This message is from: Mike May [EMAIL PROTECTED]
At 10:31 PM 10/24/98 -0300, you wrote:
This message is from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Arthur Rivoire)
Hi Everybody from Carol Rivoire at Beaver Dam Farm in Nova Scotia.
A message to Mike May. Mike, I've been repetive (to say the least.) I
admit to nagging. I may have annoyed some people in the process. -
However, (squeaky wheel and all that) it did get people talking, and good
suggestions surfaced.
Yes I will admit a lot of good discussion has come from the topics you have
brought up.
Mike, you joked about the NFHR's taking 14 years to produce a standard.
You said Norway took 2,000 years to write theirs. That's true!However,
they had the standard in their heads all the time. Those men knew, when
looking at a Fjordhorse, if it was true to type or not. They'd learned at
their grandfather's knees how to judge a Fjord. A written standard was not
vital to them.
That is why in the early days we had Jon Hegdal and his associates here
every year helping us. Bob van Bon was also here many times teaching us.
When the Norwegian evaluations were going on it was required that a judge
from here was with them (so they could learn). Many of the judges also
traveled to Norway for this same thing. Wayne, Jim Havelhurst, Karen
Cabic, Mary Woolverton to name a few. I know there were more than this
also. The NFHR BOD decided that when our evaluation system was finally
developed that we would not use the Norwegian or Dutch systems any longer.
We need standards and that is the way they decided to have them. One
evaluation system is enough for any one country I think. I doubt that
Norway or the Netherlands will want to use ours either.
We haven't had that heritage. Breeders produced, and American judges
judged all those years without benefit of a breed standard. This wasn't
necessary. We didn't have to reinvent the wheel. The NFHR could have
adopted the Dutch standards. They existed in written form. How simple it
would have been to hire a translator. --- And if anybody says that Dutch
standards are different than Norwegian standards, well it isn't so. Up
until recently, the Dutch went every year to Norway and bought some of
Norway's best stallions. Stallions like Gjest and Solar. Both of them
born and approved in Norway, and purchased by the Dutch Studbook.
All water over the dam Carol. The PRESENT BOD HAS adopted a Breed
Standard. It IS approved and it is posted on the Internet for all to see.
This is all water under the bridge as we now have a Breed Standard. I'm
simply pointing out that if the NFHR didn't continually insist on doing
things in their own, unique way, we'd have had a standard fifteen years
ago. In the meantime, fifteen years of breed shows have come and gone.
Those shows judged by Arab judges, Morgan judges, QH judges with no
written standard to go by. They judged our Fjords as best they could, and
breeding decisons were made on the basis of their placings. Think about it.
Again more water over the dam or under the bridge. Lets move on with it.
We can't change what has happen in the past. Our present BOD is more than
willing to make changes and to move this organization into a real
professional Registry for the Fjord Horse in North America.
Through all my repetition and nagging, I've said the NFHR needs to get
cracking and begin to do things other registries do.--- A Rule Book, for
instance. A Stud Bood, for another. Breed Promotion. A member's package.
Proper Annual Meetings. More communication from the board. The NFHR needs
to learn from others registries. Not continually reinvent the wheel.
All things that are going to be worked on. The stud book for instance will
be produced early next year. The new software that we are now in the
process of converting to is going to make it possible finally.
I talked to a breeder today who suggested after each conference call, the
minutes be mailed to members. Great suggestion. They could also be put on
the NFHR's web page. Otherwise, we must wait to read it in the Herald, but
there's often a FOUR MONTH delay between conference calls and the
appearance of the herald. Is this acceptable? I'm not happy with it!
Well, posting them on the home page is probably not a bad idea. Storrs and
I just talked the other day about posting them here on the list. We also
talked about putting the agenda here for discussion about a week before the
meeting. So be looking for it soon. As to mailing the minutes to every
member, I am sure you know how much time and effort that is since you have
purchased mailing labels from me in the past. I just sent out the Stallion
Breeding reports to the Stallion owners last week. It is a very time
consuming job to say the least. It is also a fairly costly one. With
postage at $0.32 it would cost $224.00 for the postage alone. Add to that
the envelops, paper labels and you are near the $$400 - 500 mark. I
don't think it
