This message is from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: this is going to be a long post, if you don't want to see what I have to say just move on down to the next post and continue to have a nice day.
I read the digest yesterday and was somewhat sickened in my stomach at some of the comments concerning the NW Fjord show versus the Libby show. Let me preface the rest of my comments by saying that I am speaking only for myself. The following are my thoughts, my ideas, my feelings, and my goals for the PNFPG and the fjord horse. For all of you long time people in the Fjord horse world, yes I'm a newby to your world, but at one point so were each of you. You each had dreams & ideas & plans to make your ideas and dreams concerning the Fjord horse come to fruition; So do I. This idea that some of you have that the NW Fjord show is out to destroy the Libby show is the farthest thing from my mind. I want more shows, not less. In fact it is one of my goals that the PNFPG sponsors the first all Fjord CDE in the not too distant future, but we'll see what happens with that as time passes. Now I need to back up here a little to set the record straight for some of you who seem to have selective memories or just haven't done your homework. A little over a year ago, Warren Riddle phoned Woody Hoops and said he was going to make a motion at the fall meeting to move the Libby show to Moses Lake. Yes, you read correctly, the original idea of the motion was to MOVE the Libby show to Moses Lake. As most of you know this created a lot of commotion in the PNFPG and a lot of animosity was directed at the Riddles for even proposing such a thing and all kinds of hurtful things were said and done...so be it. What most of you do not know is that this idea did not originate with the Riddles. I've done my homework and there were a number of people behind that idea before Riddles got involved. Warren just happened to be the one who stood up and said he'd make the phone call to Woody. At any rate: the group who was behind having a show in Moses Lake then decided to change their motion: That the PNFPG sponsor a second show in Moses Lake. Still lots of turmoil and nastiness among the members, very disappointing to me at the time. In fact it bothered me so much I seriously considered not even joining or getting involved with the PNFPG and this small minded and somewhat mean spirited attitude that seemed to prevail amongst it's membership. However, my wife wanted to show her Fjord so I decided I'd stick it out till the fall meeting and see how things went. Now, prior to the fall meeting I again did my homework as it seemed the dates for the NW Fjord show were going to be the big topic at the meeting. I canvassed several long time Fjord owners, mostly breeders, and found that without exception none of them would consider coming to a show in spring, (i.e. June) because of breeding season, foaling and lack of time to prepare horses for that early of a show. So having a show in June in my mind was out of the question if indeed you wanted to have the best of the best at your show. Having the show after school started was also something that was not beneficial to the membership as I found out in my questioning of the members at large. So, that left July or August. July is hot in Moses Lake. Temps in and or around 100 degrees and never cooler than 80 at night The first half of August is the same, but somewhere around the middle to late August the back of the hot season breaks and it might still be in the upper 80' & low 90's daytime, but begins to cool off at night, which is exactly what happened this year. Someone posted yesterday that the weather we had for the NW Fjord show this year was non-typical...I disagree. I spoke with all the workers at the fair grounds and several folks in town about the weather and they all told me this weather was indeed typical for this time of year. One other point of history that I want to share with you, just so we're all on the same page and maybe you'll better understand where I'm coming from: My wife and I made our first trip to Libby last year bringing our mare Penfrydd's Libby to the evaluation. I'd never done anything like that and really had no clue what was expected of my horse or myself. By the time it was our turn I was so nervous I thought I was going to throw up or pass out or both. The evaluators were great and got me calmed down and we did pretty well and Libby qualified for a blue ribbon in conformation. I was then done with everything I came to do, but Connie and I were staying for the whole show, just to see what the show world was all about. I went to 3 different people who were involved in the show, not once, not twice, but 3 times and offered both my wife and myself for help at the show if they needed it. The last person I went to literally (in my opinion) looked at me like I was an alien, mumbled something like "we'll come get ya if we need ya" and turned his back on me and walked away without another word...ok, no big deal...you don't need my help, that's cool. But then, a month or so later these same people were complaining about how they couldn't get anybody to help at the show, this just blew my mind. Now please don't read into this that I'm bitter about what happened, cause that just aint the case, I'm just saying this is what happened to us, that's all. After the fall meeting of the PNFPG and it was decided we'd have 2 shows, I was somehow chosen to be show chairperson for the NW Fjord show. I only know how to do things one way, and that's full throttle. I'm not afraid to ask questions & I'm not afraid to ask for help. I was able to surround myself with people who knew what they were doing and with