Sportsfriends,

As you hopefully are now aware, the Regional Meeting will take place on the evening of Sept 24, starting at 5:00 pm at the Host Hotel (The Best Western Plus Coeur d’ Alene Inn 506 West Appleway in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho). You received prior notification of this event on or before August 16. While my prior message in July (see below) intimated that there were a few bylaws changes that would be good to implement, I don’t believe that this message was sufficiently detailed to count as official notification of a bylaws amendment proposal (“…a copy of the proposed amendment…”). Since such a proposal is due 30 days prior to the Regional meeting, I’m afraid our bylaws will have to stand for another year, barring a regional meeting before the 2012 Regional Championships. That 30-day deadline passed yesterday.

Below please find an agenda for the meeting for comment. The main headings below are specified by the bylaws, and I have added information in some sections about what I propose to be part of the discussion in those sections. As always, constructive feedback is welcome!

• Roll Call


• Reading of the Minutes


• Formal reading may be waived by vote, minutes do need approval. Draft minutes attached. These have been available on the website through a link on the home page for some time.


• Report of the Regional Director


• I will attempt to provide a written report prior to the meeting to shorten this step


• Report of the Treasurer
• Report of the Committees


• Election of Members of the Board


• Regional director
• Asst. Regional Director
• Regional Training Director
• Regional Breed Warden
• Secretary
• Treasurer


• Unfinished Business


• New Business


• Proposals to limit the rate of decimation of the Regional Fund.


• Selection of host clubs for the Regional championship, regional breed show and regional helper seminar, 2012


• For Good of the Region



• Adjournment

Yours in the Sport,

Warren L Jones
PNW Regional Director

Big Sky Trial

Hi all –

Big Sky Working Dogs (formerly Big Sky Schutzhund Club) is pleased to announce our fall trial Sept. 17 and 18, 2011, with USCA Al Govednik. The schedule for the trial is to do “stadium” work on Saturday afternoon and evening, and tracking Sunday morning, as we have a very short window of Al’s time. Tracking will be on plowed agricultural soil, with practice tracking on nearly identical conditions available on request. Field layout is permanent blinds with #1 to the left. Entry fees will be $75 for SchH/IPO and/or FH titles, $60 for BH and $35 each for TR/OB. We are forced to add an additional charge of $15 per entry to handlers who are not members of USCA, but all breeds and handlers from all member organizations within AWDF are welcome. Entry fees include dinner at the clubhouse at the training field – a traditional “potluck” by the members of BSWD. Camping is available on site by prior arrangement, no hookups, but shower available. Hotels available within 5 minutes of field.

We are aware of the proximity of our trial to the Regional Championships (the following weekend). We discussed this potential conflict with Tri-state Schutzhund Association prior to issuing the EA, and they graciously gave us the thumbs up for these dates. While we desire to be hospitable to visitors from all over the region, I want to personally encourage anyone aiming for a trial in this time window to please consider supporting the Regional Championship. This will be a challenge for me personally, as well, as I will be trying for a 2 at our own trial and a 3 at the regionals, if everything holds together. I sure would have liked a little more prep time between….

Entry forms are available on the club’s web site at Big Sky Schutzhund.com

Yours in the Sport,

Warren Jones
Pres, BSWD

Regional Helper Seminar & Regional Meeting

Hi sportsfriends,

I hope everyone is enjoying the summer training season – we’ve been pretty fortunate in Montana, with highs rarely out of the 80s this summer. I just wanted to put one more plug in for the Regional Helper Seminar this coming weekend. Dennis van der Linde is an excellent teaching helper, excellent communicator and generally a pretty good guy, so I know it will be a worthwhile event. I know we have a number of talented helpers in our region, particularly in the Oregon and Washington corridor, and there aren’t a ton of opportunities for those folks to get certified and to brush up on their technique. Twin County will take good care of everyone, and if you bring a dog to work the student helpers, you even get in free! For more information, please contact Karen at kadamiGSD@aol.com .

The regional meeting is just over a month away, and I am preparing an agenda for the meeting that includes a slate of officer candidates. I covered the rest of the issues with my last email (in which I also included the current bylaws and suggested revisions). If you didn’t get that message, or want it sent again, please don’t hesitate to contact me. And of course, if you’re interested in any officer position within the region (including mine) don’t hesitate to let me know.

