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2013 NSCA Annual Advisory Council Meeting MinutesFriday January 25-27, 2013 – National Shooting ComplexThe meeting was called to order by Phil Murray at 8:30 AM on Friday, January 25, 2013. Phil Murray thanked everyone for attending the meeting. A lot of things are planned over the next day and a half. Phil asked Glynne Moseley to call the roll.Those present:Industry John Calandro, III – Clay Shooters SupplyDavid Clifford - iClaysHeyward Cunningham – Promatic, Inc.Scott Grange – Browning Jim Greenwood – Greenwood Custom StocksBetty Krieghoff – Krieghoff InternationalAnthony Matarese, Jr – AIM Shooting SchoolMike McAlpine – Clay Target AcademyPhil Murray – White Flyer TargetsJohn “Mo” Parsons – BlaserAndrew Perkins – Show Me Sports Corp.Steve Schultz – Target Line Shooting SchoolZach Snow – NSSFPatrick Thomas – Rio Ammunition, Inc.Range Owners/ManagersDavid Fiedler – Battleborn S/C & Shooting SchoolMartin Jones – Llano County ClaybustersFrieda Lancaster – Claythorne Lodge Richard Lanzilotta – Mid Hudson Sporting Clays Anthony Matarese, Sr – M & M Sporting Clays Tim Miles – Coyote Springs SportingJason Miller – The Shooting Academy Michael Mohr – Seven Springs Mountain Resort Jim Montgomery – Cajun Elite Shooting Club David Rippetoe – Silverleaf Shotgun SportsScott Robertson – Elm Fork Shotgun SportsDan Twitchell – Ben Avery Clay Target Center Randy Voss – Caribou Gun ClubShootersVance Barnes – Hondo, TXDr. Paula Benbow – Sobieski, WIAndy Duffy – Polson, MTSteve Edmondson – Philadelphia, PAJohn Hackethorn – Polson, MTDon Henderson – Marco Island, FLChip Hutchison – Lakemont, GATodd Kemmerer – Columbus, OHZachary Kienbaum – Huntington Beach, CARobert Lepor – Cape May, NJ Derek Moore – Chester, NJ Mary O Pitts – Smyrna, GATed Sapoznik – Vancouver, WABrett Seibert – Lake Forest, ILLouise K Terry – Vero Beach, FLThose absent;IndustryThomas Bryant – Cabela’sRange Owners/ManagersDavid Kelley – David Kelley’s Elk Creek Hunt ClubGuests Present were:Judy Morris – Team USA ManagerAl Dorn – North America BrandingBrandon Riddering – North America BrandingJohn Commerford – Krieghoff InternationalSam Lancaster – Claythorne LodgeStaff present: Robert Crow – NSCA DirectorGlynne Moseley – NSCA Assistant DirectorLori Hartmann, NSSA/NSCA Club SecretaryKim Gracia – NSCA Membership SecretaryLori Bauchman – NSCA Data EntryNichole Martin – NSSA/NSCA Marketing CoordinatorSherry Kerr – Outdoor Media ResourcesPhil Murray – Before we get started I’d like to go over and summarize some of the things we talked about in the earlier meetings with NSSA. Yesterday the Finance Committee, Steering Committee and the Long Range Planning Committee met. Some of the things you will hear from these committees will surprise you. With the economy the way it is and listening to the doom and gloom that some people are spreading, I want you to know that we bucked the trends. From an overall stand point, you will hear that there is a sense of unity between the NSSA and NSCA. A joint NSSA/NSCA marketing committee has been formed and a joint NSSA/NSCA governance and by-laws committee has been formed. There will be more meetings in the future, but for the time being we are working very hard toward the unification of the two associations. I wanted to give you an update on this aspect, if you have any questions on these items, please get with me at the break. Robert Crow – Before we get started, I would like to recognize 3 new Advisory Council members. David Clifford from iClays, is replacing John Bauer’s, formerly of Remington, no longer works in the industry. Martin Jones from Llano County Claybusters, is replacing Joe Cantey from Hermitage Farm. Joe failed to shoot the 500 required targets in 2012 to hold his position on the Advisory Council. Scott Robertson from Elm Fork Shotgun Sports is replacing Ed Arrighi from American Shooting Centers. Ed failed to attend the last January meeting as well as this meeting. Please go to section B in your binder. We have the minutes of the Nationals Advisory Council Meeting held October 24, 2012. The minutes were sent to all of you last week for review and corrections. There were a few grammatical errors that have been corrected. If there are no questions or discussion, I would like to call for a motion to accept the minutes of the 2012 Nationals Advisory Council meeting. A motion was made by Derek Moore, seconded by Bob Lepor. The motion carried; the minutes have been approved.Membership Report (section C) by Robert Crow - During the 2012 shoot year, we hit our 25,000 mark. We ended the year with a total of 25,306 members for an increase of 7.9% or 1,844 additional new members and a new membership record. 2,283 of the 25,306 members were CLM (Complimentary Limited Memberships). The increase included a total of 4,874 new members for a 22% increase and an increase of 481 life members for an increase of 55 more from the year before. This is the largest increase in life members, ever. With that said, since October 1, with our renewals coming in, we have already increased by 25 life members. The NSCA now has 6,510 life members. With all the gun control talk going on, we are seeing a significant increase in life members, the same as NRA is experiencing. End of Year Review (under section C) by Robert Crow - If you recall, we changed the class review rule to include not only the prior year but the prior two years, before a person could get reviewed for down classing purposes. So, for instance, if I punched up to Master Class this year, I would not be able to go through a review for two years, in order to get down classed. This rule was changed as of January 1 of 2013. Now, if you start the shoot year and end the year in the same class and have 0 punches you will go through the end-of-year review for down classing purposes. If you started and ended the shoot year in Master Class and have 2 or less punches, you will go through the end-of-year review for down classing purposes. If you look at the graph on this page you can see we ended up down classing 18% of the membership at the 2012 end-of-year review. If you look at the total number of shooters down classed, we only moved 11%. The 18% is based on active shooters. Those 2,966 people who were down classed at the end-of-year review still have the option to refuse the down class and return to their prior classification. Out of the total shooters who went through the end-of-year review process only about 300 will refuse the down class and return to their previous class. John Calandro asked if we changed the number of punches allowed in the review process, would it significantly show a change in the number of people who would be offered a down grade in class. Robert said yes, it would make a big difference in the number of people who get down classed. Robert said he looked at several different scenarios where the numbers of punches were increased when reviewing for down class. He said when you raise the number of punches in the review process and you look at the percentage within the class where the person falls, the number of people down classed goes up. If there is someone who is in the top 25% of their class and has 3 or less punches, we would not down class them because they are obviously in the top of their class. It is something we have to look at continually and make adjustments. It’s not something we can rubber stamp and say this is how it’s got to be all the time; especially as the membership keeps growing. 2013 Membership Drive (under section C) by Robert Crow - NSCA ran the membership drive where we gave away 5 major prizes to those who renewed before December 1, 2012. We had 6,000 people renew in 45 days. This is an 18% increase in what we normally get. It was well worth the effort and well received by the membership. We need to do more things like that, where the member feel they are getting added value for their membership. Target Statistics (section D) by Robert Crow - In 2012 NSCA ended the year with 22,408,728 registered targets. This was a record setting year with a 6.6% increase or 1,382,902 more targets over 2011. There were a total of 621 NSCA members clubs and 2,356 registered shoots in 2012, which is a 5.5 decrease in the number of shoots held. This was a slight decrease of 11 clubs and 138 shoots for the 2012 shoot year. We have seen this over the past several years. There is no huge decrease; however, we are slowly losing clubs little by little. With the new marketing efforts that we have we will be able to offer programs to clubs which will keep them interested in staying with the NSCA. We could offer a rebate for selling memberships, as well as offer free round of clays at the club if someone joins NSCA. This will give the club a reason to sell a membership and it will give a person a reason to become a member of NSCA. We are planning on developing an information center that can be placed at each club. Hopefully, we can turn around the number of lost clubs in the coming years.Club Statistics (section E) by Robert Crow - There were 70 clubs that threw 100,000 targets; this was an increase of 10 clubs that threw over 100,000 targets last year. Last year we had 60 clubs that threw over 100,000 targets for the year. These 70 clubs threw 62% of our total targets for the year. We had 60 clubs that did not renew, that club listing is in the binder. Some closed their doors, some mobile units that did not renew; but there are still a lot of clubs that we need to be working with to help us grow membership. Even if they aren’t throwing registered targets, they are having fundraisers, corporates and fun shoots. With our new marketing efforts, these are people that we will be targeting to get things off the ground and running strong. Shoot Statistics (section E) by Robert Crow - There were 16 shoots that had 300 + shooters in 2012 and 23 shoots with 200+ shooters. That is the exact same number as we had in 2011. In the same section you will see the breakdown of targets by discipline. Generally speaking, Sporting Clays is still the overall discipline being shot, accounting for 82% of total registered targets. The numbers are basically the same all the way back to 2007. We have FITASC and small gauge participation. You‘ll see a big increase of participation in FITASC (827) due to hosting the World FITASC at Northbrook, Sports Club in 2012. There was a pretty good increase in 20 gauge participation with 648 additional shooters in 2012. There was no decrease in 28 or .410 shooters for the 2012 shoot year. In 2012, there were 343 Sporting events with 100 or more entrants for an increase of 30%. One thing to keep in mind, 343 events is only 15% of our total shoots in the country. So, 85% of the shoots held in the country have less than 100 entrants. The 343 events make up make up a very large percentage of our targets thrown, but we still have a large number of people shooting in the smaller events with less than 100 entrants.National Sporting Clays Championship (section F) by Robert Crow - In 2012 we had 1,758 total shooters attending. Over 1,000,000 targets were registered, which was a goal of ours. You not only want to get a lot of people to attend, you also want to throw a lot of targets. We had an overall increase in participation of 8% and in the Main event we had an increase of 10% with 1,577 entries. We had a 15% increase in 5-Stand combined. There was a 13% increase in Super Sporting, and a 12% increase in the sub gauges. It was a very successful event; people had a good time. If you look at the surveys in the binder you will see that people had a good time, they spoke up about certain things and we are listening. 2013 is the 25th anniversary of the NSCA National Championship. The main changes for the 2013 Nationals will be 4 man squads. This will allow us to move a little more smoothly with less time for the shooters to spend on the courses. You will finish your events on time and have time to go to your next event. There are a lot of people who try to shoot 3 events in a day and have to rush around and run into timing problems. This will also reduce the number of people on the courses for each course. We will be starting some of the events on Tuesday. Tim Miles said the whole intent of the changes is to offer a quality shoot. The problems we had with the Super Sporting were due to a timing problem instead of a squadding (people) problem. Louise Terry asked if we will ever be limited to the number of shooters we can handle. Robert said we can open up more days; it just depends on how many days you want to have the event run. With using the 4 man squad starting on Tuesday ending on Sunday, we will be able to host 1,920 shooters, max. The quality of the shoot is the biggest thing, because we have a great thing going. You don’t want to dilute the quality of the shoot just to bring more people in. If we put 80 people on the course at a time, the flow of the shoot will be much better, people won’t get so tired waiting for their turn to shoot and people won’t be rushing around trying to get to their next event. People will be more relaxed and have a better time. Those who sign up early will get the 4 day rotation, if that’s what they want. Those who want the two day rotation will get what they want as well. 1,920 people are a lot more people than 1,577; we are making big progress with 10% growth. If we continue to maintain this type of growth, that is still another 3 years out before we would get to the max of 1,920 and need to make changes, again. The down side is the 3 hour and 15 min Super Sporting rotation. Something that we’ve never done at Nationals is get out of the 2 ? hour rotation, but people like the game. We may or may not offer all of the singles at each station; we will have to see how it goes at the World English Sporting Clays Championship. Increasing the time will allow people to enjoy the sport. We can’t get as many people through, but we will start on Tuesday and run through Sunday. The two events that we will have that are new for 2013 are the 20 and 28 gauge FITASC events. Those will be 50 bird events with two parcours for each gauge. We should be able to get 426 shooters through each event, that’s what we have room for. Gas rental carts will be available in 2013. We rented over 300 carts last year; however, the distributor could not provide very many gas operated carts. With the overwhelming numbers of shooters renting carts, we ran into problems getting the electric carts charged in time for the next usage. We are reaching outside of the local area to get more gas powered carts for Nationals. We will continue to support our local guy during the year. We have found a distributor in Kentucky who has more gas powered carts, so we will be working with them. They are the same company Backwoods Quail Club is using for the US Open this year. Practice will open on Saturday; people are here and want to shoot and have a good time. The RV Park starts filling up on Friday and Saturday. 