NAMHSA News for the period of November 16-30, 2012

NAMHSA News for the period of November 16-30, 2012 based on the minutes compiled by Jackie Arns-Rossi, Recording Secretary.

NOVEMBER 16
-Jackie Arns-Rossi (Recording Secretary) posted the November 1-15 minutes.

-Jackie Arns-Rossi started a Board poll to approve or disapprove the proposed language for the ballot to be sent to the membership regarding extension of NAN qualification from two years to four.

- Amy Peck (Show Membership Secretary) advised that she emailed a show holder to tell her that she could not advertise extended NAN card qualification periods until/if this measure had been approved by the membership. Amy also reported that she advised the show holder that show holders do not have authority to invalidate NAN cards, but that a show holder could warn showers that unless horse names were submitted by the time results were submitted to NAMHSA, the shower may have to show the horse at NAN as a number. She hoped that this show holder would bring any discussion to her regional rep.

NOVEMBER 17
-Lynn Weber (Website Manager) advised that she was working with Lindsey Hall (former Vice President) to transfer the domain name owned by Lindsey to NAMHSA. Lynn planned to put up a temporary contact page with BOD members' email addresses. Once the namhsa.org emails were ready, she would change them back.

NOVEMBER 18
-Jackie Arns-Rossi closed the poll started on 11/16 early, as all voting members had cast votes. The ballot wording was approved by majority vote of the Board.

Voting to APPROVE the ballot wording:

-Tracy Eilers (R1)
-Tom Dean (R2)
-Pauline Entin (R3)
-Carra McClelland (R4)
- Lyn Norbury (R5)
-Jackie Moore (R6)
-Stacy Faraci (R7)
-Chris Wallbruch (R8)
-Pat Coulter (R9)
-Kate Cabot (R10)
-Terri Wright (R11)

There were no votes to disapprove and no abstentions. The VP position is currently vacant.

-Amy Peck posted the most current NAMHSA Approved Show List, dated 11/18/12. She also reminded show holders to send show applications to show-membership@namhsa.org. A full list of NAMHSA member shows may be found on the NAMHSA website: www.namhsa.org.

-Pauline Entin (Region 3 Representative and Interim PR) posted a draft solicitation for VP nominations. She also posted a draft post explaining Lindsey Hall’s resignation. Teresa Buzzell (President) approved it for posting.

-Teresa Buzzell requested that a poll be set up for the Treasurer position vote. Jackie Arns-Rossi recommended that this request be motioned and seconded, so she moved for the BOD to select a Treasurer. This was seconded by Pat Coulter (Region 9 Representative) Jackie asked Teresa if a 24 hour discussion period was appropriate. After some discussion, Eleanor Harvey (Parliamentarian) approved via text message a 24 hour discussion before a vote for Treasurer. It was felt that since there had been no further discussion on the Treasurer position for over a week, a 24 hours period was appropriate. Several BOD members expressed readiness to vote.

NOVEMBER 19
-Jackie Arns-Rossi requested a deadline for ballot return, as there is no standard in the NAMSHA Bylaws or policy document. Teresa Buzzell suggested 3 weeks.

-Jackie Arns-Rossi advised that all email ballots had gone out, but that several email addresses had bounced. She requested representatives to assist in getting the correct addresses. Representatives replied they would do so.

-Teresa Buzzell asked Jackie Arns-Rossi to post to all regional lists that the ballot had gone out. Jackie said she would do so as soon as she joined all lists, as she was not currently subbed to all of them.

NOVEMBER 20
-Jackie Arns-Rossi reported that she had sent notification of the ballot to all 11 regional lists.

-Teresa Buzzell posted information about a new Breyer sponsored program for Live Shows: http://www.breyerhorses.com/2967

NOVEMBER 21
-Teresa Buzzell asked Jackie Arns-Rossi to start the Treasurer position poll.

-Teresa Buzzell asked Beth Lamm (Merit Award Coordinator) to present her proposal for new merit awards.

-Teresa Buzzell asked Pauline Entin to post to the lists about the Cafe Press shop for holiday gifts.

-Jackie Arns-Rossi set up the poll for the Treasurer position.

-Pat Coulter reported that a Region 9 member did not get a ballot and thought she should have. Danielle Miller (Individual Membership Secretary) offered to look up her membership application to verify membership period.

NOVEMBER 22
-Teresa Buzzell advised there were new products, including a calendar, in the Cafe Press store, and there was a code for 15% off orders.

-Jackie Arns-Rossi asked Danielle Miller to look for the application of another member who reported not receiving a ballot. Both Jackie and Danielle expressed concerns about streamlining how Individual Member information is collected, as up to 5 people (SMS, RS, IMS, NAN Registrar and Treasurer) may be involved in trying to capture all the IM data.

NOVEMBER 23
-Lynn Weber advised she was trying to update the website, but the file overwrite was not going through. She would continue to work on it.

-Lynn Weber clarified that the domain name that Lindsey Hall offered to sell NAMHSA was *not* the NAMHSA.org domain, but namhsashowresults.com. She asked if NAMHSA wanted to own this domain or not, and had not been under the impression that this was the domain offered by Lindsey in her resignation. The show results were currently stored on this domain, but could be folded into the NAMHSA.org one. Several BOD members also thought that the domain being offered was NAMHSA.org, and no one thought that the show results domain was needed.

