The 40th Annual General Membership Meeting of VDD/GNA was opened at 2:00pm on Saturday, 17 July 2010, with Chairman Bryon Beaton presiding. After a moment of silence to reflect on those members we lost during the year, Bryon welcomed guests VDD Head Breedwarden Sigurd Croneiß, and Group Canada Vice-Chairman Adam Pethick. Atlantic Chapter member Ron Figler photographed the awards presentations and other proceedings.

Next it was agreed to allow the following alterations to the published agenda: require that written motions come only from Chapters, 12 weeks before the Annual Meeting; Chapters must submit written meeting minutes to the GNA Executive Board; and, approval of a budget for fiscal year 1 September 2010 through 31 August 2011.

The reading of the minutes from last year’s annual meeting was waived unanimously by the membership.

Bryon then introduced Fred Turjan for an explanation of the JGHV’s VGP and VSwP Awards. These awards are automatically earned, but they must be requested and proof of qualification must be supplied. This is a project on which Fred has been diligently working for the last couple of years. The awards are for breeding or handling a certain number of utility dogs or blood tracking dogs. They start with 5 or more, then 10 or more, etc. Bryon announced that our GNA members qualified for a total of ten awards. Fred Turjan, Mike Schell, Marty Ryan, Roger Green, Paul Trout, and Nancy Bohs all received recognition for the number of utility or blood tracking dogs they’ve bred and/or handled. In the cases of Fred, Mike, and Marty, they received multiple awards. Marty for handling utility and blood tracking dogs; Fred for the number of utility dogs he has handled, for the number of Prize I dogs he has handled, and for the number of utility dogs he has bred; and, Mike for the number of utility dogs he has bred and handled. Mike is also due for another award that hadn’t been included in the calculation at the time of the meeting. This was a very nice impression to make on our VDD guests. I’d like to ask that our Chapter members remember to thank Fred for his hard work in making sure our GNA members were internationally recognized. Specific details of each award will be published in the Group Newsletter.

Herr Croneiß then ceremoniously presented Breed Judge cards to the last five GNA members who attended and passed the breed judge written test in Germany. They were: Jason Abbas, Ed Carney, Blaine Eickelschulte, Jim Strilich, and Mike Talbot. This is a major coup for our Group, to show that we can stand as equals with our counterparts in Germany.

Vice-Chairman Ed Carney announced that GNA is in the second year of the 5-year Chapter VR Challenge and that we all have a ways to go to fulfill the goal of approving five new VR’s per chapter.

Business Manager Jim Wion announced that GNA has 1144 members. We are averaging 200 or more new members per year. For purposes of voting, he used a cut-off date of 31 May for new members in figuring each Chapter’s membership.
Votes/Members per Chapter:
Atlantic = 161
Big Rivers = 140
Great Lakes = 118
Great Plains = 154
Heartland = 113
Midwest North = 179
Southeast Hunter = 102
Wild West = 166

Treasurer Fred Turjan announced that GNA will essentially have no more income after the annual meeting, until the end of the fiscal year on 31 August. He estimates that we will end the year with about a $7,000 profit.

Group Breedwarden Lynn Whiteley gave his breeding report for the year, noted that he now supplies breeding statistics broken down by Chapter to each of the Chapter Breedwardens. He mentioned that some DD’s are still showing up in shelters, and that the GWP Rescue is getting testy with GNA officers since they think we ought to be taking care of this issue ourselves. He cautioned breeders to make sure that pups go to the best possible homes in order to avoid them being surendered later on.

Newsletter Editor Larry Houck says that 1200 newsletters are printed per edition; 2009 was the first complete 4 edition year. He praised Document Distribution assistant Lona Kluck, noting that she sent out $8,000 worth of documents to the membership. He also thanked Purina for being such a big supporter of GNA and the Armbruster.

Next, Gene Kluck gave the auditors’ report . GNA selects two auditors to serve a two-year staggered term, so that we have one new auditor and one hold-over each year. For 2009, the volunteer auditors were Gene Kluck and Ashley Drury. For 2010, Hans Klein will replace Gene, while Ashley stays on. Gene praised Treasurer Fred Turjan for his cooperation, speedy response and good record-keeping. He and Ashley made two suggestions that they wished the EB to consider. The first was to establish a working loan to the Chapter that was hosting the Armbruster, and the second was to schedule a simple professional audit to be done every two – five years. Neither suggestion was accepted by the EB. Fred said that he takes care of pre-paying the Armbruster expenses when necessary, and that the EB had already investigated staging a professional audit and rejected the practice because it would cost $6,000 - $8,000.

Fred presented the proposed FY 2010-2011 budget to the membership. Member Nancy Bohs made a motion to accept it, and it passed unanimously.

Brandt Hardy reported on the proposal to hold the 2011 Armbruster in St. Clair, Missouri, 12 -15 October 2011. The proposal as discussed in the Board of Directors’ meeting was unanimously ratified by the membership.