25 % of the people who attended Nationals were first time attendees. We had people who joined in 1989 who had never been to Nationals until 2012. This is the first year that we offered the pre-event survey online. It was well received; there were nearly 900 people that completed the survey before they arrived at Nationals. For the 2013 pre-survey we will not have a hard copy; the survey will be posted on line earlier than we posted it last year. If you do not get a chance to complete the online survey prior to the Nationals, we will have an iPad available at the Nationals for you to complete the survey. We will have the results available by Friday, so we can pass them out to the vendors before they leave. This will give them an idea of what the shooters think and want, ahead of time. The post survey was done for the second time online as well as mailing a hard copy to the attendees. We continue to get about a 50% return on the post survey.Todd Kemmerer made the following comments to the Advisory Council – The input of this group last year Record membership of 25,000, record participation at the Nationals, record targets; it’s because of your participation and input and us having the association move forward that we have had a great year. We all ought to be really proud of what we did last year. We should celebrate our victories, congratulations everyone! John Calandro added that we did this without having to hire additional staff. These guys worked really hard to this pull off. The surveys said everyone did a good job. If you go through these numbers, most everything is up, we had a really great year. Two thumbs up everyone!US Open (section G) by Robert Crow - 864 people attended the 2012 US Open at Caribou Gun Club. Randy Voss and his crew did an outstanding job. There were 787 shooters in the Main event. There were 450,000 targets registered at the US Open. The 2013 US Open will be held at Backwoods Quail Club in SC. There are 581 signed up at this time. The 2014 US Open will be held at Claythorne Lodge in KS.Regional/Zone Championships - Championship Tour (section H) by Robert Crow - In 2013 we had a total of 1,712 attendees at the Regional Championships. This is a 4% increase over the total Zone Championship attendance from 2011. There were 1,495 unique shooters out of those 1,712 total attendees. For instance if Jon Kruger went to 3 of the Regional Championships, he would only be counted as1 unique shooter. So, that gives you an idea of how many people are travelling to the Regional Championships. The participation was 79% in the region. The largest Regional was the Northeast Regional with 467 attendees; they threw the most targets as well. The next in line high to low, was the Southeast Region with 366 attendees, South Central with 365, West with 325 attendees and last is the North Central with 189 attendees. There were 841,000 total targets registered at the 2012 Regional Championships with 687,000 registered targets thrown at the 2011 Zone Championships. So, over all target numbers were up, overall attendance was up, and the in-region participation was down. The in-region participation, this year was 78% as compared to the in-zone participation last year at 93%. Paula Benbow stated that it wasn’t really that down; it’s just there are more shooters from outside the regions participating in each particular region shoot. Bob Lepor said the biggest difference between the region shoots and the zone shoots is that it is mandatory to attend the region shoots, in order to make Team USA and the zone shoots weren’t. You have 365 shooters following the regional shoots, where the same people did not follow the zone shoots. Louise Terry said the zone structure is different than the Region structure with more population in less divided area. We went from 7 zones to 5 regions. Robert pointed out that at the Northeast Region shoot there were 24 more states represented and 4 countries represented than at the zone shoots. We are getting more people from all over the country as well as foreign shooters coming to the regional shoots that never came to the zone shoots. The 2011 zone shoots are included in the section, so you can do some comparisons with 2012. There is a page showing the number of shooters by state and a sheet showing the number of shooters by class at the 2012 Regional Championships. F.I.T.A.S.C. (section I) by Robert Crow - . There are new rules for 2013. The first two items, the use of yellow (warning cards) and red (penalty cards) as well as announcing the types of targets in the peg menus are set on a trial period and to be used during F.I.T.A.S.C. World Cup events. The other rules regarding sporting layouts as well as the shooting positions rule went into effect as of January 1, 2013; they are not on a trial period. These rules will be discussed in our governance and rules committee meeting. The rule stating Sporting layouts are mandated to present 15 singles. This rule can be pretty tough at times to follow in the USA, due to slowing down the shoot; so adoption of this rule to be used in our rule book needs to be discussed by the rules committee. The shooting position rule needs to be adopted because that is what will be used all over the world. The next sheet is the FITASC Referee Certification Initiative. Robert Crow and Scott Williams have discussed this at length. What we want to do is have two internationally certified FITASC referees per Region to train new FITASC referees. These training instructors would hold a minimum 3 referee clinics per region, per year. They would also hold 2 refresher clinics for current FIRTASC referees. We need to come up with a rate of pay for the training referees to teach these courses. This would be an amount to cover expenses and give them a little for their efforts. We want to be able to maintain the number of quality FITASC referees that we have as well as increase the numbers of certified FITASC referees.Special thanks to Brett Seibert for hosting the 2012 World FITASC Championship. 966 total entires and 350,000 registered targets thrown. Great job, Brett, thank you! Some other gentlemen I would like to thank are Dave Fiedler, Steve Schultz and Tim Miles for setting targets at the World FITASC; thank you!The 2015 World FITASC will be here in the US. Those bids and criteria are in the binder. We will be sending bids and criteria to the clubs shortly; we are hoping that we have a few clubs to bid for this event. We are very excited to be hosting the World FITAC Championship again, in such a short time.Joe Cantey is no longer on the Advisory Council; however, he is still the Vice President of FITASC for North America. Robert will continue to work closely with Joe. You will also find the 2014 North American FITASC Championship and US FITASC Grand Prix Championship Criteria and bid forms in this section. Those bids and criteria will be going out to the clubs as well.Awards and Recognition (section J.) by Robert Crow - Mr. William Walton is the High Volume Competitor with 22,975 targets shot during the 2012 shoot year. He was also the High Volume Competitor in 2011. We had 88 High Volume Shooters in 2012. The difference between high volume competitor and high volume shooter is, high volume competitors shot all of their registered targets at registered events, not counting leagues, monthly targets or re-entries; they are all competition targets. The high volume shooters shot all registered targets including league, monthly targets and re-entries. There are 19 more High Volume Competitors in 2012 than in 2011 for an increase of 32% more total targets shot and there were 17 more High Volume Shooters in 2012 than in 2011 for an increase of 23% more total targets shot. Northbrook Sports Club was the 2012 High Volume Club throwing 578.415 total targets. There are a lot of great clubs listed after Northbrook such as Caribou Gun Club, M & M Hunting Preserve, Quail Creek Plantation, Rio Brazos Hunting Preserve, Nashville Gun Club, San Angelo Claybird Assoc., Cajun Elite Shooting Club, Wern Valley Sportsmen’s Club and Elm Fork Shogun Sports. These top 10 clubs threw 19% of the total registered targets in 2012.We will skip section K at this time, the Budget and Finance section. Steve Scales our Finance Director will be reporting tomorrow morning at 8:30am. Headquarters (section L) by Robert Crow – Organization Chart is included in the binders. Information Technology report by Brad Jones, IT Manager is included in the binders. Sherry Kerr was asked to please give the Website Content Management report. Website traffic numbers continue to improve, with Target Talk, blog posts and search engines driving both members and non-members to the site. During the past year 97,424 people visited NSSA- for the first time. Regardless of the total number each month, approximately 1/3 of the visitors are new with 2/3 returning. Paid advertising is growing and we anticipate new advertisers following presentations at the SHOT Show. We are supporting marketing projects by acquiring URL’s and creating landing pages to be used in promotional campaigns. We recently posted all major events and key dates to the NSCA events calendar on the site. After 5 months of our production of Target Talk, subscriber numbers continue to grow; we are up 16%. We are gradually introducing new types of content to Target Talk including shooter tips, quizzes and question of the week. We have few regular advertisers in Target Talk; however, we are hopeful of increasing paid advertising as Kris Hampton works potential advertisers on their 2013 media plans. Email address management is an important process that is essential to communications with members. We are working with the staff to improve email address collection and clean-up. We are also working with Robert Crow to develop new procedures for clubs to promote events to members by email, taking into account the new privacy and anti-spam laws. We are using a fee account through Survey Monkey to create, distribute and evaluate online surveys that can save printing, postage and staff time. We expect greater use of this tool in the coming months. Our Facebook pages continue to grow and have engaged fans. We get numerous questions from page participants, to which we respond. Current numbers are: NSCA – 6,431, NSSA – 3,475 and NSC – 2,369. Robert discussed the change of privacy policy where NSCA-NSSA can no longer release email addresses. We have had instances where some people have misused the emails we have sent to them. We are working on a better way to let members go online and be able to use email addresses safely. This is the way people work and communicate now, so we must be able to send email address to our delegates and clubs; this is a benefit that we provide to them. Effective yesterday, we will be able to send email addresses, so we can maintain business and harmony. The majority of the people using email addresses sent to them are using them correctly; however, a few are making it bad for the majority. Those that we know have misused the system will not be allowed to receive any further email addresses. I will continue to update you on this as things develop.Robert asked Louise Terry to give the Long Range Planning Committee report. We had a 3 hour meeting yesterday, so let me give you an update on the information that is in the binder. One of the things that you will hear tomorrow in the finance report is that we did a real good job this year in increasing the number of corporate events and increasing the size of the big shoots held at the National Shooting Complex. You will see a surplus that came out of the NSC activities that gave us a little more money than we planned for 2013. We will be able to reinvest this additional money. Some of the things planned that we didn’t think we would be able to get to this year; we will now be able to go forward with. We will be getting cost points for some of these items to the committee by March 1, 2013, before the big shoots take place. The plan was originally to dismantle the rifle/pistol range; and purse best use of the area. Michael has done some work on finding other possibilities for use of the range. The roof structure and concrete walk way comes in handy for the times we are hosting mud run or some other non-shooting event. As of yesterday, we have decided to leave the structures as they are and use them when needed. It is not impeding anything when we are holding shooting events. We are still not going to hold any further rifle or pistol events in the future, but the structure will stay there and get spruced up. We thought of taking the space between the berm and the last Skeet field and building another skeet field, since we lost a couple of Skeet fields on the upper level near Roft Road due to shot-fall onto Roft Road. When we looked at the cost, we decided it was not justified to build a skeet field for the one or two time a year it would be used. We decided to put the money to better use.The main club house and kitchen area is still under consideration on how best to make improvements there. Originally, we were going to tear down the club house and re-build it. However, we found it would cost $3 million dollars to do that. We have decided renovation will be better and less costly. We will completely redo the restrooms, update the kitchen and get new air condition/heating systems. We are talking about expanding the inside of the club house by incorporating the outside porches. This