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AKC DELEGATE
REPORT - CLAUDIA FRANK |
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BCSA
DELEGATE REPORT
CHAIRMAN'S REPORT
AKC BOARD OF DIRECTORS ELECTION RESULTS
BCSA DELEGATE REPORT - CLAUDIA FRANK
This meeting was held at the Crown Plaza Times Square Manhattan Hotel. I got a 5:40am flight out of Columbus, OH, landed in LaGuardia Airport, took a shuttle to the hotel and was checking into it at 8:00am! The hotel was right on Broadway in the Theater District. I didn’t adventure far from the hotel with the streets streaming with people and the roadways over flowing with yellow cabs but did manage to find the Hershey Store on the corner.
I was able to attend the Delegate Caucus, the Herding-Earthdog-Coursing Committee, the Obedience, Tracking and Agility Committee and the AKC Delegate Meeting. The meeting times move around each meeting so I was unable to attend the Parent Club Meeting.
AKC Delegate Caucus - March 13, 10:30am
There were six candidates for the three positions available on the AKC Board
of Directors at this election. All six sat at a table in the front of the room
and then the Delegates could ask a question and each candidate had a specific
amount of time to respond to the question. All the candidates sounded very well
educated, passionate about dog sports and sounded as if they would have a lot to
offer
AKC H-E- C Committee Meeting - March 13, 2006 - 12:30 pm
Meeting attended by: Bill Speck – Staff Liaison, Ken Marden – Board Liaison,
Pat Skully – Board Liaison
Statement of HEC Committee Responsibility –
1. To share information & procedures useful to the clubs that conduct, herding,
earthdog and coursing events.
2. To find ways of making herding, Earthdog & coursing events and the clubs that
conduct such events more effective and efficient in serving the needs of their
members and then communities.
3. To support the role of herding, Earthdog & coursing events and conduct these
events in enhancing and preserving the working skills of the breeds involved.
The National Herding Championship was the major topic of this meeting. The NHC Program guidelines were ready to go to the “staff” (Bill Speck) for approval. Then it would go to the Board for their vote of approval. Bill Speck objected to that series of events stating that championship events must come from the Herding Advisory Committee. (The exception to this progression was the Tracking Championship that came out of the Staff because there wasn’t a Tracking HAC.) This change in progression for event approval was new to the HEC Committee members obviously causing lots of consternation on their part. Bill Speck said that AKC doesn’t find funds for holding championship events. The Secretary of the HEC Committee read in the minutes where Dennis Sprung and Pat Skully had said that funds would be available for the NHC. Bill Speck remained firm that the current AKC policy doesn’t find funds. Ways to make money must be found by those involved with the NHC. The HEC Committee proposed sending the NHC guidelines, they have approved, to the Staff for any adjustments needed to maintain uniformity with other such events. Make any corrections deemed necessary by the Staff review. Send the NHC guidelines to the clubs for their comment and approval. It was quite apparent that the rug had been pulled out from under the HEC Committee and new rules put into place. Carol Delsman had attended the last meeting and offered to find answers to numerous questions but was absent at this meeting and did not offer any answers expected. A line of responsibility and authority for this committee is not clear and seems to have changed with each meeting which was quite unfortunate for the members.
This year is the year for a Herding Advisory Committee. Bill Speck said he would put one into place and schedule its activities. No specific way to pick the HAC members was set up to be used. I suggested that the breeds with the highest percentage of participation in the AKC Herding Program be chosen for the HAC. I would like to be that person for the BCSA as I participated in the last HAC and previous ones also.
The Combined List of Championship Points for a trial with more than one course or stock was also discussed again. Having this made public in the AWARDS book had been placed on the list of requests to the AKC Staff. However, at this time it is so far down the list of importance that it virtually will not get done. At this time there isn’t a way to check the points believed to be earned against the points recorded by the AKC.
The HEC Committee recommended that the signing of the “Affirmation Statement” with each herding judging assignment be eliminated.
Judges must have attended the required Judges Seminar for their judging eligibility before the date of their judging assignment.
An Intern has been made available to update the herding judges list. Individuals can make the changes they request of the Staff and these changes will be made. Bill Speck approved the HEC Committee examining the judges list and making updates as they see fit.
The HEC Committee again requested of the AKC that a statement be made that the Parent Clubs could hold their own herding instinct tests as long as they followed the guidelines for special events at a show.
Order of implementation – The HEC Committee makes recommendations to the Staff. The Staff has the power to stop the request even if the Staff is one person. The Staff must approve before any recommendation may be taken to the Board for approval.
