SA ARABS INC.

  OPEN LETTER TO ALL MEMBERS

Hi everybody and welcome to the first newsletter from your brand new committee. At our first ‘official’ committee meeting for the year we made the commitment to produce at least 4 newsletters a year and with Carolyn at the helm as newsletter editor I’m sure we will achieve this.

I guess you’ve noticed that there has been a complete change of the Management Committee this year with a number of the previous Committee ‘stalwarts’ choosing not to re-stand for committee positions, and we thank those previous committee members who have kept SA ARAB Inc ticking along for a number of years.

For years now the numbers of both derivative and purebred horses have been dramatically reducing at shows (purebreds more so than derivative). It’s getting harder each year to find people who are prepared to dedicate a year of their life to arranging and running horse shows and this year is no different, at this point in time there are less than a handful of people who have committed or even indicated that they would be interested in going onto a sub- committee and running a horse event.

The management committee is reconsidering all of the events we presently run and what we can potentially do in the future, nothing is off limits -  is it time for a change ?

The way we see it we need to get back to grass roots and do things our members want to do.  We think we need to make the whole Arabian World fun again, get kids and families out doing fun things and showing the wider world that Arabians are far more capable than is generally acknowledged by the general horsey public.

We can do so many smaller things that are fun and still make the club money but most importantly still promote the Arabian.

We know we have to change but we need to change in accordance with what our members want.

There is so much we can do that people want to do rather than only run horse shows that have limited participation of our members . We want to run kids days, maybe stallion parades, trail rides, fun rides, training days all the things that make people want to have fun and get out and enjoy their families, their friends and their horses.

The Management Committee need your feedback.  What do you guys want?

Do you agree, should we run more fun things?

Would you come on sub committees; (or even the management committee) if we headed in this direction?

What events would you like to see run?

What events would you help run?

Is it time to end the SA Champs and replace it with something else? Or just end it?

Would you attend a horse show down ‘South’ if one could be organised

TO put it into perspective, there are presently 9 committee members, 2 subcommittee members for the festival show a potential person for the Main  event subcommittee, not really enough people to run all the events we ‘historically’ would run. Is it time to end what was done in the past and time to look forward to the future...?

Please, if you have anything to say, ideas, comments anything at all, fill out the survey included in the newsletter and send it to the Club postal address. Or you can send me (or any committee member) an email or you can call me if you like to discuss this whole thing so you get a better idea of where I’m coming from.

At our July meeting this will be discussed and decisions made on the future direction of this club, if we don’t hear anything positive or negative we will move on an manage this club with the best intentions for all the members of this club and what we perceive is the best direction for the Arabian Horse in this state.. after all that’s the only reason were doing this in the first place.

Richard Shipton

Publicity Officer

On behalf of the 2010/2011 SA ARAB Inc. Management Committee

MEMBERSHIP