may turn out to be pretty pricy and we would still have a 40 year old structure. Tim Miles may have a way to build a new club house without spending $3 million, so we are waiting on a decision on what to do. In the meantime we will completely gut the restrooms and completely remodel them. We need to do that anyway. We are in the process of getting city water hooked up. Surveys are being done to see where to tap in. We should be on city water within the next 4 -6 months. We will maintain the wells, which we own, for fire control, landscaping, etc. We will not have to worry about the aquifer as much and we will be able to service the RV Park better with city water. We are working on ways to reshape our membership, so that we will be more appealing to the recreational shooters. We may be coming up with some new types of memberships for those people who do not care about shooting registered targets.We are discussing building a comfort station by the new maintenance barn, on the lower skeet fields. The comfort station would have restrooms, meeting rooms, food vending and dining area. We found that it would cost so much for the original half mile club you see in the drawings we had done, that it isn’t feasible. Now we have plans for the new building down by the Browning sign. We have a concrete slab in place that is larger than the new building. We can build a permanent building onto the slab. All we need is to add a septic system for the restrooms. The little building that is there at this time can be turned into records storage and relocated. We will need to find out what it takes to get septic permits and how much it would cost to add onto the slab with the type of building we want. We have had great success that is generating proceeds for us to put to use. We are making good progress on the building projects.Robert said the Shooting complex was open to the public for 126 days in 2012. We started opening to the public on Thursdays and Saturdays back in 2011. We have our NSC membership that continues to grow. The cost is $165 per year for a regular membership which includes a membership of choice to NSSA or NSCA. If the person is already a NSSA or NSCA member the cost of a regular membership is $125 which is a $40 discount. The NSC membership covers the spouse and dependent children of the member. Youth membership for those 18 and under receive 1 year membership to NSC and a Junior membership in either NSSA or NSCA. Targets are discounted to the NSC members. We currently have 306 members of NSC.NSC held 6 NSCA events, 5 Skeet events, 3 Trap events, 17 fundraisers, 64 corporate events and 6 Championship events in 2012. The signs that are hanging on the fence facing Roft Road show the companies holding our corporate events, how much money is generated by our fundraisers and who our sponsors are. Please take note of these signs when you are driving down Roft Road. The signs are updated annually.Some of the items that were done around the complex in 2012 were: new stadium bleachers, vendor building and ammo building were painted, new restrooms we installed on vendors row, new “first aid” building on a concrete slab was built on the lower skeet fields by the Browning sign and two new roads were built for the Sporting Clays course. This year the headquarters building and the club house will be painted the same colors as vendor’s row and the ammo building.The World English entry form is in the binder. The dates are April 23-28, 2013. We have 354 signed up at this time. There will be 1,100 registered targets at this one event, only 100 targets less than the Nationals. We added the 20 and 28 gauge FITASC events as well as a 12 gauge true pair event. Neil Chadwick and Steve Knoll will be the targets setters. Last time we held the World English Sporting Clays Championship we had 655 attendees. We feel pretty good with the numbers at this time. We are getting about 15 to 20 entries per day.Marketing Report (section M) by Nicki Martin, NSCA-NSSA Marketing Coordinator - The 2013 Marketing Recommendations that we have been working on, have been approved. This is a living document, so we will be tracking progress of the marketing plan and making adjustments as we go. We have recently purchased a comprehensive benefits/discount program called “Business Advantage Plus”. This program is designed and negotiated through a third party vendor to make offering discounts and benefits easy and hassle-free to our membership. Business Advantage Plus is a collection of top-level corporate discounts and discounted services that we are providing to our members. Business Advantage Plus works with national vendors to negotiate discounts on products and services, leveraging the buying power of a large group to secure discounts that individuals or small companies cannot ordinarily obtain. This program will add a lot of value to our membership, which is something that we have needed for quite some time.NSCA will be present at several large trade shows in 2013. We attended the Dallas Safari Club in January and we will attend the Pheasants Forever Show in Minneapolis St. Paul. We planned on attending the Eastern Sports & Outdoors Show in Harrisburg, PA this February; however, the show has been cancelled due to a ban on certain guns. We will also attend the NRA convention in Houston this May. NSCA will be offering a first time member promotional gift, which is a free round of 50 sporting clay targets with every new membership sold. This will entice non-members to sign up and get immediate value from their membership. Clubs will continue to be the main point of sales for our membership, so they will also receive $5 per new membership they sell. The round of sporting clays will be reimbursed to the club through marketing funds, while the $5 will come out of the current budget for regular membership promotions. We want this program to be done correctly, so it will take a little time to get buy-in from the clubs and the marketing materials needed.We are currently designing a new NSCA app. This app will be available on the iPhone, iPad and Android platforms. This app will bring value to both our general membership and to clubs. A shooter will be able to view and edit their membership files, see their shoot records, keep their shoot log, locate events and clubs, etc. We will be beta testing the app as progress continues as well as beta testing it before it is available in the app stores.We are working on digital advertising campaigns with all of the Ducks organizations, Ruffed Grouse Society and Pheasants Forever. Multiple ads are being created, so we can change them out every couple of weeks.We are finalizing contract negotiations with Bandito Films. They will soon be making a pitch to networks to pick up the program. We will keep you updated as progress continues.Thank you for your continued support and feedback. If you ever have questions, comments, suggestions, or ideas, please contact me.Promotional Programs, Official Product Sponsors and Charity Report (section M) by Robert Crow NSCA will continue with the Bonus Bucks Program in 2013. Bonus Bucks are worth $15 to you, for every new member or someone who has not been a member for at least 3 years. You can use bonus bucks to buy ammunition here at NSC, use them to pay for entry fees at the major events here at NSC, use them to purchase items in the pro shop or practice or game tickets. We will continue to promote the CLM (Complimentary Limited Membership) program. Someone can sign up for free for the first year, as long as they sign up at a club hosting a registered event and shoot in that registered event. The club must send the CLM membership form to Headquarters along with the shoot report, in order for the membership to be processed. The CLM member will be a member from the day they sign up to December 31 at which time they will have to pay the renewal fee to continue the membership. The CLM member will receive no more than 4 magazines in a year, or one per quarter.Thanks to Zack Snow and the NSSF, The NSSF/NSCA Collegiate Scholarship Program will again be offered in 2013 to all of the graduating seniors in 2013. Jenni Clark was the 2012 recipient and is attending Trinity University, here in San Antonio. This is a $5,000 scholarship awarded to one person per year. Robert asked Todd Kemmerer to give a summary on how the Ronald McDonald House Charities Kids and Clays Program is doing. We had a tremendous year, last year. There were 13 events that we sponsored nationally. At those 13 Kids and Clays events, we netted after expenses $1.9 million. The number one fundraiser for 80% of the houses, come from Kids and Clays events. 20 houses need funding, and are on the waiting list in need of sponsorship. In general, it’s a great program. My event had 340 shooters with 80% of them being first time shooters. We had a great write up in Sporting Clays Magazine in the February issue. It captured the cause, the fun value of the shoot and the way the funds would be used. Davie Fiedler asked how we can use this to our advantage as shooters and the shooting sports, to counteract all the negative gun publicity. Todd said we need to get an article like the one in Sporting Clays Magazine into a nationally recognize magazine. It would be nice to show all of the fundraisers that use shooting sports as fundraisers, such as Kids and Clays, 4-H, SCTP, etc. There is a story there for us to tell about the shooting sports as a whole. Don Henderson asked how many fundraisers are hosted at our member clubs. We could add those numbers to an article like this. This is information we need to be able track. Todd said the PGA does it; there is no reason why we can’t do it as well.Robert asked Louise Terry to review the Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP). New fast fact sheets are in the binder as well as the tri-fold brochures in the back of the binders. We can send this material to any club that asks for it. We just started a new pistol program last July. Glock and Smith & Wesson are major sponsors of the pistol program. We are going to trade shows and have exhibitor space to market and promote the programs. Scott Moore is the National Program Director for the pistol program and Tom Wondrash is the National Program Director for the shotgun program. If anyone has questions or need anything at your gun clubs, please call Tom or Scott.Robert asked Phil Murray to report on the Garrison Green Recycling Program. Unfortunately, Andrew Fishbone who was in charge of that program is no longer with Garrison Green. There are some real serious issues that have developed. I know some of the gun clubs have a lot of bags of hulls that need to be picked up and recycled, as well as clubs that have never received their rewards. Garrison Green is still furnishing the recycle bags, so I don’t know all the details of what is going on. I do know there is another company called High-Tech Plastics out of Denver, CO. I am going to Denver on Wednesday to find out what is going on. White Flyer has been picking up bags for recycling and now we are stuck with 10,000 bags to recycle. As soon as I know what is going on I will let Robert know, so he can post the information on Target Talk. There are a lot so clubs out there that are stuck and not getting any response from Garrison Green. We are also looking for another recycling company to work with us.The Sportsman’s Insurance Agency. There is gun floater insurance, gun club insurance and instructor insurance. SIAI a long-time supporter of the associations. They have great deals for our members, plus they donate about approximately $50,000 back to the associations every year. They are one of the largest sponsors that we have. Delegates (section N) by Robert Crow - NSCA Regional Map is enclosed with Regional Delegates contact info. Delegates contact info by region is enclosed. NSCA policy on measures decided by ballot is enclosed. Listed next are the 2013 rules changes that went into effect January 1, 2013 along with the voting record of the delegates. Anyone who did not fulfill the requirements to hold their position as a delegate, will be replaced after this meeting. There are 7 delegates to be replaced for the remainder of the 2012-2013 term of office. Some of them will have to be replaced by running a replacement election. The final sheet in this section shows all the rules that came up for vote in 2012 and how each delegate voted on each item. Advisory Council (section O) by Robert Crow - Your contact information is listed here. Please check your information listed; if it is incorrect, please stop and see Glynne. Tell her what corrections need to be made. We will update the list and send copies to everyone electronically. Please note under the range owner section, we have 14 members showing instead of 15. Daniel Bailey is currently not working as a range owner/manager; however, he is looking for a new position at a gun club. I have given him 30 days from the time he left Cardinal Shooting Center to find a new job with a gun club, in order to hold his position. If by that time he has not found a position with a gun club, he will be replaced. The next person in line to replace Dan is Jeff Foster of Capital City Gun Club, in Austin, TX. We’ll see how this goes and will inform you as soon as things develop. State of the NSSA (section P) by Robert Crow - This is the first year the NSSA has shown growth in targets as well as membership since 2000 (twelve years). It wasn’t a big increase; but it was an increase. There were 210 new members over 2011and they gained 210 life members. Their targets were up 665,000 targets from 11,223,663 in 2011. There was a slight decrease of 8 clubs; however, there was an increase of 167 shooting events in 2011. They do have more clubs than we do. Honestly, a skeet club doesn’t take up as much room as a sporting clays club does, so there are more skeet and trap clubs around the country. They had a successful Krieghoff Masters at Forest City Gun Club in Savannah, GA in May, which began a new 3 year agreement with Forest City Gun Club. Chris Cantrell is no longer with Forest City Gun Club and they are currently looking for a replacement. There were 363 shooters at the Masters, once