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Andrea Walsh memorial Raise-A-Lamb project

Board of Directors Meeting
May 31, 2002
Schoharie County Fairgrounds
Cobleskill, NY

Attending: Jim Dunham, W.Keith Stumbo, Kathy Stumbo, Robert Melchior, Ann Bushey, Louise Besch, Bruce Vermeulen, Richard Krause, Dave Campbell, Todd Parsons, Jean Walsh, Kathy Maynard, Pete MacDonald

Meeting called to order at 7:40 PM.

Minutes from the previous meeting were provided to all attendees. Motion to accept the minutes as presented by Jim Dunham; seconded by B. Vermeulen. Motion passed.

Reports of Officers

President
Jim Dunham reviewed several meetings affecting the association held since the last Board meeting:

1. Quality Meat Exhibit - NYState Fair.  Lamb cost share of exhibit to be reduced. Bonnie Bargstedt will continue to head the exhibit effort. Promotion materials for lamb presentation coming from Campbell Mithun, the advertising agency working with ASI, and should be received at Cornell shortly.

2. Wool Booth - Nancy Morey will handle this exhibit again this year. She is employed by the Fair for this function.

3. NYS Dept of Ag and Markets - Jim along with Pat Bloomer, President of Empire State Meat Goat Assn., Mike Thonney, Cornell and Bob Melchior, Northeast Sheep and Goat Marketing Program. met with Margaret Becker, Deputy Commissioner and several department representatives to open communications. After a brief industry overview, topics discussed at this introductory meeting included:

• Wool Market - the depressed prices received, the need to seek out more buyers, probably overseas, to create competition for the product and the need for pools to work together and standardize presentation for combined sales offerings.

• New York City Live Animal Markets - These custom slaughterhouses currently consume large quantities of livestock. Their continued existence and prosperity is important to the sheep and goat producers of the State and more needs to be done to make producers aware of this large market.

• Scrapie Regulations - The necessity of the scrapie eradication effort was discussed along with the need to temper application of regulations to allow free commerce of slaughter animals. Fair regulations, along with the availability of scrapie tags from local veterinarians and from CCE offices for fair purposes, were discussed.

• Agricultural Census - Toward the end of this year the census, conducted every five years, will commence. The NY-NASS office has been seeking lists of producers so that forms can reach as many as possible. Both Associations will cooperate.

4. Wool Pool meeting - Four of the state's pools met to explore methods of working together. Importance of testing each pool's wools was emphasized along with producing similar packages for shipment. At this time only Fingerlakes has conducted a pool. Southern Tier is leaning toward a Fall pool and confirmed that decision after the meeting. Eastern, after the meeting, decided to combine shipment of their pool  with Fingerlakes to reduce trucking expenses.

Jim also discussed the process for nominating representatives to the new Lamb Promotion Board which will oversee application of funds from the new checkoff. ESP has applied to become a nominating agent approved by the USDA. Marlene Betts, from the Agricultural Marketing Service (a Cobleskill native) called Jim to go over details on the application. Jim was confident that our association would be approved.

Treasurer: Current balance in the Association's account exceeds $4,300, up from $1,306.75 on January 1. The increase is primarily the result of memberships from 82 individual members in the current year. In addition, Allegheny Plateau, Fingerlakes Wool Pool, Eastern Wool Pool and Leatherstocking group have paid affiliation fees. This puts the association on stronger financial grounds than has been the case in the recent past.

Secretary: Not able to attend.

Committee Reports:

Membership

 Bob Melchior reported that two mailings were made, first to all producers listed on the Cornell database and later to 2001 members who had not renewed.

As membership in other committees had not been firmed up at the annual meeting the following committee assignments were made:

• Nominating Committee: Jean Walsh, Keith Stumbo, Bob Melchior and Bruce Vermeulen (For simplicity sake, the membership committee responsibilities will be combined into this committee.)

•  Auditing: Jean Walsh, Louise Besch

• Youth: Don Otterness

Additional members for some of these committees will recruited from among the general membership.

New Business:

After some discussion of the Lamb Promotion Board, the following motion was proposed by Keith Stumbo, seconded by Bruce Vermeulen and after discussion passed.

"The Board of Directors authorizes the nominating committee to make nominations to the USDA for positions on the Lamb Promotion Board. The nominating committee should solicit and consider suggestions from the Association membership for potential nominees."

After further discussion of membership issues and ongoing efforts to bring more producers into the organization as members, the following motion was made by Bruce Vermeulen, seconded by Louise Besch and after discussion passed.

"Initial membership dues paid by new members in the last quarter of the year 2002 will also be considered as dues for the year 2003."

A discussion was also held on which members are authorized to vote at the annual meeting as our annual memberships technically terminate at year end and the annual meeting is held in the new year, usually before a membership mailing is completed. It was agreed that an amendment to the bylaws would be drawn up for future consideration of the board allowing for members from the previous year as well as members from the new calendar year to vote at annual meetings.

Based on the success of the last annual meeting, it was decided that this coming year's meeting would also be held in conjunction with the Cornell Sheep Short Course. A motion to this affect was made by Keith Stumbo, seconded by Todd Parsons and passed.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:10PM

Respectfully submitted,
Robert J. Melchior