Happy training!

WJ

Regional Elections

I am pleased to announce the candidacy of Kevin Nance for the position of Assistant Regional Director. For those of you who don’t know him, Kevin and Vandal represented us at the Universal Sieger competition in Europe and were the only viable candidates for Universal Sieger in the US until a gaffe in his protection routine at the USCA nationals took him out. The best part is that Kevin and I don’t even agree on everything but we both support the breed and the sport, and Kevin hasn’t pissed off as many people in the region as I have (as far as I know, he hasn’t annoyed anyone yet).


Cheers…

wj

FCI World Team Donation solicitation

USCA Members:

This year’s FCI team is headed to Rheine Germany to compete in the 2011 AWDF/FCI IPO Championship September 8-11, 2011.

www.fci2011.de/

Our team members this year are:

1. Sean O’Kane with Max
2. Dan Cox with Chuck
3. Katie Gillies with Maya
4. Sean Rivera with Iron
5. Kevin Lanouette with Wum
6. John Horan with Cholo


Team Captain – Dave Kroyer

Many of you may not be aware that funding for the trip comes primarily from the competitors themselves. Flight, airfare, hotel, rental car, etc. can easily run in excess of $5000 per competitor. THE TEAM NEEDS YOUR HELP!

I’m asking each of you, if possible, to contribute to this year’s FCI team. Donations can be sent directly to the AWDF or to USCA.

To make a donation:

1. Write the check made payable to either USCA or AWDF
2. Write “2011 FCI TEAM” on the check
3. Send to either USCA or AWDF

NOTES:

* All donations will be equally split among the competitors
* All of the collected donations will pass directly through to the competitors – no administrative costs


United Schutzhund Clubs of America
3810 Paule Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63125-1718

AWDF
308 E. Autumn Drive
Oakwood, IL 61858


THANKS SO VERY MUCH FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION AND SUPPORT


Jim Alloway
LuckyDogDayCamp.com
614.793.1234

E-Ballot 19-11(FEE FOR NON USCA APPRENTICE JUDGES)

E-Ballot 19-11(FEE FOR NON USCA APPRENTICE JUDGES)

Motion made by Nathaniel Roque and seconded by Al Govednik to add a fee for Non USCA Apprentice Judges in the amount of $ 100.00 per Trial to apprentice either at a USCA Trial or under a USCA Judge..

Background:

In the past USCA has always provided at no charge to all AWDF Member Clubs, Judges and training by way of approving apprenticeships and teaching judges to all AWDF Member Clubs, with the increase of clubs starting their own judges programs we are doing more and more apprenticeships for other organizations. This uses USCA Judges resources at the expense of USCA Funds to directly benefit non USCA Clubs.

The reasons that our judges are requested is because we are world recognized, this is due to USCA membership in the WUSV. The WUSV recognizes our judges College because we meet their requirements IE proper apprenticeship, paperwork, an active authorization process. active DOJ as well as yearly meetings (Judges College). Currently the cost to maintain our Judges College is at or above $ 20,000 a year due to the high cost of travel and that we now have 21 judges and apprentices. This cost should not be the sole burden of dues paying USCA members if our judges resources are being used for other organizations benefits, training their judges or allowing our judges to judge their trials. USCA members will not receive much benefit in the near future from the licensing of these other organizations judges since these judges can not be used to judge at a USCA Trial (USCA bylaws require all judges at USCA Event to be USCA, SV or FCI Judges

from WUSV Member Clubs). Our members will benefit from additional judges in other organizations by having potential availability to enter a trial and earn a title at another AWDF Club but this title will be accepted the same as we currently accept DVG earned titles it will only count towards a sport title, not valid for Sports Medal Points, SchH 3 Club or Breed Survey.

I believe that the fees being introduced for USCA Services to non USCA members and Clubs are very fair both for the other clubs and for our members. Their is no reason to support USCA as a member if you can get all of the benefits for free. In order for USCA to continue to provide support to our membership and to our AWDF Member Clubs services must be compensated. USCA has long been supporting all AWDF member clubs through supporting the lions share of the dues to support AWDF Activities and by providing access to USCA Events, providing judges and training and will continue to do so.

Submitted 07/26/11, closes 08/02/11.

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