again showing a slight profit for the shoot. Registration will open for returning four gun shooters on February 14 until March 1 at which point all interested shooters will be able to register. Registration forms will be published in the February issue of Skeet Shooting Review and posted online. There will be 18 competition fields and four practice fields at member prices.This year the US Open will be held in Albuquerque, NM on September 5-8. Registration will begin on June 1. NSSA is working with High Desert Sportsmen, Dwight and Greta Moore, on medals, advertising and promotion of the shoot. They will have a least 10 competition fields that will accommodate 250 shooters with two practice fields. The NM State Association is sponsoring the Kolar Gun Raffle with 600 tickets available at $50 per ticket. Northbrook Sports Club, St Joe and WSRC, Sparta have bids in for the 2014 US Open. The 2012 World Skeet Championship attendance was down this year from 788 participants in 2011 to 762 participants in 2012. By moving the doubles event back to Monday, we increased participation by 55 shooters and the Champ of Champs event had an increase of 117 shooters by being offered to everyone a an option. Shooters suggestions included having a three day mini-rotation for the four guns and additional daytime activities.Team USA (section Q) by Judy Morris, Team USA Manager. Judy introduced Al Dorn and Brandon Riddering from North America Branding. Al and Brandon helped Randy Voss with the US Open. Last year, I converted all of the Team USA merchandise that I was selling over to these guys. They are helping Team USA this year by creating magazine ads, websites and flyers. The flyer for the Team USA Super School is in the binder. We did so well last year that this year we are offering 3 Super Schools. Team USA wants to look professional and grow the program as well as NSCA. We are looking for more sponsorship; in order to get more sponsorship we have to look more professional for people to take notice. We needed to take our game up a notch. What we are going to focus on today is the presentation in the front of your binder. We call this “Shaping the Future” – How to grow the membership, shoot more targets, etc. Every organization has a “White Horse” helping to run the race; ours is Team USA. We had a fantastic year. Thanks to all of you for your support throughout the year. We exceeded our financial goal in every aspect except our benefit shoots. We have some plans to improve on that in the future. The 2012 and 2013 financial breakdown is in the binder. The financials show the estimated as opposed to the actual revenues for the 2012 shoot year. We estimated $147,500 new revenues and the actual was $247,051. The estimated carry over revenue was $30,000 and the actual carried over revenues were $72,660. The E-Z-GO raffle picked up more money than expected. We have already put down the deposit on the hotel for Spain this year.New goals and programs for 2013; we are hosting 3 Team USA Super Schools, because this was a huge fundraiser in 2012 for Team USA. We have designed a new Team USA logo and we will add new items and more of a variety for sale. We are planning to start up an online store which will also include NSCA items for sale as well as the Team USA items. Negrini Gun Cases, “official gun case of Team USA” will be a sponsor as well as Beretta, Krieghoff, Remington and Winchester.NSCA donates $10,000 to Team USA on years when the World English Sporting Clays Championship is not held in the USA and $17,000 on years when it is held in the US. We had Honorary Team Captains in 2012; there were 8 total last year. That number will grow this year. Member donations are up to $4,500 so far for 2013. Randy Voss started a trend at the US Open by holding a live auction. We are gathering items for the 2013 live auction. The bottom line is estimated in 2013 at $390,000; we hope to do better than 2012.We can work better together, than if we all work in different directions. We have a shared mission, which is to develop and promote the sport of Sporting Clays. Everyone involved are shooters; in order to shoot better, get a professional coach with a proven track record. North America Branding is our coach. They specialize in web-based programs, themed events, branded gear, graphic design, photography and social media. Al Dorn has been in the business for 35 years and worked with Browning. Brandon Kettering has worked in the business for 10 years and worked with the PGA. Samples of their work are included in the binder. North America Branding is responsible for bringing in Matador Ranch as a sponsor in 2012 as well as for 2013. For 2013 we want to launch a clubhouse display, membership rewards, official gear and onsite marketing. We are working on how to brand the items. We want to look official, cohesive and professional.Al Dorn talked about strategies. The attack methods will be to go right to the club; give them an information center 43” X 43”. A wall mounted display is most efficient. It is designed as a go to piece for upcoming events. There will be a white board included for day to day information. As new programs and initiatives come up, we can create new graphics to slide into and replace old graphics. All the benefits of membership are listed and can be easily changed year to year. New members get 50 free targets with their membership. Each club will get a kit, window clings, mounting hard-wear and display; all free to active member clubs, paid by NSCA out of the marketing budget. These items should be available in March and should cost about $100 per club. Brandon Riddering talked about how the membership rewards program will incentivize members by getting them to renew early or upgrade to 6year or life memberships. Points will be given for shooting certain events. Points earned can be redeemed for goods. Shooters earn points every year for 36 months. On the 37th month points expire if they are not used. We do not carry the inventory of items that can be purchased with points. We do not get charged for the inventory, until the points are redeemed. Step1 is to enroll, Step 2 is to earn points and Step 3 is to redeem points. When a person joins they get the instructions on how to sign up for the program. They keep track of their points online. This program can tie together with the NSCA app.We are working on having a 24/7 website for selling Team USA gear and other sale items, opening March 2013. Sale items will be t-shirts, hats, etc., payable with credit cards, only. Sponsors will be added to the website for advertising.There are plans for an on-site event marketing center, with a tent, flags and a truck & trailer rig. The truck and trailer will carry tents, flags, Team USA and NSCA merchandise and reward items to all major events. This will be highly visible and bring people to the tent area. The trailer will be kept with whoever drives the truck. This rig can be driven to oil field shoots and other non-registered shoots to help promote NSCA. This way we help each other; Team USA and NSCA.Beyond making money to pay all of Team USA’s expenses, what would we do with the additional money raised? Judy would like to eventually have a Team USA school, where kids can get lessons and coaching and have a place to stay while going through the school. No child should be refused making Team USA, because their family can’t afford it. Matador Ranch has stated that they want to take Team USA under their wing. They want to make a multi-year plan. It could be included with the Mountain Dew plan as a chance to get outside the shooting industry.The information centers will be sent to NSCA member clubs by North America Branding. Someone asked we can’t we put the information centers in Academy stores, Bass Pro Shops, Disk’s Sporting Goods, etc. The truck could go to different locations as well. Judy will be attending the marketing meeting with Team USA items.Budget and Finance - Part 1(section K) by Ted Sapoznik – The NSCA Finance Committee asked for a new easy to read, one page financial report. Ted went over the new one page financial sheet. Thank you, Steve Scales, for putting this financial sheet together for us. The 2012 financial booklet was prepared by our auditors. Steve Scales will review the 2012 financial booklet Saturday morning. Conflict of Interest - Robert Crow emphasized that we need to protect the associations as well as yourselves from conflict of interest. Please complete the form and leave it with us before you break for lunch. This will help protect the association from a 501c3 stand point as well as protect you. If there is an item up for vote that would enrich you or your company we would ask that you abstain from voting. For instance, if there is a vote for US Open and your club in one of the clubs bidding, you must abstain from voting. In the future, if there is something in your life that changes, for instance if you move or get a new job, please contact Michael or myself for a new form to complete. Robert explained that we will be breaking out for the committee meetings after lunch. The first order of business in the committee meetings will be to elect a new chairman and vice chairman for this year. We will meet for cocktails and dinner in the club house at 5:00PM. We will begin again at 8:30am tomorrow morning.We will now break for lunch and the committee meetings. Friday, January 25, 2013 12:00 PM. Saturday, January 26, 2013, the meeting was called to order by Phil Murray at 8:30 AM. We will continue the committee meetings today, but first we will hear from Scott Grange from Browning and then Steve Scales will give the financial report. After the committee meetings we will have cocktails at 5:00PM and you are on your own for dinner. Phil Murray introduced Scott Grange from Browning. In light of the current political situation in the country, I wanted to mention that Diane Feinstein introduced legislation yesterday, which was the most sweeping gun ban in history. It includes a ban not on a 30 round magazine but on a 10 round magazine and above. So, if you can imagine it wipes out just about every magazine for every gun imaginable. These people have a clear agenda to disarm the American public, end of story. The information that they give the press is not correct information and the press doesn’t give the correct information to the public, either, so it is the intent to give wrong information to the public. So my message today is, if you are not a member of the NRA, you should be. Every adult member of you family should be, as well. We are in the fight of our lives. If we lose these rights, a lot of people will be out of business, including this group. They are going after not just what they call assault weapons; they are going after things as simple as semi- autos and pump shotguns. I know some people get disgusted with the NRA because of the way they work. I tell them were not always in agreement with what NRA does, but we have to take the good with the bad. If you look at the big picture, NRA fights the big battles for second amendment rights when nobody else will. Please explain to friends a family what is going on out there. The NSSF is the spokes group for the industry, not the NRA. The NSSF has been primarily an industry group, now they have individual membership and they are becoming more politically active. Be aware of what is going on out there and pass the word.Louise Terry added that we must wright to our Congressmen and Senators voicing our opinions. Michael Hampton, Jr. said on behalf of the association side of the issue, we get a lot of comments and questions asking why NSSA and NSCA aren’t more vocal and active putting out information about these issues. Because we are a 501c3, we cannot get involved in the political aspect of the situation on behalf of the NSSA/NSCA. Michael Hampton, Executive Director of the NSSA/NSCA cannot speak out on one side or the other on these issues. We cannot get involved by putting information on our website or in the magazine because we do not have a political branch of the associations that can do this for us, like NRA has the ILA. It’s unfortunate that we don’t have a legislative branch to deal with this kind of situation; however, when we pulled out of the Pennsylvania Sports Show, our actions spoke louder than words. It’s unfortunate that we can’t be more politically active. We can say that we support the second amendment, but that’s all we can say. I hope someday that can change where we have a little more freedom to voice our opinions as an association. Scott is correct, as individuals speak out and fight the good fight, but as association members, we can’t do it; we have to protect our 501c3 non-profit status.Michael asked Steve Scales if he had anything else to add. Michael said it very well. We can say that we support the safe and responsible use of firearms, we support the second amendment, we support the use of sporting arms, we can say anything we want about the industry and the guns, what we can’t do is support a political candidate, we can’t support or show that we are not supporting a particular bill in congress. That’s where we have to be careful. So, it’s not a matter of how we say it, that’s the key. John Calandro asked if we can’t have a discussion about gun control on our website. Michael said we can’t sponsor it. He said that right before George W Bush got elected; we had some information out there talking about supporting a certain candidate. That almost got us into trouble; regarding losing our 501c3 status. We did not realize we were doing anything wrong. Our lawyers brought it to our attention, that’s what saved us. It’s in our by-laws, in our charter and in the IRS tax codes. The Complex is owned by the association, so it is part of the 501c3. It’s all in how we word things. We can say we believe in the right of everyone to enjoy the safe, responsible use of sporting arms, we can say that we are a proponent of the second amendment; there are just certain ways we can say things and certain ways we can’t say things. We can say contact your congressman and tell them how you feel about a certain issue, we just can’t say vote this way or that way on a certain issue. Louise said we