Hi Sportsfriends,

I realize we are a few months away from our regional championship and meeting, but I wanted to hit a few things….

1) Regional Helper seminar. Dennis Van der Linde is a great teaching helper, and Twin County promises to provide good hospitality for all comers. Note that the spectator fee is waived if you bring a dog for the young helpers to work. This is a great opportunity to get all your young helpers certified and trained – way cheaper than trying to host your own, esp. for all the Washington/Oregon clubs.

2) Regional Championship. Frank Mensing is coming down from Canada to judge, Tri-State Schutzhund Club (with a little help from Big Sky, we hope!) will be looking to host a great event! Let’s get our regional championship entries up into the 20’s where they belong! Sept 24-25, 2011 in Spokane.

3) Regional Conformation show and trial. Treasure Valley Working Dog Association promises a great show with USA/SV Johannes Grewe. Boise, ID area, Oct. 7-9, 2011 (includes working trial on Friday).

4) Regional meeting, elections, bylaws, etc…. Held in conjunction with the Regional Championship, the regional meeting is our opportunity to clarify and rectify issues in our bylaws, take a look at how we do business, and elect the regional officers. It’s also an important opportunity to begin discussing the position the Regional Director should take at the General Board meeting in November.

This last item (the regional meeting) is worth fleshing out a bit as we get closer. First, bylaws…. I’ve downloaded and cleaned up the bylaws as posted on our regional website (to remove all the shown amendments, etc). Furthermore, I noticed while I was doing this that the amendments passed in 2009 were never included in the version posted on the web. Those of you with the energy to do so are welcome to go through and make sure I got it right. There are a few things that need (in my opinion only) some attention:

• Change all the “USA” ‘s to “USCA”.



• Either adopt directly by reference the duties of the Regional Training Director or cut and paste them in from USCA Regional Policy. [sidebar: I know that National bylaws provisions trump regional, and regional trumps club, etc., but what about national policy? Does it trump Regional Bylaws? I’m thinking it probably does. In which case, ALL of the material in the Regional Policy ought to be referenced somehow in our bylaws].
  There is no Article X… probably ought to renumber.



• The cap on the “checking account balance” imposed by Article XIII paragraph B hasn’t been observed for some time. If it had been, we would have been required to pay administration fees by the bank; the relationship between our regional treasurer and the bank is all that has prevented its adoption as it is. I don’t understand the reason for the cap; our expenses have exceeded our income for several years, so it may be moot sooner than we’d like!
  

Next… how we do business. How do we keep the draining of the regional fund from continuing? Our regional events have been under-enrolled for some time. This is a big factor, and it appears to me that if we get our participation in these events up to the level they should experience, the problem will resolve itself. But if it doesn’t? We may need to curtail our support of regional events from the regional fund. And if we do that, we may get no volunteers at all for regional event hosting. Not a good spiral. What are your thoughts on how we can deal with this?

Finally, regional officers. The positions of RD, ARD, Secretary, Treasurer, Breed Warden and Training Director are elected this cycle. As of this writing, I am planning on running again for RD. Others within the officer ranks may be looking to remain in their current posts or to depart. If you are interested in trying your hand at serving the region in one of these capacities, I encourage you to contact Emily Carte, the Regional Secretary, so that your name can be included on the ballot. Nominations from the floor are also welcome at the regional meeting, but I thought we should start folks thinking early.

Thanks for staying with me through such a long message and multiple topics. I look forward to hearing from you and to seeing you at one of the upcoming regional events.

Yours in the Sport,


Warren L Jones
PNW Regional Director