New York Brown Swiss Association Minutes

New York State Brown Swiss Association

Meeting Minutes

January 17, 2008

The meeting was called to order by President, Sarah VanOrden.

The secretary’s report was waved.

The treasurer’s report was read and approved.

We discussed the spring sale.

· Diana Szalach will handle the advertising so consignments need to be lined up by the first week of February to make the ads.

· Martins will take care of the neck tags.

· Meisner’s will take care of the sign to go over the cattle.

· We are looking for adults to supervise and juniors to work with the cattle to get them fed, clipped, washed and ready for the sale.

· Diana will do the catalog so she will need the information ASAP.

We discussed the spring show.

• Beth will check papers at the spring show.
• Allen will check in cattle at ringside.
• Stacia will clerk at the ringside.

We discussed the 2008 National Convention in Ohio.

· Julie Miesner is working on a trailer to go to the national convention heifer show.

· We brainstormed juniors who could go to the convention.

· Beth Martin is going to look into a bus with 2 questions:

·

1. Have it come across I-90 to pick up several spots.

2. Can Ohio use the bus during their convention to spread the costs?

We discussed the webpage.

• The webpage looks great.
• We have sold a lot of t-shirts.
• The association will pay Diana’s membership

Wendy Baker gave a Canton report for the Capital District Canton. It is as follows:

MEMBERSHIP GROWTH was one of the goals for my year.

Beginning total 20 members.

Lost 1 member due to no Brown Swiss.

Added 13 new members, 10 of which are youth members.

2008 beginning total 32 (20 senior and 12 junior)

NEW NYBSA CDC SHOW second goal for my year.

Mission: TO provide an easily accessible show for members living in the easter part of the state.

Committee formed with Wendy Baker, Edward Telford, Ray Wilson, Tammy Thomas, Rachel MacNeil and Bob and Lukas Foote.

Piggy-backing with the Tri-County Holstein club Black and White show.

Date and place to be decided Thursday Jan. 24^th, Greenwich.

Monday: Fairgrounds open to arrive

Tuesday: 11AM All Holstein and Brown Swiss Youth Showmanship

Tuesday: 1 PM Brown Swiss Show

Tuesday PM Tri-County BBQ

Wednesday: 9am-3pm Holstein Show

All NYBSA Members are invited to show.

Fundraising: Seeking financial support from the state association for canton shows. Asking $100 for printing and mailing entry information to all NYBSA members.

CONTACT WITH MEMBERS was my third goal.

Moo news newsletter- 8 page newsletter 4 times a year to all canton members

Extra letter in January to remind members of annual meeting and need

For additional show committee members.

Phone calls to members to keep in touch.

ANNUAL PICNIC

Odd Duck has withdrawn their offer of hosting picnic due to other obligations. Off to have in conjunction with Canton Show.

An FYI: As of February 1, 2008, all bovines at county or the NY State Fair will require test for BVD and must be PI negative. Either ear notch or blood test. Takes about 2 weeks for results so plan ahead. Results must be noted on health forms. Mailings to vets soon and will be discussed at the state and county fair meeting on FEB.1.

Jeff True will renew our insurance to cover the canton shows.

Jeff True moved to give the Capital Canton $100 to get their show off the ground.

We discussed the 2008 budget and the following budget passed:

New York State Brown Swiss Association

2008 Budget

Income

Membership Dues	1000
Awards and Prizes Donations	450
Spring Sale	1200
Fundraising	2500
2007 National Convention	450
Other

Total: $5600

Expenses

Postage and Mailing	500
Awards and Prizes	600
Spring Sale	0
Fundraising	2000
Administrative	950
Breed Promotion	500
Junior Programs
2007 National Convention

Total: $4550

We discussed who will be running for national director to replace Rich Hill. Candidates include: Bill Kelly from Vermont, Rich Stevens, Lester Tyler and Adelia Pimm. Feeling is that New York State needs to narrow down to one candidate and throw our support behind that candidate.

The Election of officers is as follows:

President: Sarah VanOrden

Vice President: Edward Telford

Secretary: Stacia True

Treasurer: Jeff True

Capital Canton Director: Wendy Baker

Youth: Julie Meisner

Director at Large: Mel Phelps

Website and Publicity: Diana Curtis-Szalach

We will discuss the picnic at the spring dairy carousel.

The meeting was adjourned.

New York State Brown Swiss Association Meeting

September 2, 2007

Present: Lynn Telaak, Jessica Alt, Lloyd, Tammy and Cody Thomas, Laura Durfee, Courtney Baker, Stacia and Jeff True, Ginny Stephens, Katie Lange, Ian Martin, Leah Haskin, Teri Martin, Beth Martin, Eric Bogardus, Lea Schlenker, Dennis Keyser, Diana Curtis Szalach, Micheal Jefferds

• The meeting was called to order by President, Sarah VanOrden.

• The treasurer’s report was read and approved.

• National Convention Report

Convention was very successful. Great job to Julie Miesner and Sarah VanOrden on Fund raising.