have 40,000 members who can inundate Washington. Michael said we need to work with our lawyers and ask how we can send a message to our members stating how we feel on an issue, without hurting our 501c3 status. Until we know how to send these messages, we can’t say anything as an association.Anthony Matarese, Jr. asked; if the NRA has a separate entity, the ILA, how hard would it be for us to legally form a separate division like they have? This way we would have the opportunity to make a stand on an issue and gather support from our members and other gun supports in general. We would get the best of both worlds by supporting a cause we believe in and gather new members of the same mind set. Steve Scales said we could set up a separate corporation; however, it can’t be a division of the NSSA and it can’t be run by a majority of the same people who run the NSSA/NSCA. That would satisfy the IRS code. It could be set up by people who are involved in NSSA/NSCA, it just can’t be run by the same people who run the NSSA/NSCA and it would bet set up as a for profit organization. Michael said we are going to have to look into this because he feels there are people on the Advisory Council who feel just like our members do; they are expecting us to do something, to take a stand and speak out about the issues that we face today. It gets to the point that the climate gets so bad that this is the trigger that forces us to look into creating a separate organization that can be our voice on issues. Steve says that we do other things that allow us to speak out; for instance we are members of NSSF and the TSRA, so by our membership we are making a statement. We just can’t make a public statement that says we you’re your support or not support a particular bill or candidate. It’s implied where we stand, instead of actually making a statement. Jim Montgomery said we need to remember, this is not about Sporting Clays; this is about the constitution of America. It’s a fight about the first amendment, as well as a fight about the second amendment. If they take our guns, we will go the way of a lot of other countries in the world. The associations can’t help, but all of our members can make an impact if they tell contact their Congressmen and Senators and tell their friends to contact their Congressmen and Senators, and so on, how they feel about the issues. That’s the best way to get our thoughts and feelings heard. These people who are trying to take our guns are bent on destroying our country; this is a fact. The second amendment was designed to protect the constitution, that’s what it’s for.Michael said we will be looking into what we can do to get more active, legally. In the meantime, we have to utilize our partners in the industry like NSSF and NRA. We have to encourage our membership to join our industry partners until we can figure out what we can do. This is a very important issue; it’s more important issue than marketing, it’s more than growing our membership, all that is a moot point if we don’t have it. We will keep all of you abreast of what is going on.David Clifford said that we need to explain to our members why they hear the sound of silence from us as an association and why we can’t take a position on the issues. Our silence and failure to act could create a sense of animosity among our members, for not speaking out on these issues. If we’re going to do something about that, we should make a resolution as individuals, that the individuals of the Executive Council and Advisory Council are opposed to these issues.Steve Scales said we can go further than that. We can actually send out in our newsletters, information that lets our members know what is going on, information that lets them make the decision to contact their Congressmen and Senators. In other words, give them the information on the issue, so they can make an educated vote on an issue. We aren’t telling them how to vote, we are simply giving them the information they need to vote on an issue. David Clifford said it’s important to say we cannot officially take a stance but the individuals comprising the governing body as individuals, do have a stand and here is how we stand. We can give you the information so you as members can make a stand.Mary Pitts said another thing we can do is boycott those corporations and entities that support the issues that we are against. Unfortunately, Groupon has made a decision to no longer do business with shooting clubs, hunting preserves, gun clubs or those that promote camouflage clothing.Financial Report (handout) by Steve Scales - 2012 was the best year in the history of the organization. We ended the year with a $526,413. Some of that was due to money raised by restricted funding that was not spent in 2012 but will be spent in 2013. Those in part are the $187,000 surplus taken in by additional target fees during the 2012 shoot year, as part of the $300,000 marketing program. There was $52,000 surplus from Team USA that will roll forward to start 2013. Thank you Judy for all of your hard work! The remaining portion of that surplus is around $300,000 was raised by 3 different areas. The NSC has continued to increase its open shooting, corporate and charitable events and the number of people involved in those corporate and charitable events have increased as well. Those of you who were at the 2012 Nationals know that we set new records this year in attendance and targets. We threw over a million registered targets and that doesn’t include the other revenue targets we threw for practice and other activities. In addition, we recorded a 9-10% interest gain earned on our investments for 2012. Our finance committee is a bi-organizational committee made up of both NSSA and NSCA. They have quarterly meetings with our investment brokers and sometime more often, to keep us on track.A couple of other things I want to mention, 2012 was the first year in many years where both associations increased their memberships, and targets thrown. NSCA has been on an upward gain for many years, about a 5% gain in 2012. NSSA had the first gain in membership in twelve years, up about 1%. Targets thrown were up for both organizations, about 1% for NSSA and about 7% for NSCA.We entered into several capital projects in 2012. We built new bleachers in the stadium field; there is a new maintenance complex, new restrooms in vendor row and a new hospitality building. The new maintenance building was financed through Frost Bank with a note. The note was negotiated at 3.85% fixed rate with no pre-pay penalty for 5 years. We work very closely with our bank to get rates like this.On page 2 of the gray financial statement book, you will see that our cash assets exceed a million dollars in 2012. I want to explain what some of that is. $400,000 is money restricted for specific purposes. That breaks down as such; at the end of the year we had $281,000 for the marketing program for NSCA. That money cannot be spent on anything other than NSCA marketing. It is restricted; we even have a money market account set up to put much of this money in. When we spend the money on these programs that Nicki has presented to you; that is when this money will be spent. Team USA has $72,000 going into the 2013 year; that money is restricted as well. That money is in the bank and cannot be spent except for programs approved by the Team USA budget for the 2013 year. We have our scholarship fund that rolls over each year, for both associations. We have some other money raised for other smaller projects, such as youth shooting. So, $400,000 of the million dollars in the bank cannot be touched except for the specific purposes for each program. The remaining $700,000 plus is available for operations and what’s nice about that is in previous years, we’ve had to borrow money on our revolving note during the slow months of the year in order to get buy. Having that $700,000 in the bank at the beginning of the year will allow us to get through the high points and the low points in the year.On page 14 of the financial book, you will see post-employment benefits. This has been on the books for over 10 years. What’s great about this is; this will be paid in full by 2017. This will not only generate cash flow during the year but it will be an expense that can be taken off the books. This is one of the agreements that we have with one of the past Executive Directors.On page 15 you will see temporarily restricted assets and how many we have in certain programs. We are not required by law to do this but what we do is; we take 100% of the dollars that come to us in donations or given to us for specific purposes and they go 100% out. We do not apply any administrative fees or management fees. We do not use any of these restricted assets for salaries. We are adamant about continuing to do this in the future.At the end of the report, the last 3 pages are in a different format. In conjunction with the audit committee, knowing that this report is the one that goes out to the public, this is the report we give to sponsors, vendors, people we are doing business with get this book so we can show them who we are and how we are financially. The audit committee decided that they wanted to go to a more concise, easier to read report. This report breaks out the three programs NSSA/NSCA/NSC and then shows separately the fundraising development activities, management, general activities, and membership and magazine activities. This gives us numbers that give a better feel of what we do, who were are, how we support ourselves and how we generate activities at the complex.In addition to that, we have been doing a lot of format changes this year to try to help provide more meaningful tools to everyone in the financial area. There are two pages you should have received yesterday. One is a summary of NSCA budget items, showing basically what their performance was for 2012. The other was a total company perspective on what we did in 2012, broken out in the different divisions.Let’s look at the one with the figure $526,413 in the bottom right hand corner. What we’ve tried to do with this schedule is have a one page presentation of the status of the company at the end of the year, financially as far as the profit and loss goes. We’ve consolidated the revenue items; for example the first item is membership dues. Instead of breaking out all the different types of dues, we are basically saying these are the membership dues of NSCA which are $778,000 of NSSA which are $339,000 and NCA which are $15,940. You will see the funds we raised for the NSCA marketing program. You will then see regular target fees for each association. In the expense section, we have done some things to help highlight what we do in the management decisions we make as an organization. Staff salaries and wages, allocated salaries, event wages; we’ve broken those out so we can see how the salaries stack up. When you see staff salaries and wages, that’s our permanent staff on the property, not counting the staff at the shared management level; Michael, myself, Information Technology department and human resources, because we are shared among all the other departments. Everyone else who is a regular staff member logs their time or keeps track of what they do or they are dedicated to certain departments. Their dollars are put on that line which says staff salaries and wages. Should they work overtime on an event or if we hire extra loaders or cashiers or temporary workers for an event, then you see that under event wages, under the NSC consolidated activities. The third line is allocated salaries, which tells you how much you are spending on people, like Michael, Brad Jones, Michael Voto, Susan Britt and I. These people are not specifically allocated to a certain department, but are basically here for the general welfare of the organization. Down below, we’ve done the same thing for general administrative expenses. We have program specific expenses identified as NSSA/ NSCA or NSC activities. Then you have G & A expenses allocated which are things like when our auditors come to do an audit. They don’t just do an audit on NSSA/NSCA or NSC. They do an audit on everything; that is our corporate shared expense. At the bottom we have the investment activities for the year and then the interest we incur through Frost Bank. I hope this report is useful for everyone. We have a great finance committee here at NSCA who was involved in the construction of this report. If you have concerns or questions, or something you want to see on these reports, let them know. They are the ones who will spearhead anything that deals with this document. Please share these documents with those in your communities who are members of NSCA. These documents and reports will help you explain what we do at NSCA. Dave Fiedler asked if we know if any of our investments are anti-gun. Steve said that our investment strategy has not looked into that, specifically. However, if we found something obvious, we would talk to our investment people about it, just to get an idea of how involved we are with it. Most of our investments are mutual funds and they are widely distributed between large cap and small cap funds. They buy in and out of different industries on a regular basis. It is hard to keep track of who they are investing in at any certain time, unless there is a very large share in a certain company.Dave Fiedler said we make an issue out of dumping any anti-gun investments and let our members know we are taking a stance against anyone who is trying to work against us. Louise Terry said that they had expresses their desires to our investment brokers that we do not want to invest in any anti-gun companies if at all possible. Steve said we meet quarterly and we look at things like USB and their problems and we try to avoid things like that. If we see something that looks like a problem, we ask questions about it.John Calandro said, as part of the Finance Committee, it has been easy to work with you. Your reports have been great, they are timely and we appreciate all that you do for us. Thank you, Steve.9:40am Committee Breakout Sessions began. Lunch served from noon to 1pm. 2nd Breakout session from 1pm-5pm. Sunday January 27, 2013 - The meeting was called to order by Phil Murray at 8:30am.Phil said there were a few things to discuss before the committee reports. There was an Executive Council meeting this morning. Phil explained that there were some issues that developed yesterday during and after the Rules and Governance Committee Meeting. All items in the governance committee have been tabled; we will remain status quo for the time being. Until we get to the point where a unity with the NSSA develops and we have an understanding of how the hierarchy is set up, everything that came out of that meeting, all the voting, etc. is tabled. For the concern that many of you had, whether it’s about the industry, or the zones or anything else; everything has been tabled. I know there are many of you that would like to voice your opinion about what occurred; I don’t mean to be rude but we can’t cover it right now. We’ve got a program to go through. There will be plenty of time at the end to bring things up. Our Executive Council looked at the situation after talking to everyone and getting your input; we can’t make any valid decisions in the 4 hours left today. