MINNESOTA HORSE COUNCIL



MINNESOTA HORSE COUNCIL

BOARD MINUTES

October 11th, 2016

Meeting Location: Nutrena Conference Room – Leatherdale Center U of MN St Paul

Board Members

Present: Darrell Mead, Meg Sax, Tim Bonham, Kris Kelly, Missie Schwartz, Kim Otterson, Tracy Turner, Trina Joyce, Doug Persian, Kari Newman, Barb Anderson-Whiteis

Absent: Dave Fleischhaker, Dawn Moore, Sue McDonough, Tom Tweeten, Glen Eaton, Marian Robinson

Members/Visitors: Barbara Fleischhaker, Allison Eklund

I. Meeting called to order: 6:38 P.M. by Vice President Darrell Mead.

II. Introduction of Board Members/Visitors.

III. Call for Additions/Changes to Agenda

A. Meg Sax added Promotions Committee Procedures to Committee Reports.

B. Tim Bonham added Grants to Committee Reports.

C. Tracy Turner added EDCC Update to Committee Reports.

IV. Treasurer’s Report for Aug/Sept was presented by Tom Tweeten in electronic format prior to the meeting. Aug/Sept treasurer’s report presented for approval. Darrell Mead motioned to approve the treasurer’s report as presented. Kim Otterson seconded, motion carries. Tom Tweeten presented the Management Report/Statement of Activity for October. Tom Tweeten then presented the Budget vs. Actual Annual Budget for the same time frame. The renewal form from ARG came in to continue to offer our membership liability insurance to our membership. Tracy Turner will sign off on the paperwork and the administrative assistant will copy and return to ARG. Tom Tweeten advised the following: Quickbooks Online monthly fee is increasing from $29.99 to $38.65 in October. The promotional category is now titled promotions to save confusion on the budget. On the statement of activity report under the category expenses-office/general administrative expenditures, we now have two subcategories: newsletter and website. The statement of activity is for public distribution per accounting standards. It also serves at the template for the budget vs actual report that we present each month for the board members. Along with the budget vs actual report, the detailed transaction report shows individual expenditures by vendor, then date for each month. Committee chairperson can request year to date transaction report for their budget category from either Barb or me. They can be provided in excel format. Keep in mind there reports are presented for financial review and serve as a guide to budget management. Detailed management of committee expenses is up to individual committee chairpersons. We received and paid a bill in October from the MN Horse Expo for General Liability Insurance (August 14th, 2016-August 14th, 2017). Our portion was $3,138.13. We received and paid a bill from the MN Horse Expo for our Public Storage unit on Como Ave. The MHC half of the annual payment (October 1, 2016- September 30th, 2017) was for $2,326. The total rental cost was up $600 from 2015. Tom Tweeten advised he has not received a monthly treasurers report from either the MN Horse Expo nor the MN High School Equestrian Association.

V. Approval of Minutes – Minutes from the September meeting were presented to the board electronically prior to the meeting, as well as in hard copy at the meeting. Tim Bonham motioned to approve the September minutes as presented. Kim Otterson seconded, motion carries.

VI. Secretary’s Report – Missie Schwartz advised three new memberships. Missie Schwartz is consulting with a potential new meeting facility. Tracy Turner charged Missie Schwartz with sending an arrangement or get well card to Bob Jensen.

VII. OLD BUSINESS

A. MHC Vision- Tracy Turner tabled the topic until November.

B. MHSEA Update- Dawn Moore advised they are still accepting applications and signed on a new student as recently as last week. Tracy Turner asked the MHSEA Committee to supply a financial report to the MHC board monthly; however, there is a current medical condition that is prohibitive of presenting that information this month.

C. Investment Update- Tom Tweeten absent. Tracy Turner advised no investment has been made at this time.

D. University of MN Opportunities- Tracy Turner opened a discussion on the opportunity offered by the U of MN. Darrell Mead motioned to deny the requests and ask the University to return the following year. Missie Schwartz seconded, discussion followed. Motion does not carry. Barb Anderson-Whiteis motioned to fund a Veterinary Summer Scholar participant for $6,000. Doug Persian seconded, discussion follows. Motion carries.

VIII. COMMITTEE REPORTS

A. Expo-Glen Eaton reported: Everything is on schedule of the 2017 MN Horse Expo. Kathy is interviewing speakers. Reservations for Vendor booths and stalls are arriving at a rapid pace. October 20 is the deadline to reserve vendor booths for the 2016 vendors. Online reservations is going well for vendor packages but many people and companies still like the paper. As of Sept 27 the Expo has $40,000.00 in the bank. Next Expo meeting is October 25.