AKC Obedience, Tracking and Agility Committee Meeting - March 143, 2006 - 7 12:30 am
Educational Pamphlet. The Committee voted on the preparation of an educational pamphlet for obedience and rally that would be handed out to new exhibitors. This would be made available by June and would be made available along with the DOG SHOW REGULATIONS and OBEDIENCE REGULATIONS. Clubs and individuals can send in suggestions by email. The material will hopefully be ready by June.
International Obedience Event. Pat Skully recommends that the AKC take a leadership role in producing such an event. Top dogs from other registries would be invited. It would run with the Eukenuba Invitational. Certain exercises and their scoring would be clear made available to fancy a year in advance for a fair playing field. These exercises would be available in non-regular competition in an International Class.
Working Dog Sport. This has been approved by the Parent Club Committee. The four clubs (GSD, Dobe, Bouvier, Rottie) could host no more than 5 events each over the next three year period as part of their National Specialty. These groups had supported Working Sport events as “special events”
Rally Transition Class. Showing five times in this class and qualifying would be equivalent to earning one CD leg.
Rally jumps. The Dachshund Club had requested 4” jump heights for this breed. The jumps were not made for this height and it was thought too costly to change jump heights.
Stats for 2004-2004. Obedience decrease is slowing with only a 2.7% decrease in 2005 as opposed to a 5% decrease previously. Agility had an increase of 7.83% which is a drop from previous years. It is felt that agility is reaching its saturation point with only 12% of the events filling. The support of tracking events has increased. Rally issued over 13,000 titles last year which was the most of any of the sports.
Rally Advisory Committee is scheduled for March 31 through April 2nd. They focus will be to smooth out the inconsistencies in the Rally Regulations. Contact Sidney with suggestions sxs@akc.org.
Obedience Invitation at Tampa, FL. Handouts, with information and humorous comments were made available at obedience ringside. There were more spectators than previous such events. The sponsors like the event. Obedience Invitational should find its place on TV with agility and breed.
AKC Delegate Meeting – Election - March 14, 2006 – 10:30 am
Diversity: It was obviously of concern to everyone that the AKC lacks “diversity”. In this case the meaning was that there was a huge number of non whites out there that were not feeding into the AKC coffers.
PAWS Legislation The discussion draft of PAWS that Ron Menaker
mentioned has been released by Senator Santorum. The AKC encourages you to visit
both AKC's web site as well as the Senator's for more information.
AKC's Post -
http://www.akc.org/news/index.cfm?article_id=2823
Senator Santorum's Post -
http://santorum.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressOffice.View&ContentRecord_id=1720&Region_id=0&Issue_id=0
Finances: The year 2005 has been the second best year financially for AKC & CAR combined and had the strongest balance sheet in history. Though the registration fees income was lower expenses increased less than 2% there was a surplus in the benefit plans and the total net assets were up.
Services to Clubs available on the web site:
1. Syndicated columns available on web site for use in club newsletters
a. “ASK AKC”’
b. Breed columns
c. Photos
2. Power Point presentations for club meetings
3. AKC Archive acceptance of documents – 580 clubs have utilized
4. Canine Legislation Dept provides contacts for letter campaigns
(BCSA may wish to send back issues of “BL” to be kept at AKC.)
Election. To be elected a person had to have a majority (over fifty percent) of the votes. They had a voting company on hand. The alphabet was divided up and you took your vote to the box that had the first letter of your last name above it. You were then checked off as having voted and your ballot went into the box, On the first ballot two people were elected – Nina Schaefer from the Back Mountain Kennel Club and Dr. William Newman of the Mastiff Club of America. On the second round of voting no one had over half of the ballots. Dr. Gerry Meisels withdrew. The next ballot was won by David Keene of the Greater Collin Kennel Club. I happened to be sitting right next to David Keene while the balloting was going on and he was as excited as someone waiting to find out if they had been chosen for the cheerleading squad. I asked him why he wanted to be on the Board and he answered that it was his opportunity to give back to the dog sport he so enjoyed.
While the election was going on and ballots were being counted other business was carried out.
Voted on and passed – revision to AKC’s Charter & Bylaws,
Article II: Seal
The word “incorporated’ was removed from the seal and the words “Founded 1884”
replaces them. Reasoning – This would help to differentiate AKC from other
registries by emphasizing its age, thus alluding to its longevity and tradition.
Club’s can continue to use their current stock of stationary with the old emblem
and using the new emblem when new stationary is needed. I voted for the change
in the seal.