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered. On the industry side, there are certain people that need to be brought in and items discussed with them. I’m not saying that this is a bad idea, but there needs to be more discussion and more involvement before we get to that point. We have had a great year; we’ve made some very good inroads with NSSA. What I don’t want to see is a slow down or impediment where we start fighting amongst ourselves and disagreeing about what is right and what is wrong. There is not enough thought that was allowed to go into it. We are going to move ahead and that is precisely why we are saying what happened yesterday and what was discussed is being tabled. When more discussion comes into play with NSSA, about how it might be one organization with two divisions and we know how we are able to decide what the set-up is going to be then some of these issues may come into play. It might take 6 months or it might take3 years before anything gets done. However, with the success we have had and how things have been going, the feeling is to make any changes at this point or to pose any change at this point, now, is not the best time to do it. John Calandro said we are voiding our form of government, that if we want to vote it down today, because the committee already voted it in, there should be a vote to table or void the decision. Anthony Matarese, Jr. said he was in the meeting and did a short re-cap of what went on. We shouldn’t follow the plans of a person or a group without telling us what the plans are. It may be a great idea to merge the NSSA and the NSCA, but nothing was provided explain how all of this would happen. At some time, maybe we can get this done, but we need a plan showing how it will be done; we want to have everything up front before we vote on it.Mike McAlpine thanked Phil Murray for discussing all of the items from last night and feels we need to move forward. John Calandro said we have been making awesome progress, but to try to change the structure of the Advisory Council and the Executive Council is wrong. In the future this may be a great idea; we need more information. You’re doing this the right way, and I appreciate it.John Calandro said, “sitting and watching the Executive Council for the last two years, not counting this meeting, you guys have done an awesome job working together”. I would have never expected, coming out of the last meeting, to have the year we’ve had with the shooters, with the results we’ve had and with the co-operation of the body. My understanding was this proposal was not vetted by the Executive Committee. You guys are our leaders. If that was true, if they didn’t send the plan to you before you went to your committee, in my opinion, that shows a lack of respect for our whole body. That committee made a vote and that vote needs to take place. We can agree not to have discussion, we can agree to make it a voice vote but that committee made a decision. In the respect of our body of governance, we need to complete what we normally do on any other motion, for any other committee. We don’t have to have discussion beyond this; if you call for vote, Mr. Chairman. We can have a voice vote, if no one wants to go on record, even if they are on record for their committee votes, we can do that. In everything you’ve said today, Phil, it was perfectly said and I agree with you. There is a higher goal to get there; we have to figure out a better way to get to that goal that involves out leaders that involves us. Dave Fiedler made a motion to void everything that happened in the Governance and Rules Committee Meeting, yesterday. Louise Terry brought up the fact that there were rules changes that were voted on, so not everything should be voided. It was discussed that the Rules and Governance Committee could review the proposed rule changes after the meeting and send them to the Advisory Council at a later date. John Calandro said to vote it up or down. John said there was no such thing as voiding a committees meeting; vote it up or down. That is not in Robert’s Rules of Order. Dave Fiedler amended his motion to the following; “All proposed Rules and Governance changes be voted down”. The motion was seconded by Derek Moore. A call to vote was made. All in favor of voting down all proposed Rules and Governance changes: 31 in favor, 3 opposed and 6 abstained. Motion carriedRobert Crow stated that the committees would now give their reports.Rules and Governance Committee - There will be no governance committee report. Bop Lepor said we will resubmit those items that have nothing to do with the governance rules at a later date. NSCA Finance Committee Summary - Louise Terry gave the Finance Committee report.Attendees: Committee Members, plus Steve Scales as well as Jack Tans as a guest. Ted Sapoznik was not available due to his health problem, so the meeting was called to order by Vice Chairman, Louise Terry. Election for coming year: Chairman, Ted Sapoznik and Vice Chairman, Louise Terry.Reviewed the 2012 NSCA actuals in the new financial format.Reviewed the 2013 NSCA budget in the new format. Steve pointed out that the budget assumptions used are conservative (for example, attendance in our major events, etc.) and are carefully planned based on past events. Several questions were fielded on allocated expenses, taxes, etc.2014 budget schedule and creation process was reviewed. In August Steve meets with Robert Crow and department heads to define the objectives planned, operations, areas for change to make improvements, etc. and discuss how these ideas will affect the calculations for personnel, capital, events, discretionary spending, etc.John Calandro, who works for Merrill Lynch as a wealth manager asked to become a member of the NSSA/NSCA financial committee. Louise will pursue this with the Finance mittee Goals: We will make these financials, in the new format, available to the general membership on the website (with Steve’s contact information). NSCA Finance Committee will receive quarterly reports (actuals vs. budget) in the new format.Will continue to improve transparency of information and will copy the NSCA Finance Committee on the Finance Committee Meeting mittee reviewed process for allocating earmarked marketing funds and commends staff and the Marketing Committee for a job well done.Awards Committee - Todd Kemmerer gave the Awards Committee Report.1.Todd Kemmerer accepted Chairman. Paula Benbow Moved, John Hackethorn 2nd.John Hackethorn accepted Vice Chair. Dave Fiedler moved, Vance Barnes 2nd.2. Team USA updates by Judy Morris: Qualification is same for Sporting as last year. FITASC added that one of the qualifying shoots needs to be one of the 200 bird World FITASC events. Using World point system based on HOA top score. Team USA members need to participate in fund raising events or they will not get all of the benefits.3. 2013 HOF Nominees: Voted to create a HOF committee consisting of HOF members to come up with the criteria and to pick the suggested nominations for HOF and present them to the EC. After discussing the issue; John Hackethorn made a motion to leave the Awards Committee as is, with the Awards Committee making the decision with the help of the Hall of Fame members. Scott Roberson seconded the motion. A vote was called with 33 votes for leaving the Awards Committee as is with help from the Hall of Fame members, 3 against and 4 abstaining. The motion carried.4. Reviewed the Championship Tour Points System. A sub-committee of Todd Kemmerer, Paula Benbow, John Hackethorn and David Fiedler will get out to committee members and then to EC.5. Sub-gauge on Krieghoff All-American; leave as is.6. Leave 12 gauge All-American Team as is.7. Create FITASC All-American Team. After Discussing the issue; John Hackethorn made a motion to create a National FITASC & 5-Stand Ranking System, including class and concurrent, post them on the website for now & send the top 10 people a patch and/or pin, similar to the NSCA National Class Ranking. We can see where to go from there. The motion was seconded by Scott Robertson. A vote was called for. 37 agreed to create the points ranking system, 1 opposed and 2 abstained. The motion carried.Instructor Committee Report - Andy Duffy gave the Instructor Committee Report1. First order of business was to elect a new Chairman and Vice Chairman. Nominations were taken. Those nominated for Chairman were Andy Duffy, Mike Mohr and Mike McAlpine. Andy Duffy was elected Chairman of the committee. A motion was made by Dave Fiedler; seconded by Scott Grange, and the motion carried: The person with the next highest number of votes would be Vice Chairman, which was Mike McAlpine.2. A lot of discussion took place on what to do to improve the instructor program. Out of this discussion came these motions which were seconded and the motions carried.a. Fist motion was made by Scott Robertson, seconded by Scott Grange, which the motion carried: Create a Full Time Instructor Program.b. The second motion was made by Scott Robertson, seconded by Scott Grange, which the motion carried: To create 2 committees. The first committee will be a vetting committee to build the Full Time Professional Instructor Program. This committee will be made up of 5 people, which are: Gary Greenway, Andy Duffy, Vance Barnes, Mike McAlpine and Steve Schultz. The second committee will be the Marketing/Benefit Committee which will name the criteria and time line for beginning the Full Time Professional Instructor Program. This committee will also decide how best to advertise and market the entire program. This committee is made up of: Scott Grange, Scott Robertson and David Rippetoe.c. The third motion was made by Scott Robertson, seconded by Brett Siebert, which the motion carried: to revamp the instructor program by creating a National Basic Instructor level which will teach people how to shoot and utilize our instructors. Scott Robertson added the following comments: The vetting committee will create the format of the Basic Instructor Level. The reason for this last motion is; we want to create, through the marketing department, a reason for the top instructors to exist. What we want to do is create a nationally based intro to Sporting Clays/intro to shotgun class that is formatted, so we can advertise that our instructors will teach the courses. The instructors can contact our member clubs and ask them if they would like to have a course taught at their club. If the club approves we can help market in Sporting Clays magazine, on our website and at the gun clubs. This will introduce people to shot gunning and we then introduce them to the Level I, Level II and Level III course, in that order. Andy made a motion to create a full time instructor program. Brett Seibert seconded the motion. Jim Montgomery asked if the motion means, they will put the package together, bring it back to the committee to be approved, before progressing. Andy said, yes. A vote was taken with 36 voting to accept the motion, 0 votes against and 1 abstained.Louise Terry made a motion to have the committee proceed in creating the introduction to shot gunning class, develop the course material that the instructors will use. The committee will write the format and come up with the pay scales. Steve Schultz seconded the motion. Discussion: Scott Robertson said this would not be an instructor course to precede the Level I; this will be a course to teach people how to shoot the different disciplines, trap, skeet and sporting clays. Our committee will set the basic format of what to teach such as proper stance, how to use chokes, check for eye dominance, etc. We will also come up with pay scales defining how much the instructor makes and how much NSCA gets from the courses. The Level III and Full Time Professional Instructors will be the only one teaching the courses with the Level I and Level II instructors will mentor along with Level III and the Full Time Professional Instructors. It would also be used as continuing education for the Level I instructors. A vote was taken with 36 votes for proceeding, 0 votes against and 1 abstaining. Competition Committee - Steve Schultz gave the Competition Committee Report 1. Chairman - Steve Schultz accepted nomination John Calandro 1st motion John Hackethorn 2nd motion Vice Chair – Paula Benbow accepted nomination Jason Miller- 1st motionDavid Rippetoe 2nd motion2. 2013 NSCA Chief FITASC Referee is Scott Williams Scott Robertson 1st motionFrieda Lancaster 2nd motion3. 2013 NSCA Chief Sporting Clays Referee is Mo ParsonsScott Robertson 1st motionFrieda Lancaster 2nd motion4. Changes to Regional Shoot Criteria (see criteria form in binder) 1. d. Added: with 4 different menus.2. The dates of the shoot must be published at least 6 months prior to the shoot or not later than Jan. 1st 6. The shoot shall use certified FITASC Referees and experienced referees….Regional Deadlines for 2014 Regional Shoot Bids 19. Application to be sent to NSCA Director by May 8, 2013/delegates to vote by May 15, 2013/sent to EC by May 25, 2013/announced June 1, 2013. 