February 2020 ~ Dressage Letters ~ Page 3 California Dressage Society www.california-dressage.org CDS Central Office Paula Langan • manager/editor
[email protected] P. O. Box 417 Carmel Valley, CA 93924 (831) 659-5696 • fax (831) 659-2383 Tue, Wed, 2-7pm • Thur, Fri, 1-5pm Dressage Letters: February 2020,Vol 26, Issue 2 Publishedmonthly by the California Dressage Society, . Periodicals #5940 at CarmelValley, CA and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to POBox 417, CarmelValley, CA93924-0417 Printed byAPi-Marketing President Joan Williams (408) 512-2890 Vice President Pat Hart (714) 299-6507 Scholarship Committee Chair Nancy Szakacs (408) 476-4743 Treasurer Diana Muravez • (760) 728-6325
[email protected] Insurance Equine Insurance Donna Parker 800/321-5723
[email protected] Junior Rider Sara Mosqueda • (909) 203-9290 Mari Naten • (916) 798-5844 CONTENTS Articles CDS Adult Amateur Clinics............... pages 26-27 CDS JRYR Clinic............................... page 22 CDS JRYR Championships................ page 28 Pyramid of Showing........................... page 17 Quadrille.............................................. page 18 Scholarships........................................ pages 24-25 Show Time.......................................... page 16 Sponsorship Opportunities................. page 21 USEF Convention............................... pages 1, 4-5 Monthly Departments Activities Calendar ............................ page 19 Bulletin................................................ pages 10-11 Classifieds........................................... pages 30-31 Membership Renewal Form .............. page 32 Monthly Clinics ................................. page 12 President’s Column............................. page 3 Show Calendar ................................... page 14-15 USEF, USDF, FEI .............................. page 8 President’s Column Joan Williams Welcome 2020! I wanted to express my thanks and gratitude for being chosen as the CDS President! I will do my best to support our membership and the sport of dressage. USDF Convention in Savannah GA I have been fortunate to attend the USDF Convention to vote at the BOG as a GM delegate this time and was a PM delegate previously. I want to help demystify these acronyms. It had my head spinning at first as well! If a rider signs up to a “GMO”-Group Member Organization, (Mine is: “CDS”- California Dressage Society), we get a “free” membership to “USDF”-United States Dressage Federation. If we are selected to attend the USDF Convention as a delegate, we vote on all the important items coming up to be decided upon. A group of GMO’s make up a USDF Region. Ours is Region 7. If a person wants more than their USDF Medals, and wants to go for additional USDF awards, they must spend a bit more money and become a: “PM”- Participating Member of USDF. If that participating member wants to run to become a: “PM delegate”- to be able to vote on items at the USDF Convention, they express an interest and are nominated by their USDF nominating committee representative. If elected, they are each allotted a certain number of votes. “GM”- Group Member (I am a member of CDS) “GM delegates”- are some of the CDS board members who attend the Convention and are allotted a certain number of votes. The USDF Convention has meetings over the course of four days with two “BOG”-Board of Governors of USDF Meetings where we hear information about items we will be voting on. There are also additional meetings about all sorts of interesting topics. Some of the meetings are closed so just the committee may attend, and others are open where we can attend as many as we like. L Faculty, Exec Board, Activities Council, Administrative Council, Technical Council, Dressage Sport Committee, Judges Roundtable, Regional Championships, FEI Jr/YR are all closed. The Committee Chairs and delegates orientation, USDF Regional meetings, Judges, L Program and Freestyle are open forums. Awards, Bylaws, Adult Programs, GMO Committee, USEF/USDF Open forum Youth programs, FEI Jr/YR Committee are just a few of the meetings are open to anyone attending the convention. Our Region gets together early at the Convention and the Region 7 director, Carol Tice, gives us our assignments so we can get to as many of the meetings as possible as a region and then we report our findings back to our Region so we all have an idea of what topics were discussed in the Committee meetings. The highlight of the Convention for me is usually the BOG meeting. It is really interesting to see how our votes impact dressage nationwide. At the BOG-We register when we first get there in the morning, we get an ID badge with the number of votes we are carrying listed on the back. When the BOG Meeting starts, we have to sign in via computer. One must ALWAYS remember to sign in otherwise they do a roll call for those who are registered and haven’t signed in yet....You do not want to go on the “walk of shame” where your name is called and you must then go sign in. I am part of the USDF Nominating Committee and each year we welcome and usher people in to vote for important topics. This year we all voted for one of two candidates for Vice President of USDF, Ken Levy and our own Kevin Reinig. Each of the candidates came around and spoke individually to the Regional Meetings about what they would offer as the new USDF VP. During the BOG meeting they also each spoke expounding on their philosophy and credentials. It is no surprise to me that Kevin won by a landslide! I have had the pleasure of working with him on the CDS board and he is in my opinion calm, articulate and has the furthering of dressage as his goal. His passion for our sport is clear. He has been a wonderful CDS president and I am expecting good things from him as our new USDF Vice President. If anyone is interested in joining us next year as a PM delegate please be sure and let me know! I know you will not be disappointed and I will look forward to welcoming you!