Minutes of the N-CSA Board of Directors Meeting – April 21, 2024
1:00 pm Pacific Time, 2:00 pm Mountain Time, 3:00 pm Central Time, 4:00 pm Eastern Time
- Call to Order
The meeting, conducted by Zoom, was called to order at 2:11 pm MDT by Chair Sheridan Langford.
- Roll Call (Quorum requires 5 Board members)
Julia Alzofon, Bonnie Barcus, Irene Bennalley, Debby Bradford, Sheridan Langford, Elizabeth Casso Lopez and Richard Marlar were on the call and constituted the quorum. Katherine Skye Tucker joined the meeting at 3:30 pm due to travel/connectivity issues. Sam Cunningham was unable to attend due to prior commitments. Lisa Leonard and Janna Miller were present as guests.
- Minutes of Previous Meetings – (02/18/2024)
Debbie moved that the Board minutes of 02/18/2024 be accepted. Richard seconded the motion and it was passed unanimously.
- Reports of Officers and Board
- Business Office Report – Bonnie Barcus
We had six new members sign up at the 2023 AGM and three more have joined since. Those that signed up at the AGM were given information packets. There may be some 2024 memberships that haven’t been entered as yet. Currently the stats through 12/31/23 are: 66 members paid thru 2023 only and 40 Members paid thru 2024 and beyond equaling a total of 106 members. There are issues with new members that pay online via our Square link. Some are not getting a filled out membership form to Bonnie. This makes it impossible to get their contact information into the database. Bonnie and Lisa will work together on this. All Registration paperwork has been cleared from Bonnie’s desk. A backlog of paperwork that came in during the fall of 2023 was sent out in March for Inspection. There have only been a couple registrations coming in since January and those went out a couple of days ago to the inspectors. Bonnie’s goal is to get totally caught up with membership data entry by the end of this coming week. The 2024 items should go quicker than the 2023 items. Then she will start on the 2024 QuickBooks data entry.
- Interim Treasurer’s Report – Bonnie Barcus
As per Bonnie: The P&L Statement has been sent out to the Board members. It shows a profit of $3,779.68 for 2023. About $1,000.00 of that profit was from Nikyle’s Facebook Birthday fund raiser. Plus we had $400.00 in individual donations that came in during December. Our bank account has: $14,472.40 as of 4/20/24 in the checking account and $5,121.58 in the Certificate of Deposit account equaling $19,593.98 total funds.
Bonnie is serving as Interim Treasurer while Richard is being trained to take over duties as Treasurer. Soon, we will be switching to a new version of Quickbooks and that would be a good time for some reorganization of the income and expense categories.
From time to time, people have collected money as a fund raiser. Nikyle recently did this through a Facebook Birthday fund raiser. These donations were placed in the N-CSA Navajo Shepherds’ Assistance fund. Already some of these funds have gone to helping Dine register their sheep, keep records and be educated about such matters.
The N-CSA has received an acceptance letter from the IRS for the N-CSA’s 2023 e-postcard submission for non-profit tax reporting. Thus, the 2023 taxes are done and approved. New Mexico non-profit filing is due in May. Bonnie expects that to be a relatively simple form with a $10 fee.
- Inspector Coordinator and Registrar’s Report – Connie Taylor
As per email sent by Connie Taylor:
- Follow-up on most recent meeting 4/19/23. Kim (Kerley) and I managed to keep registrations and memberships going through mid November. 173 sheep were registered and one transfer. $1087 for registration and membership was deposited by me here at US Bank Taos. I filed a complete report with Sheri, Bonnie and Richard. Kim entered membership information into the data base for new members and renewals. She worked with some digital routing as well as traditional routing which I assigned.
- Both Mickey Willenbring and Andrew Schafer are now accepted as Inspectors for N-CSA.
- Keep in mind that the Navajo-Churro has fallen back from Threatened status to Critical. The numbers are based on Registrations per year as well as the population at large.
- Website Committee – Lisa Leonard, Sheri Langford
Lisa did a screen-share of her very fine work on our new, up-coming website. She still sees a few fix-ups that would best be made once the new version goes live. She would like additional photos from more farms so that a wider range of owners will be represented. She would like bios and photos of the Board Members, Officers, Inspectors and others who are active in the organization. Membership types were discussed and that issue will be referred to the By-Laws Committee. There is an option of having a “contact us” portal where users would write in and the email would be routed appropriately as the people filling various positions changes. There will be an area for announcements of upcoming Board meetings, including Zoom links, so that more members may be included in N-CSA activities.
- Breed Standards Committee Report – Jim Keyes
No report at this time.
- Database Committee Report – Bonnie Barcus
No report at this time.
***Approval of Reports: Julia moved that the Committee Reports be accepted. Richard seconded the motion and it was voted unanimously to approve the reports.
- By-Law Changes – Sam Cunningham
No report at this time.
- Unfinished Business
2024 Annual General Meeting (AGM) – Irene Bennalley, Richard Marlar, Janna Miller
On October 25-26 (Friday and Saturday), 2024, we will hold our Annual General Meeting. It will take place at the Gutierrez Hubble House in Albuquerque’s South Valley. Sheep and wool judges are lined up as well as speakers and a reservation of 70 seats for our Saturday evening banquet at nearby Abuelita’s restaurant. Fifteen rooms will be reserved at Isleta Casino Hotel. We will have a veterinary on site for part of Saturday and a Brand Inspector may also be required for certain sheep transports and transactions. An off-site sheep camp still needs to be arranged for night time housing of sheep. There are suitable locations nearby and Janna is working on this. The banner for the N-CSA booth needs to be located and other items can be printed if needed. Numbers and locations of “port-a-potty’s” will be determined and arrangements will be made.
There will be no facility cost but vendors will need vending licenses and the N-CSA will need an event license. These are obtained from the County of Bernallio. The plan would be to have our lectures on Friday, the sheep show on Saturday morning and the wool show Saturday afternoon. There will also be a Silent Auction.
Our event will be held in conjunction with an event by The Oveja Project. The Oveja project promotes raising sheep in New Mexico, see their Facebook page for more detail. Some of their activities include promotion of wool pellet production, lamb and mutton sales at farmer’s markets and they sponsor interns learning about sheep and wool products. The Oveja Project is expected to have a Navajo-Churro Rug show, a Native Regalia Show, a “Make it with Wool” garment show with fashion show Friday night and native dancers are also a possibility.
The Oveja Project and the N-CSA will split the cost for judges, ribbons, and veterinarian. Livestock Conservancy or N-CSA memberships, buckles, plaques and/or logo merchandise are possible gifts for Grand Champions. Ribbons and other inscribed prizes will have both Oveja Project and N-CSA printed on them.
- New Business
Catch Pen – Bonnie Barcus, Julia Alzofon
Bonnie will take the December 2023 Catch Pen to the printer’s on Monday, April 22nd. The March 2024 issue will be done by the end of April with an expedited send-out and the June Catch Pen is expected to be on time. Julia asks that anyone who has something for the March Catch Pen get it to her within one week. Articles and photos for the June Catch Pen are welcome through May 31st.
- Set Next Conference Call Date & Adjourn
- The next Board meeting is scheduled for Sunday, May 19, 2024 at the usual times.
- The meeting was adjourned at 4:46 pm MDT by Chair Sheri Langford.