20. Voting Procedure: Ballot sent by May 8th, 2012, deadline for ballots to Regional Delegate is May 15, 2012Regional deadlines for 2015 Regional Shoot Bids:Bids out to clubs by July 1st, 2013/Sent to NSCA Director by Sept 1st, 2013/delegates vote by Sept. 8th, 2013/ sent to EC by Sept. 15th, 2013 On the committee level it was moved to accept changes; by John Calandro, 2nd Hayward Cunningham; passed5. US Open Criteria passed as is. Moved by Paula Benbow/2nd Steve Edmondson 6. World English Criteria Changes (see criteria form in binder) 1. c. Added: “recommended that there be no more than 3 events on the course. 12. Added: “that must be preapproved by the EC. 16. Remove 1st paragraph.On the committee level it was moved to accept changes; John Hackethorn, seconded by Steve Edmondson; passed.7. Should the National Championship HOA title be limited to shooters that compete over four days? What about the Saturday/Sunday junior shooters? Moved to keep everything as is. Moved Paula Benbow, Dan Twitchell, passed. Shooters must sign up no later than 10 days prior to Nationals, no changes in squadding after that. Shooters from Tues/Wed rotation or Thurs-Sun rotation are eligible. Juniors shooting the Sat/Sun rotation are not eligible for HOA. 8. Recommended that the 2014 National Championship move to four (4) two day rotations for the main event, with a minimum of three (3) two day main event. Side events start on Monday. On the committee level it was moved to accept changes; by Scott Robertson, seconded by Dan Twitchell, passed.In the general meeting a motion was made by Martin Jones to go to four (4) two day rotations for the 2014 Nationals Main Event Saturday/Sunday, skip Monday, Tuesday/Wednesday, Thursday/Friday, Saturday/Sunday; seconded by Vance Barnes. A vote was called with the motion passing unanimously. It was also decided to start all side events on Monday instead of Tuesday, if need be. New dates and times will be posted around the time of the US Open 9. For 2013 it is recommend for the NSCA Championship Tour to allow the clubs to have the option to offer a provisional Pro Class that would be treated like Master class for punches, options and All- American points.Qualifications for Pro Class: Any shooter who has won the US Open, Nationals, World FITASC or World English Sporting events in the last 5 years or any Team USA Open FITASC or Open Sporting Member from this year or last year or the top 30 All American Open points list and this year’s All American Open team members. In the general meeting a motion was made by Scott Robertson to allow voluntary Pro/Master Class at this year’s regionals and treated the same as Master Class for trophies only, with All-American points and punches being awarded; seconded by John Hackethorn. A vote was called with 35 in favor, 0 against and 0 abstained. Unanimously carried.10. For 2014 we are proposing to make a Pro Class for the NSCA Championship Tour and any Mega Blasts (300+) mandatory and optional for any NSCA registered shoot. This class would have separate trophies and payouts that would match Master class or better. In the general meeting a motion was made by Brett Seibert to make the Pro Class mandatory in the Main event only at the Regional Tour, US Open and Nationals and optional for any other shoots; separate trophies, options, etc. to match Master Class or better, with All-American points and punches awarded, 2014 and seconded by Zach Kienbaum. A vote was called for with 27 voting for, 3 opposed and 2 abstained. The motion carried.11. For 2014 Eliminate E Class. On the committee level it was moved to accept; by Scott Robertson, seconded by Dan Twitchell, passed.E Class discussions will be left up to the rules and governance committee.12. New Business: John Calandro wants a vetting committee for the regional shoots. Todd Kemmerer moved we have John Calandro chair a committee to do so; 2nd by Steve Schultz, passed.2013 NSCA Championship Tour Schedule was mittee formed with Todd Kemmerer as chair, John Hackethorn as vice chair and Paula Benbow as vice chair. Scott Robertson will be on committee also. Will look at how points are awarded, awards given, Promotion to be done, etc. in next month so we can get rolling on this year’s Tour.2014 NSCA Championship Tour suggestion - Allow and encourage the Regional Tour Clubs to bid on World Cup FITASC (FITASC Grand Prix and the North American FITASC), 200 bird events with 1st right of refusal. This is so the shooters racing for Team USA can make more of the qualifying shoots for both FITASC and Sporting and have less travel expenses. On the committee level it was moved by Scott Robertson, 2nd by Brett Seibert, passed. In the general meeting a motion was made by Scott Robertson to allow those clubs hosting a Regional Championship Tour event or World FITASC event, first right of refusal, to hold the World Cup (200 bird events); Mo Parsons seconded the motion. A vote was called for with 29 in favor, 1 opposed and 2 abstained.Marketing Committee - Phil Murray gave the Marketing Committee ReportThe first order of business was to elect the Chair and Vice Chair for 2013. Tim Miles made a motion for Phil Murray to be elected Chair, and Betty Krieghoff seconded the motion. All agreed. Andy Perkins made the motion for Mary Pitts to be elected the Vice-Chair, and Anthony Matarese Jr. seconded the motion. All agreed.The meeting continued with Judy Morris and North America Branding answering questions regarding the marketing piece for clubs, the Shooting for Rewards Program and the joint marketing focus with Team USA and NSCA. All committee members agreed to move forward with the proposed programs as well as utilizing North America Branding with our other marketing efforts. The committee then had a discussion regarding the truck and trailer that Team USA has proposed to purchase in 2013 for the use of onsite event marketing. The point was made that this is an excellent tool to utilize regarding the joint marketing efforts of Team USA and NSCA. The “rig” would have the NSCA logo and website prominently displayed on the sides for visibility while traveling down the road. Additionally, from the NSCA marketing stand point it could be utilized as a display at trade shows and large non-registered shoots, such as the oil man shoots, in our efforts to increase membership. Judy Morris and Tim Miles then asked the marketing committee to contribute 1/3 of the total cost of the truck and trailer as well as 1/3 of the annual operating cost. The total cost of the truck and trailer is estimated to be $75,000; $50,000 being funded through Team USA and $25,000 proposed to be funded by the NSCA Marketing Account. At this point in time the rough estimated annual operating cost is $15,000; $10,000 to be funded through Team USA and $5,000 proposed to be funded by the NSCA Marketing Account. A motion was made by Tim Miles for NSCA to fund 1/3 of the expenditure at $25,000 and $5,000 for the rig and operating cost. Chip Hutchinson seconded the motion. Motion carried unanimously.After a short recess Nicki Martin went through the 2013 Marketing Recommendations with the committee. Based on a recommendation by Nicki the committee agreed that it would be very beneficial to look into visiting some large non-registered shoots, utilizing some of the funds made available by not attending the Eastern Sports & Outdoors Show. Then in regards to the Membership app. being created for NSCA; the discussion led to several suggestions being made that Nicki and Robert will be looking into with the designer. Lastly, the discussion regarding the proposal of squadding top shooters together during the 2013 Nationals raised several questions and concerns. It was decided that before any final decisions were made we need to have a conversation with Bandito Films regarding their needs for filming and how this year’s Nationals will fit into their proposed timeline. Nicki will have that discussion on Monday and report back to the pleted Reviewing Committee ReportsRobert Crow asked if there was any other old business; there was none.Robert Crow asked if there was any new business. Mary Pitts had new business to discuss. A handout was passed to everyone.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION: A potential loss of $23,480.00 in annual revenue to NSCA resulted from NSSA piggybacking and jointly exhibiting at the first scheduled tradeshow approved by NSCA to enhance its growth potential. This potential loss in annual revenue does not include the potential loss of future target fees, or more damaging, the potential future loss in revenue to our member clubs. Should the use of NSCA marketing funds be for the sole purpose of promulgating the advancement and growth of NSCA? If answered in the affirmative, NSCA should not participate in any joint efforts with NSSA, where the expenditure of funds is not fully, completely and reliably focused solely on the growth and enhancement of NSCA and its membership. STIPULATION: We, the members of the Advisory Council (and members of the Executive Committee), have an ethical duty as well as a fiduciary responsibility to the members of our organization, National Sporting Clays Association, to use the dedicated marketing funds to grow our membership and to increase the public awareness of sporting clays, thereby enhancing the benefits of membership. Our membership expects and deserves not only a fair and accurate accounting of the expenditure of funds, but that every penny spent is spent directly for the marketing and growth of NSCA. It is incumbent that to continue developing and implementing strategies consistent with the goals of our members, that we are not encumbered with a yoke of having to share our efforts, benefits and resources in trying to fit the needs and traditions of another organization. CONSIDERATION: Diluting our marketing efforts by jointly marketing with NSSA will not allow us to provide a full and accurate accounting of cost to benefit to NSCA members. More importantly, it will prohibit us from marketing NSCA in the most efficient, effective and aggressive manner possible. Any joint effort will result in less than 100% focus on NSCA. This will result in negligence of our fiduciary responsibility to expend all funds for the sole purpose of enhancing the growth of NSCA. It is imperative that we not create any conflict of interest in the execution of our marketing efforts or strategies. This dilution of benefits can be demonstrated by the recent attendance at a trade show approved by NSCA, and then hijacked into a “joint” marketing effort with NSSA, resulting in the above referenced potential loss of annual revenue to NSCA of $23,400. In a memorandum recapping the exposure and benefit of the show’s attendance sent not only to NSCA marketing committee members but to the NSSA marketing committee as well, it was disclosed that the contact information for 587 individuals was compiled as a result of exhibiting in the show. This data base list of potential members is the primary benefit of marketing at a trade show. The joint memo indicated that an email would be generated for this list of potential members. The email will not be sent as a marketing effort by NSCA, but it will ask for the recipient to join either NSSA or NSCA. In other words, we have forfeited the opportunity to earn a potential of $23,480 of annual dues (not to mention potential future target fees and potential future revenue to our member clubs) by not solely soliciting the membership in NSCA of a soft sell prospect list of 587 individuals. A list of 587 prospects represents a potential increase in membership of over 2.4% (based on membership level of 24,326 as of October 15, 2012). This potential increase of 2.4% is roughly one-half of the total increase in paying members of 5% from October,2011 to October, 2012! While it is most likely that all 587 individuals might not respond positively to joining NSCA, it is the lost opportunity that highlights the inherent conflict of interest that exists by jointly marketing with NSSA. A potential annual revenue loss of $23,400 that is generated by one event, when multiplied by numerous events is not only a tremendous potential revenue loss, but would be gross negligence in the performance of our fiduciary responsibility to the members of NSCA. CONCLUSION: In the past year, we have made great strides and tremendous progress in developing a marketing plan to grow aggressively the participation in sporting clays and in membership in NSCA. Our revamped membership focus is geared towards including recreational as well as competitive sporting clay shooters. It is imperative that we implement our marketing strategy for the stakeholders in NSCA—our shooters, our member clubs, and members of industry. Our membership expects that our efforts will be focused on the growth of NSCA. If any of our efforts has a corollary effect of benefiting NSSA, then we should encourage them in their desire to grow their own organization. However, we cannot sacrifice our growth opportunities in order to help them. If we can benefit our members by offering discounts based on the combined numbers of NSCA and NSSA, then we should participate in that joint effort. However, the expenditure of marketing funds generated by the members of NSCA should be made on the behalf of and for the benefit of NSCA membership. We owe no less duty for the trust that our membership has placed in us.