Transcript for the NAFA® Leadership Chat September 14th 2010
| moderator | Ok, we're going to go ahead and get started this evening. I'll open it up to Lee and/or Leerie to make an opening comment or just welcome everyone. I have one question in the q |
| Lee_Heighton | I would like to welcome everyone to the chat and apologize that work committments prevented me from attending the candidate chat a couple of days ago. |
| moderator | For the record, your moderator this evening is Dale Smith |
| leerie.jenkins | I'd also like to welcome everyone to our 3rd quarter 2010 Nafa Leadership Chat. |
| moderator | Our first question: Dirk_elber: Lee: After all the years on the board and now one plus years as the Ed what do you see as the successes of the current Bod? What do you see as points that the future Board really needs to put more focus on? |
| moderator | Leerie can comment too ;-) |
| moderator | One question in the queue at this time |
| leerie.jenkins | Improved responsiveness and timely execution of services (e.g. inquiries, sanctioning, scoring, awards) |
| leerie.jenkins | We have a new rulebook with new rules and adjustments to rules requested and helped developed by the flyball community. |
| Lee_Heighton | Communication has always been at the forefront of conversations/concerns for the Bod. I would propose that communication is at the best level that it has ever been. This includes tournament scoring, correcting dog points concerns and responses to general questions from the flyball community. |
| leerie.jenkins | We have new restated bylaws that make us current with Michigan non-profit corportations. |
| Lee_Heighton | Future Bod's will need to stay focused on improving technology, remaining fiscally responsible and continueing to market our sport to the general public. |
| moderator | As in other chats, folks are free to interact in the main window if its Directly Related to the topic being discussed. |
| leerie.jenkins | This is the first Nafa board to develop a formal budget. We have reduced expenses and increased projected revenues in order to return Nafa into the black. As you all should know, when the fee structure was modified a few years ago (to give a discount for the second one-day tournament in a weekend, this moved Nafa into the red. The board looked at all mojor expense and all mojor revenue items and made some tough decisions. We believe that the new modification to the fee structure is fair to all. In fact, as a side note, my team and Lee's team both will be paying the increased fees this year along with everyone else, since our clubs host 2-day event(s). It will now cost the same in Nafa fees for everyone, for a weekend of flyball, regardless of which format you decide to utilize as a tournament host. Since I started playing flyball in the late 90s, Nafa's tournament fees have only gone Down. So, it is definitely time to adjust the fee structure. |
| Dirk_Elber | Lee to your last point.. one of the questions in the candidate chat on Sunday was how to grow the sport .. how do you see the Bod taking the lead to help the local club's/rds help market our sport to the general public? |
| leerie.jenkins | Nafa has over $220,000 Us in the bank, plus 19 fully paid for and almost fully depreciated Signature/farmtek Ejs presently. We are fiscally healthy and sound. In my opinion, Nafa participants have helped to build Nafa up to where it is today, and they deserve to share in the benefits of that financial healthiness. So, we are revamping, updating, streamlining. There is a new database in the works, online sancitoning, online schedule creation/optimizing, online payments, and an online store are all in the works. Faster and better services and systems. And investing additional monies into our biggest phyical assets, our Ejss. We All realize the benefits of these expenditures |
| Lee_Heighton | Dirk, we have started discussing the concept of developing a training/informational Dvd that could be placed in key marketing points (like large pet stores and training facilities) that would introduce a larger percentage of dog people to our sport. |
| Lee_Heighton | In conjunction with this we would need to help "teach" flyball to training facilities in order to increase the overall number of participants in our sport. Until the latest fee structure adjustment, we did not have the financial resources available to accomplish this. |
| leerie.jenkins | We have an exciting event, the Canam Classic. Together, every single dog entered in the tourney on Saturday will be a part of setting a new Guinness world record. I'm sure everyone will have a great time at this event. Nancy, Lee, Karen, Kim Davis, and Alisa, and many others have especially worked tirelessly to plan a top notch experience for everyone. Nancy spearheading efforts to raise additional revenue thru vendors, sponsors, and our hotel contract, plus the outstanding entries have really come to fruition...we expect to run in the black this year on Canam and I think everyonewill have a blast |
| Jane_Horsfield | would it be a for fee Dvd?? or something to generate interest and bodies to existing teams and areas and put out as a Ps?? |
| Lee_Heighton | I would propose that it would be a free Dvd, maybe givien to people when they actually sign up for a class. We can't afford to just hand them out to everyone, but could allocate a certain number per chain or facility. This would also benefit the training facility by creating an additional source of revenue for them. |
| Jane_Horsfield | well I think we're all looking for new bodies...anything that could help us generate new fresh people woudl be a blessing....thanks for anything you do in this regard |
| Dirk_Elber | Is there some way to tie this to some major brand that might allow more name recognition for a advertisement campaign? |
| leerie.jenkins | Any ideas on this front are welcome (obviously), big time. |
| Jane_Horsfield | Maybe the facilities would allow some of us to give intro classes on a monthly basis in exchange for putting the dvds up |