Two items were read and will be voted upon at the next meeting. After the items are read Delegates may stand up and state their approval or disapproval of the change and why. Some very good points are brought out during this format. If the BCSA Board would like to give me a directive on how to vote on any such future issues I can provide the Board with the “fact” sheet the AKC sends out with original wording, changed wording and comments supporting the change
Revisions to AKC’s Charter and Bylaws, Article VIII: Board of Directors Nominating Committee. This would “eliminate” the Nominating Committee. Any Delegate, including incumbent Board members, may run by petition. The number of signatures required is being raised from twenty to fifty and a six week window is being proposed. With this change, all candidates will be known before the Dec/Jan Delegate Meeting. It was requested by the Delegate Bylaws Committee and approved by the Board. A question was raised as to what would happen if there were not enough people on a ballot to fill the openings. In that case the Board would fill the vacancies until the next election. That didn’t sound like a good solution to me.
Revisions to AKC’s Charter and Bylaws, Article VI: Section 5. This revision could have some impact on the pool of possible Delegates by eliminating the restriction to professional judges. There was quite a bit of discussion regarding whether judges should be paid or not and the fact that currently if you are a Delegate you cannot be paid for your judging services only expenses.
2005 Registration Stats. All the breed registration statistics were in our Delegate information. Border Collies were 55th in popularity with 2,378 dogs registered in 2005 compared to 60th in 2004. There were 527 litters registered in 2005 compared to 465 litters in 2004.
End Comments. At the end of the meeting Delegates have the opportunity to stand and make comments, recommendations, congratulations, etc. to the Delegate body without any response from the audience. One such was very interesting as the Delegate standing mentioned that the Delegate body had been voted to put a “late fee” in place for registrations after the imposed deadline. Upon the Delegates voting to have such a fee the Board set an amount and voted that amount into use. Later as part of a program to encourage “high volume” breeders to register their dogs the Staff deleted the late fee. The question was asked as to how the late fee had been eliminated. There was a long embarrassed silence at the podium and then it was commented that the elimination of the late fee was part of the “Strategic Plan”. There were a few chuckles. It would seem the AKC has lots of processes to get things done but can just jump off and do whatever if it suits their purpose.
The next meeting is June 12 & 13th in Raleigh, NC.
From the Delegate List
A pole was taken on the AKC Delegate List.
Do you prefer the Delegate meetings to be held on Monday and Tuesday as is now
the custom or would you prefer a change to Sunday and Monday? Keep in mind that
the actual meeting is held on the second day. Voting for both choices means you
do not have a preference.
CHOICES AND RESULTS
- Sunday/Monday - 59.70%
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MARCH CHAIRMAN'S REPORT - MARCH 14, 2006
New York, NY - I'm pleased to report that Senator Rick Santorum this past weekend provided us with an advance copy of his "discussion draft" of an amended version of the "Pet Animal Welfare Statute of 2005" (PAWS) bill.
This discussion draft will be posted on the Senator's web site
(http://santorum.senate.gov/public/index.cfm)
this week. The draft clarifies several original provisions of the bill and
includes some new provisions which resulted from discussion at the November 2005
hearing.
In general, the highlights of the discussion draft of the revised bill include:
- All references to hunting, security and breeding dogs are eliminated from the dealer definition in both PAWS and the existing Animal Welfare Act.
- There is an explicit exemption for animal shelters, rescue organizations and other persons who do not operate for profit and do not import dogs and cats for resale.
- There is a new provision that would exempt retailers who are inspected by a not-for-profit organization such as the AKC which is approved by the Secretary of Agriculture.
- And finally, the USDA would be required to regulate the importation of dogs and cats for resale, including requiring that dogs and cats imported for resale be at least six months of age and comply with health and vaccination requirements. Let me emphasize, this is for dogs and cats imported for resale only.
The next step in the legislative process is that the discussion draft will be introduced as a new bill, or will be offered as an amendment to the current bill. In either case, it is the intention of Senator Santorum that PAWS will reflect the provisions contained in this discussion draft.
We have achieved a result in this draft that I believe fully justifies our involvement in this process. This bill is good for dogs and, coincidentally, good for the AKC, the fancy and the sport of purebred dogs.