NOVEMBER 24
-Teresa Buzzell asked Pauline Entin to post the Vice President nomination solicitation to the lists, since there had been no comment on the draft posted on 11/18.

-Teresa Buzzell advised that NAMHSA would not be paying for the namhsashowresults.com domain.

-Lynn Weber reported she had been in contact with Lindsey Hall about the domain names. Lindsey explained that Elaine Lindelef (former NAMHSA President) owns the namhsa.org name and last time it was due for renewal she declined to have NAMHSA pay for it. Lindsey provided Elaine's email address and some additional technical details.

-Teresa Buzzell stated she felt that the domain name really needed to be under the organization's control. Several BOD members suggested emailing Elaine to request transfer of the domain name.

NOVEMBER 25
-Teresa Buzzell advised Pauline Entin that the link she had recently posted for the NAMHSA Cafe Press store was incorrect. The correct link is: www.cafepress.com/namhsa

-Pat Coulter suggested that the BOD try and formally administrate the various regional NAMHSA pages on Facebook. Teresa Buzzell said that NAMHSA could only control its own official page. Facebook is not the official channel for communications from NAMHSA, but a tool for that communication.

NOVEMBER 26
-Lynn Weber reported that she had been in contact with Elaine Lindelef who was willing to switch the NAMHSA.org domain over. She also planned to check with Jackie Hamilton to see if her host could run the NAN program. Jackie Hamilton suggested using a host that could run Linux, so Lynn decided to look at Godaddy.com for hosting. There was some confusion over the exact pricing on Godaddy for a domain transfer, but this is apparently typical for Godaddy.com. Lynn said she would report on the final pricing once she had it confirmed.

NOVEMBER 27
-Beth Lamm reported she was catching up on merit awards and asked if anyone knew how to remove older medallions from the wooden backing (these are older NAN trophies being recycled for the merit award program). Teresa Buzzell suggested that Beth contact Gail and Jill Schuenemann, who had run the Merit Award program for a time.

NOVEMBER 28
-The poll to select the Treasurer closed. All 11 voting members cast a vote. Carmen Robertson was re-appointed by majority vote of the Board. NAMHSA is grateful to all individuals who expressed interest in the position.

-Lyn Norbury (Region 5 Representative) reported that the poll to select the dates for NAN 2013 had never formally closed. Teresa Buzzel thanked Lyn and closed the poll.

-Jackie Arns-Rossi asked the BOD to consider making some changes to the NAMHSA-Discussion forum, as the group has a poor reputation for being a place to foster actual discussion, and instead, turns into heated arguments when something is presented. The specific suggestions made were:
- Make it so anyone an read the messages, they do not need to be subscribed to the list
- Anyone can subscribe BUT only NAMHSA members would have the ability to post. That is, only those with a vested and paid interest could post. 
- Moderated NAMHSA members would remain moderated.

-Teresa Buzzell said she liked the idea of limiting posting to members and asked for more input from the BOD. Several BOD members were in favor of a change, and Carra McClelland offered the posting rules from her regional Facebook group as a starting point:
1. NO foul language
2. NO bashing of other members,
3. No political stuff, ever, at all. We are here to talk NAMHSA, model horse showing and events in our region and surrounding regions. 
4. This group is not to be treated as NAMHSA-Discussion Light. Please keep those topics there.

NOVEMBER 29
-Jackie Moore (Region 6 Representative) reminded the Board that the other Treasurer candidate(s) should be notified regarding the Treasurer position, before it was announced to the entire hobby. Teresa Buzzell said she would take care of that.

-Lynn Weber advised that she had the website domain transfer started, but that it could take up to 5 days to be completed. It was possible that the site might be down a day or two during the transfer. Lynn also advised she had all the files from the site, and was unsure if Lindsey Hall was planning to delete the site from her servers on December 1st or was planning on waiting until the new server was up and running. Teresa Buzzell thanked Lynn for her work, and asked Pauline Entin to draft a notice to advise hobbyists of the possible downtime.

-Teresa Buzzell offered more thoughts on changing NAMHSA-Discussion: the BOD would have to identify people who would be able to fairly moderate the group, while allowing disagreement to occur. The membership list, if posting were to be reserved for just members, would need to be vigorously maintained. A level of moderation would need to be agreed upon. Jackie Arns-Rossi advised that some of these jobs were already outlined in the NAMHSA policy document (the VP is listed as owner and moderator of N-D, and the PR person is also listed as a moderator). She suggested that the IMS and RS maintain membership lists for N-D since this is already part of what they do. Adding the Parlimentarian and regional representatives as part of the moderation team also made some sense.

-Tracy Eilers (Region 1 Representative) clarified some points about the Mini Entry Drive that were confused on both N-D and in Jackie’s post.

NOVEMBER 30
-Pauline Entin posted a draft about the website hosting changes and potential downtime for the NAMHSA website.

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Posted by Pauline Entin, NAMHSA Interim PR