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Discussion: Moving forward, all joint marketing efforts with NSSA will be approved by the NSCA Marketing Committee. Some joint marketing makes sense. Tim Miles had new business to discuss.Tim Miles stated that he was in the Rules and Governance Committee. If you are chairman of a committee you need to be the chairman. The chairmanship cannot be passed off to someone else in a committee meeting. The point is we need procedural structure to our meetings. There were questions asked that didn’t get answered. As you go through the procedures, there are codes of conduct that need to be followed for your meeting.Louise Terry said we need to refresh our procedures. Topics should go through sub-committees for review, and those topics get brought by the committee to the Advisory Council for final decision. Tim made the point that you can’t make good decisions without information given ahead of time. If you follow procedures, you will have a good productive meeting. How do we get there? Why can’t we have all of the information to be discussed given to us prior to the meetings. We need to have a small committee to come up with proper procedures or by-laws. Ted Sapoznik was asked to head a committee, which would come up with organizational rules and procedures.Ted Sapoznik said he was willing to help, if everyone is willing to follow the rules. Ted said some of the meetings were very messy.A motion to adjourn was made by David Fiedler; seconded Andy Duffy. Motion carried unanimously. The meeting adjourned at 12:05PM, January 27, 2013.As requested by John Calandro, the Rules and Governance Meeting Minutes are below. Please note that all proposed Rules and Governance changes were voted down by the Advisory Council.Rules and Governance Committee Meeting Minutes1. As a committee, choose a Chairman and Vice Chairman of your Committee. Chairman will be responsible for creating a committee report to share with the Advisory Council Sunday morning. EC will give final approval of committee chairs. Bob Lepor brought the committee to order. The first order of business was to vote in the Chairman and vice Chairman. It was decided to keep Bob Lepor as Chairman and Dave Fiedler as Vice Chairman 2.Review the proposed changes to the governance structure?Governance items were held until the Rules items were covered.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------(handout) Recommended NSCA Governance Changes – January, 2013The following changes to the NSCA Governance Plan are being recommended for discussion and adoption based on various inputs received over the past year by the AC Governance Committee members, as well as by NSCA HDQ staff.The Plan is to discuss in –committee at our breakout meeting Jan. 25/26, and prepare an agreed-to report & set of recommendations to be presented to the A & EC members during the Jan. 27 Committee reports. Change 5 Regions back to 8 Zones.Perhaps the most significant outcome of the change to the Region structure has been the creation ofthe successful Regional Championships (aka the “Pro Tour”). Leave the traveling Pro Tour “as is”, to be monitored and directed by the AC Competition Committee as a vehicle for selecting TEAM USA members, and reinstate the Zones and their Zone shoots. Rationale:this will allow more member clubs the opportunity to bid on hosting Zone shoots. Some clubs are not large enough to bid for one of the larger Regional Shoots, and there are 2 fewer regional shoots than Zone Shoots. This would give more of our smaller member clubs an opportunity to be part of the action.the Zone shoots, by definition, will be closer to home for more shooters, especially in the NE allowing more shooters to shoot their Zone shoots (within driving distance) than Regionals; individually any single Regional shoot may have been larger than an individual Zone shoot, but the Zone shoots collectively, probably had more individual shooters participating when taken in total. Many of the same “top 100” shooters traveled to most all of the Pro Tour shoots because they were “selection shoots”, but individual shooters were collectively less-represented. There seems to be a place for both Regionals and Zone shoots – each perhaps attracting different shooters.re-instating Zones with their respective Zone teams gives more shooters an opportunity to strive for the recognition of making their Zone teams……this will incent more shooters to shoot more targets annually; re-instating the Zone structure will address the situation with Zone 8 countries, the largest of which is Canada who is asking for recognition as a part of NSCA. The Zone 8 countries were completely disregarded when the change to Regions was made.In the committee meeting a motion to accept re-instating the Zones for all of the reasons listed for 2014 was made by Phil Murray; seconded by Jim Montgomery, with the motion passing. Change the makeup of the Advisory Council to be more representative of shooters and to eliminate conflict of interest situations. 2 examples follow, depending on whether the decision is made ultimately to be Region-centric or (Zone-centric). AC would be comprised of 25 members if Regions (OR 28 members if Zones). SHOOTERS:1.) 4 shooters per Region X 5 Regions = 20 (OR 3 shooters per Zone x 7 Zones = 21).2.) Shooters are elected by the National Delegates of their respective Regions (or Zones).3.) Term of office = two years.4.) Shooters must each have 1,000 registered targets the year prior to election and must maintain at least 1,000 registered targets per year for the remainder of their term.5.) Shooters must attend at least 2 of the 3 scheduled meeting each year to maintain their AC membership.Since the committee voted in A. above to re-instate the Zones; all references to Zones would apply in 1 through 5, above. There will be a 2 phase election; one step to vote in the shooters per zone and the second step to vote in 7 at large shooters. RANGE OWNERS: 1 Range Owner from each of the 5 Regions = 5 (OR 1 Range Owner from each of 7 Zones =7).Range Owners are elected by the National Delegates of their respective Regions (OR Zones).Term of Office = Two years.Range Owner’s club must have registered 100,000 targets in one of the two years prior to election (NOTE: in 2011, there were 60 clubs throwing 100,000 + registered targets).Range Owners may not vote on awarded shoots (i.e. U.S. Open, Regional Championships, etc….) to avoid conflict of interest.Range Owners must attend at least 2 of the 3 scheduled meeting each year to maintain their AC membership.Since the committee voted in A. above to re-instate the Zones; all references to Zones would apply in 1 through 6, above. The number of required targets in #4 above was changed to 30,000. #5 above was MITTEES: Re-define the Hall of Fame Committee as a stand-alone Committee (i.e., not part of the AC) to consist of 7 selected Hall of Fame Members. These members will be selected each term by the EC and do not need to be AC members. A Committee Chairman will be elected from within by the Committee members at their first meeting each term. This Committee will review all HOF nomination each year and make recommendations prior to the annual Winter Meeting to the EC of the candidates for induction that year. The EC votes to approve all inductees.Re-define the Instructor Committee to consist of selected LVL 2 and LVL 3 Certified Instructors from across the county. Neither these members not the Chair need to be AC or EC members. This committee takes direction directly from the EC.Details should be further defined by the Committee and address these questions: How Many members should comprise this Committee? How should the members be selected, (Geographically by Region/Zone, or by some other experience qualifier) and by whom? Should the Chief Instructor be Chairman of this Committee?? Etc………. Keep the following AC Committees – Awards, Competition, Finance, Marketing, and Rules & Governance. These 5 Committees are made up of AC members; each AC member choses 1 committee to serve on; at least 1 EC member sits on each of these Committees, bit the EC member is NOT required to be the Chairman. The Committee Chairman is elected by the Committee from within, at its first session of each term. Change the makeup of the Executive Council to be more representative of shooters and avoid conflict of interest situations. EC would be comprised of 7 members if Regions (OR 9 members if Zones).SHOOTERS: 1 Shooter from each of five Regions = 5 (OR 1 shooter from each of 7 Zones = 7).Shooters are elected by the Advisory Council.Term of office = Two years.Since the committee voted in A. above to re-instate the Zones; all references to Zones would apply in 1 through 3, above. With that said, there would be a total of 9 EC members, 7 from the shooter category and 2 from the range owner category (see #1, below) . RANGE OWNERS:2 Range Owners elected from the Range Owners serving on the Advisory Council.Elected by the Range Owners on the Advisory Council.Term of Office = Two years.ELIGIBILITY: Must have served on the Advisory Council at least one term prior to nomination for an EC position.Must be a current Advisory Council Member.OFFICERS:Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Secretary will be elected from within, by the Executive Council, at their meeting each year. In the committee meeting a motion was made by Chip Hutchison to adjust the items in letter C above as follows: in 2014-2015 everyone is eligible, but new elections in 2016-2017 will follow the format in Letter C; seconded by Jim Montgomery, a vote was called with 9 voting to agree with the change and 4 voting no; the motion carried.Create a cross-discipline INDUSTRY ADVISORY BOARD (IAB) which would encompass both NSSA and NSCA. This Board would advise the AC, as well as the NSSA EC. The IAB would meet with the AC two times/year - at the Annual AC Meeting and at the Nationals. The IAB would schedule their annual meeting the Monday before the National Championship. This will give industry the opportunity to discuss current trends, foreseeable changes, review marketing efforts, create an agenda for the annual January AC Meeting, etc….We need to define a set of criteria for membership; it is suggested that this group select their own members (no specific cap on number of members) and elect their own Officers.The Suggested Term of Office: Two years.In the committee meeting a motion was made by Don Henderson to accept letter D, with the amendment: Not to be on the AC only as a consultants with no vote; seconded by Martin Jones, with the motion carried; to begin 2014. Range Owners and Industry positions will be held by the Clubs and the Companies; they may appoint an individual, but the position will be in the name of the Range and the Industry Company.No action taken. Vacancies. Remove the wording (or in alphabetic order by last name in case of ties.) for any elected position.In the committee meeting a motion was made by Martin Jones to accept letter F; seconded by Mary Pitts, with the motion carried. End of Handout-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3.Propose that the Advisory Council be pared from 15 members in each category to 10. ??I feel the smaller group with the resulting smaller committees can be more efficient as well as more economical (meeting time, paper waste) for the organization.? ??This year will be a new election year in which every Advisory member will have to run for reelection.? Instituting any change in the membership makeup would be in order now.? B. Krieghoff No Action Taken4. Classification – In addition to the normal class system - To move up to AA or Master Class a shooter must win 1st in class (ties included), in an event with 10 or more entries in class. R.CrowNo Action Taken; let the new class rules play out.5.At the present time we have three concurrent events based on age of the shooter.? Veteran is age 55 through 64, Super Veteran is age 65 through 74, and Senior Super Veteran is age 75 and above.? At this year’s Nationals, it is my understanding that we had 28 shoot some events as a Senior Super Veteran.?? At many of the club and regional shoots you will have one or two in this concurrent.?? The Senior Super Veteran concurrent will always be a small group because of health and ageing conditions.?? I would ask the Rules and Classification Committee? consider looking into changing the ages to begin at 50 for Veteran, 60? for Senior Veteran and 70 for Senior Super Veteran.? This would add a number of people to the Senior Super Veteran group at the Nationals and also at the club shoots.?? The problem is that in international events our concurrent groups would not match up with the international matches.??? This would affect a small group of shooters, some of which shoot a lot of targets.?? I believe that some type of adjustment could be made for these few shooters. Martin T. JonesNo Action Taken6.The process?for shooting 5 stand. I have been all across the country and there seems to be?a lack of consistency regarding the shooting sequence when shooting 5 stand. At the Nationals,?when the squad starts?shooting on?their first layout, the shooter in station #1 shoots first. After the first 5 targets have been attempted by all shooters, the?squad rotates to?the next stand and then the shooter that was in stand #1, who is now in stand #2, shoots first again. This?process repeats itself until the?round is completed. At other places, after the?squad rotates to their next stand, the shooter that now occupies stand #1 shoots first instead of the orignal #1 shooter (or squad leader). I have seen a lot of confusion when this is done.. not to mention when there are less than 5 shooters and the #1 stand becomes empty....?I would think that?if a?standard shooting sequence was outlined in the rules, all?5 stand shoots?would be?consistent across the country. Ted SapoznikIn addition, the rules state that 5-stand should be shot in 25 target increments. Some clubs are throwing 50 targets at time (5 pairs per cage with no breaks).Motion made by Martin Jones to add verbiage to the rule book explaining the above rotation procedure for NSCA 5-Stand; seconded by Andy Duffy; motion carried. This is “housekeeping” and does not need to go to the Delegates for vote.7.Rules Question: Report pair of targets. Shooter shoots twice at the first target and misses both shots. Then he finds out the second target did not throw. He claims because the second target did not throw it was not a fair pair in the air and takes the pair over. What would you rule? The rule book addresses report pairs and broken targets but it does not address both shots at the first target. Mark Chronister.No Action Taken.mittee Goals: Please list what the Governance, Rules, Classification and Safety Committee would like to achieve over the next two years. Also what would they like to see headquarters and the EC focus on?No discussion ................
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