Sincerely,
Ron Menaker, Chairman
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS - ELECTION RESULTS - MARCH 15, 2006
David Keene and Dr. William R. Newman Elected to Board of Directors; Incumbent Director Nina Schaefer Re-Elected; Ronald HH. Menaker and David C. Merriam Re-Elected as Chairman and Vice Chairman Respectively
The Annual Meeting of the AKC Delegates and subsequent meeting of the Board of Directors took place on March 14, 2006. David Keene, Delegate from the Greater Collin Kennel Club, and Dr. William R. Newman, Delegate from the Mastiff Club of America were elected as Directors. Incumbent Director Nina Schaefer has been re-elected. In addition, Ronald H. Menaker has been re-elected as Chairman and David C. Merriam has been re-elected as Vice Chairman.
David Keene of Plano, TX has been in dogs since 1988. He has served as the AKC Delegate for The Greater Collin Kennel Club since 2001, when the club was granted AKC Member Club status, a project he spearheaded. He also currently serves on the AKC Delegate Bylaws Committee and was a member of the TV Rights Ad-Hoc Committee. Keene is involved in other dog clubs including the Canadian Kennel Club, Basset Hound Club of America, and the Basset Hound Club of Canada. He has also served as a past President of Greater Collin Kennel Club, local Basset Hound specialty clubs, and has experience participating in Conformation, Obedience, Field Trial and Agility events. The Keenes have bred and shown Basset Hounds since 1988, winning 23 Best in Shows in four countries and have owned several nationally-ranked dogs. Currently the Loan Operations Manager at ViewPoint Bank, Keene has over 24 years experience in Banking and Financial Services, and holds a B.B.A. in Management from Angelo State University and has done work in Petroleum Land Management at Oklahoma University. He is married to Barba Keene and has two children and three grandchildren.
Dr. William R. Newman of Bedford, PA is the AKC Delegate for the Mastiff Club of America, where he has served as a Board Member for multiple terms; and also as President, Vice President and Secretary. Newman is the breeder/owner of numerous Mastiff Champions and the owner of the top winning Alaskan Malamute and English Foxhound of all time. He is an AKC licensed judge for 14 breeds, is Chairman of the AKC Delegates' Health Committee and a Board Member of AKC Canine Health Foundation. In addition to his extensive experience as a fancier, Newman is accomplished in the medical profession and in his community. He has served as the Director of Radiology at Memorial Hospital and as Director of Radiology and Chief of Staff at Sacred Heart Hospital. He served as mayor of his hometown, Bedford, PA, from 1994 to 2000. Newman is also involved with a number of professional organizations including as a founding member of the Maryland Nuclear Medicine Society, and the President of the Allegheny County Medical Society and Bedford County Medical Society. Newman holds a B.A. from Hofstra University, in New York, and an M.D. from the State University of New York.
Nina Schaefer of Huntingdon Valley, PA is the Delegate for the Back Mountain Kennel Club and has served on the AKC Board of Directors since 2002. She has been involved in purebred dogs since 1966. Schaefer is also a member of the Siberian Husky Club of America, the Siberian Husky Club of Delaware Valley, Inc., Devon Dog Show Association, Morris & Essex Kennel Club, Hilton Head Island Kennel Club and Huntingdon Valley Kennel Club. In addition, Schaefer serves as President of the Pennsylvania Federation of Dog Clubs. As a member of the Delaware Valley Siberian Husky Rescue since 1999, she has placed over 100 dogs and is AKC licensed to judge Siberian Huskies, Akitas and Shiba Inu. She lives with her husband, Charles Schaefer, in Huntingdon Valley, PA.
Ronald H. Menaker has been the Chairman of the AKC Board of Directors since 2002. Menaker represents the Greater Freeport Illinois Kennel Club and is Show Chairman for AKC/Eukanuba National Championship. An active participant in the sport of purebred dogs for nearly 40 years, he bred and exhibited Giant Schnauzers, and has also shown Bedlington Terriers and Norfolk Terriers. A licensed AKC judge since 1994, Menaker is approved to judge Best in Show, all Working breeds, multiple Sporting breeds, Bedlington Terriers and Miniature Schnauzers. Menaker is a retired Managing Director and Head of Corporate Services of J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated of New York, and a past President and Director of J. P. Morgan Services, Inc. He is also the Vice Chairman and past Chairman of New York Downtown Hospital. Menaker resides in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey with his wife Kathy.
David C. Merriam, Delegate of the Duluth Kennel Club, has been involved in the sport since 1952. He served as interim CEO of the AKC for six months and as Chairman of the AKC Board of Directors from September 1996 until March 2002. Merriam has bred and exhibited Bull Terriers extensively for over 50 years and has served as Show Chairman for the Kennel Club of Riverside and President of the Bull Terrier Club of America. Merriam lives in Bonsall, CA.
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Page Updated 10.22.2007