All the bills have been paid without touching any of the money from the record high sale.

We had over 200 registrations. This is the 2^nd highest attendance and the national sale averaged $2000 over the previous record high sale!

When everything settles out, our association should be looking at about $10,000 of income from the convention.

Discussion about what to do with the money:

Possibly a CD with the interest to fund Junior programs and awards and prizes for the state fair.

• Junior Programs

Julie Meisner will be the new Junior Advisor and she talked about the junior program.

We had 20 kids enter bellringer photos this year.

It was brought up that Brown Swiss is the only breed that requires 2 photos for the bell ringer and all American contests and this adds a bit of cost. Her committee will come up with a proposal to defray the professional photo costs.

• Canton Directors

We are still looking for people who are interested in serving as a canton director Talk to Sarah VanOrden if you are interested in getting involved by being a Canton Director.

• New Merchandise Ideas

We are looking for new t-shirts for 2008. A couple of ideas that came up were:

1. A bright colored t-shirt that uses the initials B.S. in a clever funny way. These were very popular from the Iowa convention.
2. “Brown Swiss since 1802” done Aeropostle style. (For those of you who have not been to a mall lately…..that’s a trendy store for teenagers to buy their clothes.)

Any other ideas get to Sarah.

• All Breeds convention 1/10/2008-1/12/2008

Discussion centered around getting people out for the convention. It is in Albany again which makes travel difficult for many people. It was brought up that Saturday is a better time for a meeting. The BOD will work with the All Breeds Convention Committee to set up a time.

It was brought up to consider having our own separate annual meeting for election of officers and general business, however, people did not think you would necessarily get a better turn out.

• 2008 National Brown Swiss Convention

There will be a junior heifer show this year and our New York State Juniors would like to get a trailer together to take out a New York Delegation. The juniors have been working hard to raise money to put this together. Julie Miesner and Terri Martin will head up pulling this together.

Julie Meisner will have all the forms for national Contests. Her contact information is:

111 Beach Ridge Road

Harpursville, NY 13787

(607) 693-5549

• 2008 Spring Brown Swiss Sale

Jeff True moves that we have the sale this year and the motion carried.

Chairs for the sale: Jerry Harkness and Rich Stephens

We need to have at least 10 animals by February 1, 2008

We need to focus on advertising a little more and Diana Curtis will help with this.

• Canton Shows

Wendy Baker is working on getting one going in Saratoga County.

Anybody interested in doing this can promote this through the state website.

• Web page

Diana Curtis has taken on the web page. She had photos from the convention up and she will put state fair photos up as well. Diana encourages people to send her stuff for the website.

Do we want to put ads up on our site and charge for it? We will discuss this at the annual meeting.

Rich and Derek Hill thanked Diana for a job well done on the coverage following up the national convention.

• Bus to national convention next year

There are people who are interested in chartering a bus to go to the national convention in Ohio next year. We will look into having Ohio use the NY Bus to help defray the cost of the bus. Other options would be to rent vans.

Julie Miesner and Mel Phelps will look into prices on busses and vans.

The meeting adjourned at 2:20.

New York State Brown Swiss Association Annual Meeting

January 12, 2007

Albany, NY

Present: Stacia True, Jeff True, Sarah VanOrden, Beth Martin, Annie Rienhardt, Laurie Rienhardt, Leonard Johnson, Julie Miesner, Michelle Miesner and Wendy Baker

• The meeting was called to order at 2:00.

• The secretary and treasurer’s report was read and accepted.

• We discussed doing a 50/50 raffle in 2007. Jeff moved that we do it and Sarah seconded. Sarah will get the tickets printed up.

• We discussed the proposed canton changes to increase involvement in the Eastern part of New York. The proposal was explained by Wendy Baker and will form a North Eastern New York Canton. Jeff moved to make the change, Wendy seconded and the motion carried.

• The following jobs were assigned for the New York State Spring Dairy Carousel:

1. Ring Check in: Jeff True and Rich Stevens

2. Clerking and Figuring Premier Breeder: Laurie Rienhardt

3. Stacia will e-mail our membership list to the New York Holstein Association and they will send out information to our membership.

• There was discussion about which shows in New York were recognized by National and it was pointed out that the New York State Fair and the Hamburg Fair are the two shows currently recognized by the national association.

• Leonard Johnson was a guest at our meeting and shared the following information from the national office:

1. The office is updating their computer program and they are working with a company called Insync which is a subsiderary of Holstein. They anticipate having registrations with pedigrees and numbers instantly.

2. We will be able to use the FAIR Tags to identify our Brown Swiss.

3. There is a new production leader at the national level and her name is Jetway Shotzey. She broke the record for milk, protein and fat with 53,640 2766fat and 1903protein!

4. The national office is going to send out a voluntary survey about oxytocin use to breeders because there is concern hat there are some slow milkers and meaty uddered cows out there.

5. Leonard encouraged young Brown Swiss Breeders to consider applying for the young Brown Swiss Breeder award. There has not been strong participation for this award over the past few years and he wanted to encourage New York to promote this national award. Applications are due March 15^th.