B. Direct Funding- Mark Ward absent, no report.

C. Budget- Tracy Turner led a review of the proposed 2017 budget. Committee Chairs were charged with examining their respective budgets and determining changes to bring to the November meeting.

D. Aisle of Breeds- Glen Eaton reported: The rent for the locker is paid one year. In the Aisle of Breeds report last month Kathy Juhl’s Name was not mentioned and Kathy takes care of the State Fair Parade for the Aisle of Breeds. Kathy was there every day.

E. Coalition of State Horse Councils- Glen Eaton reported: The fall meeting for the Coalition is in Kansas City October 28, 29 and 30. Dave Fleischhaker, Glen Eaton, Darrel Mead and Tom Tweeten are registered to go. Marian Robinson is going on her own. A report will follow the meeting.

F. Disaster- Marian Robinson As far as MN goes no one has heard of any need for horses: hay, shelter or otherwise. Out East it's a different story.  People were not evacuating when they were told to but those who had animals:  pets, horses, etc. were leaving and semi after semi were photographed stopping in gas stations going to pick up horses or other animals were all over the place.  Georgia Technical Larger Animal Response team, along with many other state teams, even as far inland as Ohio were going from spot to spot, state to state helping retrieve animals.  Illinois was asking what they could do and Face book bloggers were giving folks places to donate money to:  Code 3 which was already out there, etc.  It seems people are more and more prepared to move when told to move.  Team leaders are being told to tell people "Don't Turn your Large Animals Out" to defend for themselves......too much debris to get caught up in, being locked in a barn with no way out is dangerous too.  If your horses will not load into a trailer teach them to load, you cannot out ride a horse from a flood, a fire or other bad weather.  It does no good to mark your horses with markers of where to get in touch with their owners if caught or paint the number on hooves. The only good that is when you find a dead animal's body and report it. 

G. MHC Website/Horsemen’s Directory- Kari Newman There were 69,234 visits on the MN Horsemen’s Directory website during the second quarter of the year, up from 68,301 visits on the website in the second quarter of the year, with a total of 251,408 visits to date. The total number of hits for the quarter was 221,901. The average visit duration was 0-30 seconds. Our most viewed pages were the list of categories, followed by the Contact page, the Browse by Breed page, and the Browse by Discipline page. The most commonly used search engine was Google, followed by Bing, then Yahoo. This is consistent with the previous quarters. The website is primarily being accessed from within the United States, with 16% of the hits sourced to the U.S. and almost three quarters sourced from commercial and network computers (likely within the U.S.). MHC Webpage: There were 7,714 unique visitors to the website during the third quarter, down from 7,785 visitors on the website in the first quarter, totalling 22,741 visitors this year. The total number of hits was 71,988. Our average bandwidth for the quarter was 748 MB/month. The average visit duration was 0-30 seconds, with 79.1% of visits lasting this length. 5.4% of visits lasted 30 minutes to an hour. Our top downloads are a document on MNDOT Horse Trailer regulations, and a document on equine veterinarians in the state. Our most viewed pages were the certified stables page, the disabled riding page, and the RSS feed. The most commonly used browser to access the directory was Chrome (33%), followed by Safari (23.4%). Internet Explorer was only used 7.5% of the time. This leads me to believe that many users are accessing the site via a mobile browser. Connections were most frequently made through Google (1,392 times last month), followed by Bing (254 times), Yahoo (106 times) No major updates to the website this quarter. I did sign up for Google Analytics for this website, but apparently it needs further setup to start recording data, as it had nothing to report for the last few months.

H. Promotions Committee Procedures- Meg Sax presented the proposed procedures in electronic format prior to the meeting. Tim Bonham motioned to accept the procedures as presented. Kris Kelly seconded, motion carries.

I. Grants- Tim Bonham advised the grants committee has been presented with the applications and would like to schedule a meeting for November first. The location is to be decided and will be emailed to the committee.

J. EDCC Update- Tracy Turner advised the commitment the MHC made to support the program is $500 per year for 3 years. 202 alerts were issued in 2016. 18 cases of West Nile reported in MN.

IX. NEW BUSINESS

A. An Administrative Assistant Job Analysis Task Force has been formed. The members of the committee are Allison Eklund (chair), Trina Joyce, Kris Kelly and Meg Sax. The purpose of the committee is to evaluate the current position and advise of any recommendations for change to the board. Tracy Turner requested a monthly report.

Announcements:

• October 14th is the deadline for submissions for the next newsletter.

X. Tracy Turner adjourned the meeting at 10:31 PM.

NEXT MEETING

November 8th, 2016

6:30 p.m.

Leatherdale Equine Building

1801 Dudley Ave.

St. Paul, MN

University of MN Campus

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