vision toward certain goals we were able to put together a show and show program that was very participant friendly. Our first goal was safety and our second was fun and we accomplished both and then some. Now, contrary to some beliefs, none of this was done with the idea of destroying the Libby show. The idea that the NW Fjord show is too close to the Libby show is in my opinion garbage. Back when I was involved in the draft horse world (no I was never a driver, I just threw lots of harness for friends of mine) some of these guys would spend 2 weeks at the Puyallup fair, then 2 weeks later be at Monroe and 2 weeks later be in Sand Point and yes there were times I was at all three. All these shows were two weeks apart and the ones who wanted to be there were always there. At the fall meeting when we decided to have 2 shows I fully planned to be at both shows and told Shirley that at the meeting. In June I went back to driving truck starting a new job. As most of you know, when you start new first of all you're at the bottom of the seniority list and second you have no vacation time coming. I had to take off 6 days on my dime to attend the evaluation and the NW Fjord show which cost me about $700 income...now I'm not asking anyone to shed any tears for me as I understood this when I made the job change. However, it made it financially impossible for me to attend Libby this year and I emailed Shirley right after I made the switch and told her I'd not be able to come. Now I have some questions for some of you who seem to be having a problem with the NW Fjord show. I've already stated how I feel about having the show in June or July with reasons why...but if we were to change the date to sometime in June would you be at our show? Ruth & Gene, would you be there? Jeff & Lisa, Cathern & Rune, Amy would all of you be there if we changed the dates to June? Peg Knutsen, you stated in your post yesterday that our show needed to be in June; you had Erlend at the evals and he did a great job but you did not participate in the show...if we had it in June would you and or Erlend compete? Or is all this mumble jumble about the NW show being too close to the Libby show just a bunch of smoke? I might be stepping over the line here mentioning each of you by name, but you are all people I respect in the Fjord horse and driving world and people I know I can learn from...so please don't take this as disrespectful, it's not. You are asking me to move my show from a proven successful date to a date that I don't think will be successful. I think it's only fair to know if you'll support us or not if we make the change. Next year I'll have a weeks vacation and I hope I can work it out to be at both shows, if not, the next year I'll two weeks vacation and should definitely be able to be at both shows...that is if I'm welcome to the Libby show. I've already heard through the grape vine that according to at least one small minded individual that I'm not welcome at Libby...I was really hoping to make it to Libby this year to see if this individual had the guts to tell me that to my face. Then again, maybe it's just another vicious rumor...who knows. As I hope you can see, I have done my homework on what I beleive would work best for the show and the PNFPG....ask my committee about how conscience I have been about money in everything we did, trying to save every dollar I could for the club. We used volunteer announcers, Karl Froelich, Taffy Mercer & myself, with Aaron Jensen volunteering to announce our grand opening ceremonies. We used volunteer ring stewards, Donna Burgess, Connie VanHoof, Greta Cook and myself. We used volunteer whippers in, Rory Miller, Mark Irvin and myself. We had many many different volunteers on the in and out gates and they all did terrific jobs. My crew and I worked our butts off to make the NW Fjord show the best it could be and now we have some who are accusing us of doing this for ulterior motives, i.e. money...what a bunch of crap. The only ones on my crew who are breeders are the Riddles and they worked their butts off right beside the rest of us. To even suggest that we've done this for our own financial gain is plain ludicrous. If there is to be healing within the PNFPG we need to stop pointing fingers at each other and looking at what we preceve as problems and why something won't work and start looking at solutions and a way to make them work. I don't know how many new members we brought into the PNFPG with the NW Fjord show, but I do know that about a third to half of the folks who were at the show were first timers to a fjord show. If our mandate truly is to promote the Fjord horse, then the NW Fjord horse show accomplished this mandate. It has taken me several hours to write this, trying to keep my emotions in check and just present the facts. I've tried not to step on too many toes but I know there are a few on this list that think they have a right to say and do anything they want with immunity but do not want to allow some of the rest of us the same rights...so be it. If you don't know by now, I'll fight for what I believe is best for the continued success of the NW Fjord show and that is by keeping the dates exactly as they are. I'll be glad to take any comments or suggestions privately, just remember I'm on the rode a lot, so if I don't get back to you right away, it's most likely cause I'm not home. I wish each of you that are going to Libby the best of success and safe trips to and from...wish we could be there, but just not able to this year. --David VanHoof Funshine Farm Fjords 9222 214th Ave E Bonney Lake, Wa 98391 253-335-8829 The FjordHorse List archives can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/rcepw
