President’s Letter
By: Tracey Erway
Dear members,
As the weather cools, I’ve realized the end of the year is coming. So much accomplished, but much to do for USAWE before the end of November when my short stint as President comes to a close. But there is even more to tell you this month.
Championships: We are finishing up a strikingly competitive set of Championship shows around the country: the Region 1 Championship completed about a month ago, the Region 2 Championship finished up with exciting WAWE Qualifying results (2 exceptional juniors [see the article about Emerson Westhoff below] and 23 adults, including Canadian entries), the Region 5 Championship was a wonderfully heartfelt community effort, the Eastern Regions 6&7 Championship with WAWE Qualifying results (8 entries at Master) just completed as well, and the Regions 3&4 Championship with WAWE Qualifier is coming up in November. The show managers and volunteers helping to put these events together have done an outstanding job. Their work has been exemplary. Their contributions of time and energy incredible.
Region 2 pulls off live streaming: Amanda Latta and Cheryl Croasmun kicked this out of the ballpark and smartly invested in a live stream which as of the end of the show Sunday had over 8000 views worldwide, and over 150 views at a time LIVE. This sounds like a critical part of next year’s marketing and we’ll be adding show support to our marketing budget. Here are the recordings of the live stream. I flew down for this amazing show and can tell you that speed was super fun. The only drawback to live streaming is that the music is copyrighted so you will miss that background sound, a bit critical for Masters dressage rides unfortunately.
New Website: If you haven’t noticed, we’ve released an entirely new USAWE website. There are still a few items to update (pictures and some references on forms), but all in all it seems to be functioning well and so far, well received. If you find any issue whatsoever, let me know personally at President@usawe.org. It has been a huge effort and I’m hoping you all find it useful. The top navigation bar in blue should give you a set of quick links to some of the most accessed information on the site, the lower navigation will take you into the depths of the content. Please take a look and send suggestions. Special thanks to the unending attention by Equine Online Design who worked with me daily for over two months on this project.
Elections: Speaking of the website, our election process is taking place and we have information posted. Please take the time to read about those running for positions by reading their Candidate Statements. The statements are found in About/Election Information on the site. Ballots will be emailed around November 1.
While not part of this election, we are still in need of a few key board members: a Region 6 Director, Region 7 Director, and Vice-President. With this many open positions and our shortened nomination cycle due to our bylaws changing, we may need to reach out to you all to nominate more board members. According to the bylaws, these will be Board appointed positions.
Volunteering: While the pandemic allowed many to spend more time volunteering, times seem to be tighter and it has been a stretch for many to volunteer. I’d like to start having our committees formulate positions in a way that many can volunteer less vs. few volunteering longer. Please consider what the one skill you might want to contribute might be. We’ve been so busy it has been difficult to follow-up completely with those offering to help so please be patient with us. Winter will be an easier time for us to fill those spots.
Membership Renewals and Payment Processing: Leesa Nero, our Treasurer, is consolidating our payment processes to better align with the capability of our database. Please note that our MEMBER LOGIN is how we’ll be handling financial transactions, horse recordings, etc. We will generate invoices and reminders via this system. Members may pay their invoices and fees with a personal PayPal account, Zelle account, Apple Pay account, or Credit Card. If you have any trouble logging in, please let us know. If you feel you are not receiving expected notices when resetting your password or if you’re missing a notice for renewal, please check your junk/spam folders just in case. We are still integrating our new software.
Marketing Program: We’ve been without a marketing chair for the past year and we can no longer exist without a clear marketing program. We were able to get by while we finished up some organizational changes that had to take place before we could significantly address growing the membership and sponsor/partner relationship, but the time is now. We allocated funds to the Championship shows to help create educational videos as well as marketing reels. The goal is to be able to show potential sponsors that we do have reach that can support their businesses and that the visibility of USA Working Equitation can grow substantially. My personal goal is that when folks search for Working Equitation on YouTube, they still find the beautiful European rides, but they definitely find US riders showing off our many breeds, disciplines, and talents – with our very specific US flair.
Show Managers: We have the opportunity to put on 2 additional Qualifier shows next spring if anyone is interested. One central, one eastern as the west coast already has one scheduled and we are limited to 3 per year. These would have to be completed before April.
On another note, USAWE will give USAWE banners to show organizers putting on 2 or more shows a year.
Education: We’ve begun investing in educational videos for L1-L5, judge and PI training, many taken at Region 2 and Eastern Regions Championships. We’re investigating the best way to house and release these videos to you, the USAWE members. These will likely tie into the educational area on our website. Again, stay tuned as our educational committee (Holly Linz and others) fully specify requirements and costs. Also, Sarah Pinney was added to this committee.
Budget: I’m particularly proud of the fact that for the first time ever, our organization is on target to complete our budgeting process in November. This past year we didn’t finalize the budget until almost March. This year the new administration/board will have a budget ready to be approved by the first of the year. Our committees did a bang up job preparing this information for the Board.
Strategic Plan: The board couldn’t find a time to all meet to review the plan, but it is available and can be reviewed next year (thank you Sara Barnwell in particular.) This plan should spell out to future administrations and boards what needs to be worked on when. It is a living document and still needs review by the committees as well after board review as it is the committees, not the board, that will fulfill the objectives.
Policies and Procedures: I’m hoping that by next month the P&P documents can be better aligned with the new bylaws and reapproved at the November board meeting. This is necessary to keep the board and committees tightly aligned while allowing autonomy to the committees themselves. Additionally, we are looking into adding non bullying language to our member code of conduct language, to protect all of our members.
Youth Opportunities and International Competition: We’re still defining how we’re going to support youth opportunities internationally but have tasked the International Committee with that specification based on learnings acquired through the adult team program. If you are a youth or know of one with interest, contact international@usawe.org. Additionally, remember that we have yearly Youth training/showing grants.
Ireland WE Startup: A few months ago USAWE voted to share our Rulebook with Ireland to help them get off the ground with Working Equitation. They have had their first show and a local dressage league has started to offer WE tests. The sport is now slowly starting to gain momentum and they have more shows and clinics planned. They’d like to thank us all.
There are still a number of projects to close on before the end of my year, but I’ll report on them next month.
As always, contact me if you have any issues, accolades, complaints, or just to say hi at president@usawe.org. You have just about another month to do so.
– Tracey M. Erway
President, USA Working Equitation (USAWE)