Minutes 8/1/23

1

Quorum, Minutes of previous meeting & action points

Quorum of members reviewed.

Minutes received and agreed by all members.

Action log reviewed and actions closed where appropriate. KSB updated the action log accordingly.

Due to the large number of items requiring actioning at the present time, KM suggested that the action log is circulated when the agenda is issued and committee members can use a ‘tick column’ to confirm the action has been completed and return it to KSB prior to the meeting. The action log can therefore be updated in advance of the meeting.  

Before the meeting commenced a couple of queries were raised as follows :

A discussion was undertaken regarding pre-registration for foundation dogs and the impact of lapsed members using pre-registration instead of paying for membership (including the late fee).

CB advised that a tournament entry for 5th November needed creating. EB advised this would be for the show secretary to arrange. 

EB advised that the webmaster needs to be contacted in order that the stats officer can be granted log-in access to update points

EB confirmed that the EGM minutes had been reviewed and signed off by the independent chair. EB to circulate to the committee and look to publish them to the membership with the amendments.

2

Financial Update

MM advised the committee of the progress that has been made with regard to transferring the bank accounts over to the new committee members. A signature is required from the previous Chairman which KSB is going to arrange whilst attending a show on Sunday 15th January. 

MM will shortly have access to the PayPal account and therefore payments via this method, will be made where necessary.

The EGM independent chair has forwarded his final invoice for payment and when we are able to do so, payment will be made.

MM also advised that he planned to have a face-to-face meeting with the accountant. He will also be discussing the process for member renewals with the webmaster. 

The association’s VAT registration was discussed. MM has suggested subject to independent accountant confirming turnover figure (to previous 12 months) and independent accountant confirming that VAT liability is greater than VATdebtor for prior financial year, that MM will deregister association from VAT as at 31.12.2022

3

AGM

Due to the complexity of the AGM, it was agreed to discuss this fully at the planned face to face meeting. 

CB asked that consideration to be given for attendance in person and by zoom.

CB also suggested that voting should be made available online and in person. Both of these suggestions and the challenges associated with these options, will be discussed further at the February face to face meeting.  

4

Judges Board

The ulna data has been received and reviewed and a table of the results needs to be collated for publishing. Of the data reviewed, 3 dog measures appear to have been incorrectly documented (wrong BFA number recorded), and therefore are unable to be considered as part of the data capture. 

A vote was taken to agree that dogs with 3 measures, aged over 24 months can have a height card issued based on previous consistent measures.  All voted in agreement to proceed on this basis.

KSB will be collecting the stock of blank height cards from the previous height card coordinator at the Shooting Stars show on Sunday 15th January. She will ensure these are forwarded to the current height card coordinator. 

Members wishing to apply for an ulna height card to replace their current height card have until the end of June 2023 to complete the re-measures.  

5

Complaints – Restricted Item

4 complaints were discussed in detail and actions agreed to move these forward. No other information available for dissemination due to confidentiality

6

Face to Face Meeting

Date agreed by all present for the face-to-face meeting to take place on the 18th & 19th February in Chesterfield. 

An agenda needs to be compiled for priority items only. KSB to collate agenda items and distribute the agenda by 11th Feb 2022

7

Tournament and Events -  Partially Restricted item 

3 shows were discussed in detail. Financial viability and adherence to the rules were considered for all and votes undertaken. Teams will be contacted directly with the outcome of the committee’s decision. 

CB requested that the Indoor Champs dates needed to be amended on the events diary to show that the racing is for two days only.  It currently shows the ‘set up’ day too which could be misleading to the membership, as this day is not for racing.  

SA talked through the contact she had recently had with the organisers of a large dog event. They would like the fastest teams in the country to attend in order to race outdoors during May. It was noted that there are already other tournaments planned for that particular weekend.  Pursuing this event may be detrimental to the other tournaments.  SA also felt that the requests from the organisers were becoming unrealistic and their expectations were too high in relation to what we could deliver.  

8

Safeguarding Policies & Procedures

This was not covered at this meeting, but another meeting date is being set to dedicate the necessary time to this policy, and the associated procedures.  

9

Lights

A team requested that their light system was sanctioned for BFA use. It was established that only 2 of their 3 prestart lights are amber which is not in compliance with the current BFA rule (A.2 4).  The request to sanction the lights was denied by a unanimous vote due to them not currently complying with the association’s rules. CB to communicate the decision to the team’s captain. Further consideration to the request will be given if the third light could be altered/changed to comply with the rule.

CB advised those in attendance of the current agreement for lights custodians to have the ability to claim 25p per mile when transporting lights to a sanctioned tournament. MM requested to be added to the light custodians Facebook group in order to keep abreast of potential expenses regarding the lights.

MM to add the practice of paying mileage payments to light custodians into the proposed expenses policy currently being drafted.

CB left the meeting

CG left the meeting

10

Regional Reps

KSB gave feedback to the committee following her recent attendance at the Regional Reps meeting.  The key issues discussed were as follows:

11

APES

This agenda item will be carried forward for discussion at a later date. 

12

Media Team Recruitment

KM advised that at the present time the Adobe password was not available and therefore no software was available to be accessed. 

KM circulated information relating to the media team via the committee Facebook page for all to review prior to the meeting. All those present agreed with her precis of the current situation, the basis of which is as follows:

13

AOB

No other items were discussed due to time constraints

14

Date, Time & Venue of next meeting

Date set for face-to-face meeting of 18th & 19th February. Agenda items to be collated and agenda to be circulated by 11th February 2023