Empire Sheep Producers Annual Meeting Minutes
October 30, 2004

Meeting convened at Cornell University, Morrison Hall following the afternoon session of the Sheep and Goat Symposium.

Present
President Keith Stumbo, Treasurer Kathy Stumbo and Secretary, Betsy Hodge. About 20 other people in attendance including Guy Flora, President of ASI, and Mike Thonney, Cornell University .

Motion to re-elect current directors was made/seconded and carried.

Election of Officers
Todd Parsons wants to step down as Vice President. Heide Simmons was nominated, seconded and carried for the job. The motion was made to cast one ballot for the slate of officers and was seconded and carried.

• Keith Stumbo – President
• Heide Simmons – Vice President
• Kathy Stumbo – Treasurer
• Betsy Hodge – Secretary

Committee Reports

State Fair Wool Booth
Nancy Morley sent a report which Kathy read. A copy of the report is appended to the minutes but here are a few highlights:

• Volunteers did a great job at the 30 th year display
• Liberty Ridge and others donated wool
• Fly Tying very popular
• Brochures, puzzles and teacher’s packets very popular
• Fleeces up from last year, colored fleece won this year
• Let people try spinning and drop spindles

Cost = $914.00

State Fair is asking us to approve the new person that trained with Nancy this year – Valerie Martin. Motion made/seconded/carried.

Sheep Show – Dave Campbell
Highlights

• 635 Sheep shown
• Went well in general
• Story and pictures in Country Folks
• Tunis is the featured breed next year

Only 16 sheep in the barn on Labor Day – need to have more there for public.

Quality Meats - Don Otterness
(booth Serving Beef, Pork and Lamb at the Fair)

• Many people asking where they could buy lamb from the farm
• Asking about organic, too.
• Asked a lot of questions in general which the volunteers answered.
• New handouts from the Lamb Board worked out well.

Mary Gloster asked about having a list of places to buy lamb direct form the farm made available to consumers. List could be on paper or on our website. Group thought this would be a good idea and will put something on the membership form asking whether you want your name included on the list.

Make It Yourself With Wool – Heidi Simmons

• 20 participants (twice as many as last year)
• Winner is going to nationals
• We usually give money towards their trip

Andrea Walsh Memorial Raise-A-Lamb Project - Don Otterness

• 7 requests and 7 given
• Don Otterness says he would like to put a booklet together
• Stories and results are good
• Will show off those lambs in a pen at the show/sale

Treasurer’s Report

• Looked the Proposed and the Actual budget (see attached)
• Membership, shooting for 100 members
• Keith reviewed the income and expenses and answered questions

Motion made to have a $50 award, free membership and a plaque for the Shepherd of the Year award. Motion made to make it effective immediately. Both passed. Motion to adopt the budget with that change seconded/carried.

ASI Convention

• Reno in January for 4 days
• Keith nominated to go
• Motion seconded/carried

Policy
Betsy brought up a policy statement started by a group working with small local slaughterhouses and also being promoted by Farm Bureau. The following statement can be used: " We recommend that State Ag and Markets Departments and USDA examine existing regulations covering small meat processors for possible revision of the rules to alleviate the immense burden, financial and regulatory, placed on them."
Motion seconded and passed.

Newsletter
Five publishing dates:

• Jan 16
• March 7
• May 16
• Sept 12
• Nov 14

Need things at least a week before the date to Keith (sheepkath@aol.com). Suggested the Walsh Memorial stories would be good.

New Business
Don Otterness suggested setting up judging schools and wants a committee to set up a training or certified list of judges. He has a person that would help with the training. Goat judges are certified and sheep judges are not. The judges could train together for consistency. Use breed standards from associations. Fair rules need to be considered, too.
A lot of discussion ensued on how and why. A list of current judges would be helpful for people setting up shows at county fairs, etc. Don could set up a committee and find farms to practice judging at and maybe the show/sale in May. Mary suggested we work with 4-H to teach youth judging.

Cobleskill Show and Sale

• May 21, 2005
• Our board meeting will be held there

New Requiremen on Shelter for Dogs
A question was asked about the law requiring dogs to have “adequate” shelter. Group discussed enforcement and it hasn’t been a problem for people with guard dogs, yet.

Sheep Producer of the Year
Presented to Michael Gates at the meeting. Michael has sShown for a long time, helped others, youth and served on extension boards.

Motion to Adjourn – 4:45 pm
Seconded and passed.

_________________________________________________________________________

The Wool Center at the New York State Fair
2004 Report

It was another busy year for the Wool Center at the New York State Fair. While about the same number of volunteers demonstrated all aspects of working with wool, they spent more hours doing so – with some people coming back for 4 or 5 days! Without the enthusiasm and generosity of these volunteers, the Wool Center would not be the special place it is for Fairgoers to visit.

We quietly celebrated out 30 th Anniversary at the Fair this year. Assistant Valerie Martin-Pearson made sheep decorations, and we used the Empire Sheep Producer display to tell the story about the Wool Center in pictures and words.

Once again, the Southern Tier Wool Pool donated wool for the handspinners. Volunteer De Angelo donated many pounds of hand-dyed rovings and tops for the spinners to spin – and agreed to dye more for the 2005 Wool Center. Liberty Ridge also donated several pounds of wool yarn for use in dyeing and weaving.

One of the most popular demonstrations is the Fly-tieing demo over Labor Day weekend, using wool as the base for the fly “body”. This year, Ralf Schloss accepted donations to cover his costs, and gave a percentage of those donations to the Wool Center.

The Kool-Aid yarns were VERY popular this year – we sold 93 skeins! We now have several people who are returning year after year to purchase a skein or two to use in hats or mittens. We also dyed a lot of “special orders” this year for Fairgoers.

The ASI wool brochures and other printed materials were popular, especially the information for producers and the Code of Practice booklet. The usual assortments of puzzles for all ages were available, with few left at the end of the Fair! The Teacher’s Packet (which contains all the puzzles on white paper so that they may be easily reproduced) continues to be popular and appreciated. We also give this packet to 4-H and Girl Scout leaders. Many home schooling parents take copies of the puzzles, as well as additional samples of the raw and washed wool.

We continue to have several new producers enter the Fleece Show; overall, the number of fleeces was up from last year. The Natural Colored Fleeces are the biggest class, and the champion fleece this year was a Natural Colored fleece.

The Fleece to Shawl Competition had three teams this year. The competition was exciting near the end, as one team finished with only 5 seconds remaining!

Because the “Try It Yourself” area, in the sheep show ring on Labor Day, was not well received last year, we worked with anyone interested in the Wool Center on that day - there were beginners of all ages who learned to spin a yarn on Labor Day. While we focused on teaching people to spin on Labor Day, there were often impromptu drop spindle lessons given throughout the Fair – which resulted in the many CD spindle sales!

Sales of wool products were way up! This seems to be the trend at many sheep and wool festivals, as well as for knitting shops. There were many requests for knitting demonstrations, also.

The Expenses are as follows (in 2004, approximately 45# of grease wool was donated by the Southern Tier Wool Pool to be washed, dyed, and carded for the spinners; approximately 2# of wool yarns were donated by Liberty Ridge Farm for Kool-Aid dyeing; and approximately 20# of wool rovings and tops were dyed and donated by De Angelo). Carding and yarn (and Kool-Aid!) costs have increased in the past year; the top was added to ensure there would be enough wool for the spinners to spin. Refreshment costs increased because of the increased number of shifts worked by the volunteers.

Wool Center Expenses

• Carding ……….. $108.00
• Yarn ……………… 793.70