• 2007 New York State Picnic

The picnic will be held on August 4, 2007 in Eastern New York. Wendy Baker will pull together. Place to be announced.

• Empire Farm Days

We discussed that this was not a great year for this and perhaps we can do this like every 5 years or so. Beth moved no EFD this year and we will do it on an as needed basis. Michelle seconded and motion carried.

We will still renew our insurance policy with Farm Family.

• Election of officers were are follows:

President: Sarah VanOrder

Vice President: Beth Martin

Secretary: Stacia True

Treasurer: Jeff True

Youth Advisor: Julie Miesner

Director at Large: Mel Phelps

Canton Directors: Eastern Sarah will work on this

Northern: Beth will ask Todd Hyman

Central: Annie Rienhardt

South Western: Stacia will work on this

Western: Stacia will work on this

Capital: Wendy Baker

2007 National Convention

Leonard had several comments about the schedule to keep in mind:

a. Wednesday afternoon we will need 4 meeting rooms

b. On Thursday the Junior Breakfast is at 7:30. If there is a speaker we need to have a break and have the speaker come at 10:00. We may want to move the annual meeting to 10:00 to give people a break from all the sitting too.

c. Speaker possibilities include: Chad Dechow on cross breeding, the same speakers they had at the All Breeds Convention and do these as choose 2 of 3 seminars.

d. Joe Peck would be a good possibility for the banquet. Looking for humorous and someone who can connect with the crowd.

Leonard had to catch a plane and the discussion on convention continued:

e. It is unlikely that we will be able to have a catered breakfast at the fairgrounds due to DOH regulations. Beth Martin will follow up on this.

f. Fund raising has not yielded the fruit as of right now, but many of the companies said they would not do anything until around March. Right now is the make or break time for fundraising. Jeff True will contact Dairy Marketing Services and Stacia True will contact Alltech and forward all information to Julie. Julie has worked with Country Folks and they will be running some free ads for us. All money needs to be in by March 1.

g. Annie Rienhardt will head up the dairy bar and secure the donations for that. Thanks Annie!

h. Someone needs to get I Love NY Tourism stuff.

i. Nicole Stevens is going to be the AV person for the week.

j. We will meet again at the end of February in Syracuse.

The meeting adjourned at 5:00pm.

New York State Brown Swiss Association

Meeting Minutes

September 3, 2006

Present: Sarah VanOrden, Stacia True, Jeff True, Tina Miner-James, Derek Hill, Welkers, Patty Morrison, Thomas Smithling, Kerri Bartlet, Dennis Keyser, Eric Bogardus, Peter Vail, Ken Main, Morgan VanAlstine, Teri Martin, Diana Curtis-Szalach, Richard Hill, Ian Martin, Cody Spearance, P. Bishop, Kathy DeMay, Anthony Wilson-Casarotti, Julie Meisner, Jim and Joan Curtis, Lynn Telaak, Andrea Rinhardt

Ø The meeting was called to order at 2:15 pm.

Ø The secretary’s report was read and passed.

Ø The treasurer’s report was read and passed. The treasurer’s report was as follows:

2006 New York State Brown Swiss Summary of Income and Expenses

Income

Membership Dues	1384
Awards and Prizes Donations
Spring Sale	1225
Fundraising	285
2007 National Convention	100
Junior Donations	115
Directory	25
Total	3134

Expenses

Postage and Mailing	38.89
Awards and Prizes	70.67
Spring Sale	598.75
Fundraising
2007 National Convention
Administrative
Breed Promotion	1343.47
Junior Programs
Total	2051.78

We have a total of about $2500 in our account presently.

Ø The report on the raffle calf was that we will auction the raffle calf off at the Cobleskill sale. The tickets that we have sold so far will be for a 50/50 raffle.

Ø Tina Miner-James will contact Wayne Sliker to ask if he needs more help from the Juniors for the sale and she will ask if he can donate the commission from the auction back to the association this year.

Ø We discussed communication for the association and decided on two things:

1. Stacia will look into a bulk-mailing rate for the winter newsletter.

2. We will send out the winter newsletter the first part of November instead of waiting until December. Stacia will contact the New York State Holstein Association to get the copy of the information for convention ahead of when it comes out in the News.

One concern that was brought up is that the State Fair does not pay very many places in the Brown Swiss Show. It was pointed out that our numbers were low this year and it may not be a good year to bring this up.

Junior Programs report from Tina Miner-James

Ø Participation is up.

Ø We have a New York State Brown Swiss Ambassador this year.

Ø At the New York State Fair, they did photos for the Bell Ringer Contest this year.

Ø Bell Ringer stickers to go on the photos are available at the booth and they are also available on line at the national website. The Deadline for this year’s contest is November 15^th. Stacia will include this in the newsletter that will go out the first part of November.

Ø We decided to sponsor and award at Harrisburg this year as Brown Swiss Heaven in 2007 in order to promote the national convention.

2007 National Convention reports

Registration: Lynn Telaak