd Dog Dog Club; Karen Burgess of the Greater Clark County Kennel Club; John Ronald of the Samoyed Club of America; and Dan Smith were the candidates that spoke. New member clubs to the AKC are the American Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Association, and the Black Russian Terrier Club of American, both were voted in with the required vote of 4/5 of the delegates present. The board chair, Ron Menaker gave his report. The 2011 Invitational will be held on Dec 17-18 in Orlando FL with the delegate meeting preceding the Invitational. The Grand Championship resulted in a 9.6% increase in BOB entries with $750,000 in fees for AKC. A total of 3420 Grand Championships have been awarded. Grand Champion rankings were established. Other new titles this year were the beginner novice class in obedience, endurance earthdog, Master National Hunter. The Breeder of Merit program was started. Parent club titles were recognized by AKC when the parent club presented the info to AKC and asked-the first was the American Bloodhound Club with the Mantrailing title, and the second was the Sled dog titles from the Siberian Husky Club of America. Clubs are asked to give historical data from their clubs to the AKC archives. The AKC CAR gave $400,000 to SAR and disaster preparation. President Dennis Sprung said there were 51,000 companion titles in 2010 with 8 triple championships awarded. Jim Stephens presented the Financial statement with overall revenue down almost 4 million dollars. Operating expenses for 2010 were down one million. The operating surplus (deficit) was 1,026,000 for 2010 vs 2009 surplus of 1,212,000. The Non-operating item, gain on investments was 3,690,000to end with a net surplus for 2010 of 2,664,000 vs 2009 a net surplus of 9,108,000. Two proposed amendments were read. The first of Rules Applying to Dog Shows (found in Chapter 10) was to update the requirements for show veterinarians to better accommodate on-call veterinarians and to require clubs to inform them of their duties, and the second (found in Chapter 25, Section 1) to include the event committee in the process of removing dogs from the show, to eliminate the requirement for a form, and to assign the fiscal responsibility for veterinary expenses. Another proposed amendment to Chapter 2, Section 4 of Rules Applying to Dog Shows which would create a common deadline for the application and judges’ panel in an effort to reduce confusion by clubs. The annual meeting of the delegates will be held in Newark, NJ at the Newark Sheraton Airport Hotel on March 8, 2011.
Submitted by Carol Clark
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Page Updated 03.15.2011