| Lee_Heighton | That would depend on a companies willingness to be a sponsor. |
| Lee_Heighton | Jane, that's a great idea. The biggest gain will be when we can get the training facilities to actually offer additional classes. If someone is learning how to play flyball, the obvious next step will be to look for a team to play with. |
| Jane_Horsfield | put me down as a willing victim |
| Jane_Horsfield | I mean volunteer |
| moderator | Our next question: Chris.vanwert: Nafa approved translating our Rulebook and website into French to accomodate French speaking people in Quebec. What happened to this project? What is its current status and future plans/goals? |
| Lee_Heighton | Our translator moved to another job and location which caused time conflicts for her to do this. I talked to her two weeks ago and she now has the time to start doing this translation. A couple of new pages are actually completed and Kim is working on intergrating them into the site. |
| moderator | Chris.vanwert: quote: " It will now cost the same in Nafa fees for everyone, for a weekend of flyball, regardless of which format..." question: The two one-day format yields two delegate votes for the hosting club while the one two-day tournament format only earns one vote. In the same spirit of fairness, would the Board be willing to look at changing that to the same number of delegates earned for a "weekend of racing" irregardless of which format is used? |
| moderator | No other questions currently in the queue |
| leerie.jenkins | Chris, we're always willing to field a proposed rule modification, and see what comes of it. |
| leerie.jenkins | My first thought is that everyone has the same opportunity or choice to host and what format, and there is a maximum of 8 delegate votes for each club. |
| Chris.VanWert | what I see is that one format earns delegates faster, easier and cheaper. my club only esarned 4 votes this year under the two day format. under the other format, we would have 8 votes for the same number of weekends. So, i just want my region's preffered format to Not put us at a disadvantage with other regions. |
| leerie.jenkins | Don't you additionally attend enough tournaments to earn the other 4? |
| Lee_Heighton | Chris, your question relates to hosting of tournaments. Your Club didn't host any so I'm not sure how many votes you actually earned applies. |
| Chris.VanWert | its not tournaments. its weekends of racing. |
| Lee_Heighton | i believe that hosting also applies |
| Dana.Nichols | Clubs can earn up to 6 votes based on participating in tournaments. Two additional votes may be earned by hosting tournaments. |
| leerie.jenkins | Thanks Dana. |
| Jane_Horsfield | ohhh I think she means attending - not hosting |
| Chris.VanWert | its difficult in chat to make yourself clear but, hosting or racing/ my region in general always earns ferwer delegate votes and now our "fees" went up and a lot of people are saying this is fair. Not evryone agrees on this. i shouldn't have to defend the position that raising fees on only the two-day format is not fair. But, the problem that I see is that my region is "out-voted" i general by others geographically because of this disaparity. |
| leerie.jenkins | Right....the up to 6 for team entries. 6 for 30 team entries or more. |
| leerie.jenkins | My region(s) mainly have 2-day tourneys as well. |
| Dana.Nichols | Actually, I have to correct what I said. I just looked at the actual language in the bylaws. It's a club earns delegate votes by competing or hosting tournaments and then gives the schedule. But again, Chris, you can present that for the Board to consider. As far as I know it hasn't been considered at least in the last few years. |
| leerie.jenkins | If it's something you'd like to propose Chris, please do feel free to submit a proposal. |
| Chris.VanWert | Ok. I will. |
| moderator | Next question: Dirk_elber: Canam/ Marketing related question: Its great to see the turnout for the World Record claim on Saturday is so great. Is there going to be a media blitz involved with this to spread the word? |
| Lee_Heighton | Dirk, Nancy is working on the media portion and Guiness also does a portion of the media presentation. |
| moderator | Our next question: Jane_horsfield: I know there's been a lot going on and I don't mean to put you on the hot seat, but has there been any decision made on the realignment of regions 6/16? |
| moderator | No further questions pending at this time |
| Jane_Horsfield | and also...what critera is looked at when realigning?? |
| leerie.jenkins | We also have another volunteer, Dede Crough, who is helping with promotion, media packages, and such. I believe team captains will be receiving some info shortly. |
| Lee_Heighton | Jane, I have been gathering input from the Clubs affected by this request and will be asking for a Bod teleconference in the very near future to present a request to the |
| Lee_Heighton | Bod. |
| Jane_Horsfield | do you imagine a realignment will happen this upcoming Nafa year? |
| Lee_Heighton | I will be asking for one but the final decision is up to the Bod. |
| Jane_Horsfield | thanks....i know you sometimes have a thankless job....but I thank you for taking the time to gather info from affected teams.. |
| moderator | One last call for questions.... |
| moderator | Lee and Leerie - any cosing comments? |
| moderator | cosing=closing |
| Lee_Heighton | I really appreciate the time that everyone has taken to offer input and suggestions to the Bod. This is the best way to make improvements to our sport. Thank you for attending and have a great night. |
| leerie.jenkins | I just want to thank everyone for coming. Please feel free to contact any of us at any time. |
| moderator | Thanks everyone for coming out this evening. We'll have the transcript up shortly. This may have set a record for the shortest chat we've had. |
| moderator | Transcript ends here |