The Great Plains Chapter is hosting GNA’s Annual Membership Meeting in June 2011, in Denver, Colorado. Exact dates and location are still to be determined.

Next came the presentation of the motions pending before the membership. The procedure was to announce the vote and recommendation of the Board of Directors on each motion as it was presented.

In every case, the membership implicitly ratified the decisions made during the Board of Directors’ Meeting. This is not to say, however, that there wasn’t discussion, sometimes a little vociferous, on a couple of the motions, most notably to do with the degree to which GNA subsidizes the Armbruster, the distribution of Test Regulations to VR’s, and the requirement that only Chapters may submit written motions to the membership meeting.

Several members spoke in agreement with the motion to analyze the Armbruster costs per dog and adjust the entry fee. Long-time member Ken Gill from the Heartland Chapter was one of those who agreed with the idea that GNA should examine the degree to which we are subsidizing the Armbruster.

The lengthiest discussion occurred over the motions to distribute the regulations to judges whenever new editions are published. The Executive Board noted that it had been agreed at the Board of Directors’ Meeting that they would request that JGHV post the English translation of the test regulations on their website, just as they have done with the German-language version. Ken Gill thought that we should distribute the test regulations to new members, but without increasing dues. Heartland Chapter member Blaine Eickelschulte asked for clarification of the fact that it seemed to him that the EB’s main reason for what he felt was a lack of support for GNA judges was due to money. Director of Judge Development Mark Heuer reiterated the suggestion from the Treasurer that the Chapters buy and distribute the regulations. Atlantic Chapter member Hans Klein agreed with this idea, and Big Rivers’ Brandt Hardy advised that he intended to get his chapter moving on that idea. Bill English and Frank Van Dresser, of the Great Lakes Chapter, both felt that if GNA can support the Armbruster to the degree that it does, then we can also afford to give our judges the test regulations. The EB pointed out that the regulations are not distributed to judges in Germany; each VR must buy his own. The EB also pointed out that with shipping, an individual copy of the test regulations cost GNA $20. Heartland member Linda Reeves questioned this high price, and the EB reminded the membership that we are constrained by the JGHV, due to their copyright of the English translation, and must purchase from them.

Finally, the discussion turned to the Executive Board motions. The membership ratified the increase in litter registration fees, and the EB reminded all present that part of those monies was dedicated to advertising by a prior vote of the membership, and that the GNA website needs updating, which is now our major source of public advertising for the breed. It was also noted here that VDD had increased its registration fee as of 1 July 2010.

Great Lakes member Thomas Busch commented on the change to the GNA Rules of Procedure that will disallow individual members from making motions to the Membership Meeting. He pointed out that things were not done this way in Germany. Others present also felt that this did not seem fair. The EB informed the members that this change had recently been implemented by both VDD and JGHV, and that GNA was simply amending its rules to comply with the by-laws of our parent organizations. Atlantic member Nancy Bohs pointed out that individual members could still attend the Membership Meeting and make motions from the floor.

As you can see, the individual members who were in support of the same motions as our Atlantic members belonged to the same Chapters who voted with us in the Board of Directors’ Meeting. So these votes were essentially a foregone conclusion; no member requested that a membership vote be taken in order to re-count what we all knew was going to be the result.

The example of the Southeast Hunter Chapter’s state representatives was presented, and all present felt that it was a good idea, and gave their approval that a Chapter could indeed operate in this fashion.

Next, the Chairman introduced our Purina representatives, Pat LaMantia and his boss, Steve. They gave a presentation on Purina’s Parent Club Partner program (PPCP) and its affiliation with the Canine Health Foundation. In short, if a breed club signs on as a parent club with Purina, Purina will donate 10% of their members’ Purina Pro Club points’ dollar value to the Canine Health Foundation. When a parent organization has a medical or genetic issue that they need researched, the Canine Health Foundation is there to take on the project. An example is the research currently being done on cardiomyopathy in Boxers, undertaken at the request of the American Boxer Club.

In conclusion, Bryon opened up the floor to comments from the membership. Atlantic member Hans Klein presented a list of complaints about his chapter. Atlantic member Jon Prescott publicly thanked Roger Smith and Nancy Bohs for their efforts in beginning the fight against vWD in the DD twenty years ago. Great Lakes member Gary Stephens commented on the policy which prohibits Chapter members who live outside the Chapter’s geographical boundaries from holding elected office in their Chapter. Gary lives just 10 miles from Ohio, and is hours away from the center of Atlantic Chapter activities, and so belongs to the Great Lakes Chapter. NL Editor Larry Houck mentioned that German Groups wrestle with the same problem. The consensus opinion on the EB is that a line has to be drawn somewhere, and that they can’t make arbitrary exceptions based on proximity or on a case-by-case basis.

2010 Board of Directors' Meeting Report >>
2010 Breed Seminar Report >>
2010 AGM Overview >>