Regional Director's Email
October 24, 2011
2011 ACFA Ballot Measures

Dr. Glen Newton Dr. Glen Newton,
North Central Regional Director

Fellow ACFA North Central Region Members,

One thing that distinguishes ACFA from other cat clubs is that decisions on bylaws, breed standards, and other rules that affect you are ultimately made by the members, not a central governing body. When you receive the October ACFA Bulletin, you will be able to exercise this important right of ACFA members and cast your votes. You have 45 days after the October Bulletin is mailed for your ballot to be received in the ACFA ballot box. Don’t miss this opportunity to affect the future of your association!

To make sure your ballot is counted, follow the directions in the Bulletin carefully. Other than mailing ballots late, the major reasons for having a ballot not count are multiple ballots in one envelope and sending them to the wrong address.

Now for the ballot itself …

This year is a year for show rules and registration rules. Standards and bylaws would not normally be voted on this year. Standards will come up in 2012 and bylaws in 2013, so as you look ahead to the next two years, make sure you get your standards and bylaws proposals in to Central Office no later than April 30 of the applicable year. This year’s ballot includes nine items on which all North Central Region members should vote and several others that apply to specific breed sections.

Note that the show rule and bylaw amendments require a “Yes” from 50% of those voting to pass, whereas breed standard amendments require a 60% majority vote of the votes cast for ratification.

Yearbook. The first item on the ballot is left over from last year. When last year’s official ballot was sent out, asking members to vote on changing the name “Parade of Royalty’ to “Yearbook,” this section of the bylaws was inadvertently omitted from the wording. Rather than simply have the additional wording change made as an administrative action for consistency, the board is asking members to approve the wording change in Article XIII so that the bylaws are consistent.

Purpose of ACFA. If you carefully read the beginning of Article II, you’ll see that our show rules have for years made it sound like cat fanciers competed with the general public. Perhaps this was just careless wording in the first place, or maybe it was the result of bylaws being retyped with a few words accidentally left out. In either case, the board is asking members to vote to clean up the wording. Note that to many readers, “to have their cats … valued by … judges” sounded like a monetary value was placed on each cat, so the proposal includes changing “valued” to “evaluated.”

Two-Day Split Format Show. The next four ballot measures are a group that, taken together, allow clubs to rent small show halls and still have 8 rings in a weekend. For some clubs, this can make the difference between having a show and not having one. The first session Saturday would have two rings. Then the second Saturday session would have two rings with different judges. On Sunday, there would also be a two-ring morning session and a two-ring afternoon session, for a total of 8 rings with 8 separate judges. The only part of this set of motions that affects one-day split format shows is the lowering of the maximum number of entries from 100 to 75, which would apply to both one-day and two-day split format shows.

Electronic Entries to Shows. This proposal  helps bring our show rules up into the age of ECLERK and email.

Cages Furnished By Clubs. Clubs can’t require exhibitors to furnish their own cages for the benching area. Today, the benching cages provides by clubs must be metal cages. This proposal opens up additional options for the cages furnished by the club for the benching area, and it requires clubs to notify exhibitors of the type of cages that will be provided. Thus, one option would be the Show Shelter cages from Sturdi Products. Of course, although it’s not stated in the show rule, it’s implied that any cage would be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected between occupants.

Grand Championships for Alters. Today, the requirements for alters and whole cats to become grand champions are the same except that whereas whole cats need two 10th best or higher Allbreed finals, Alters need two 5th best or higher finals. This proposal makes the requirements the same by lowering the requirement for alters so that an alter only needs two 10th best or higher Allbreed finals.

Don’t forget to vote!

Sincerely,

Glen Newton
North Central Regional Director
www.acfanorthcentralregion.org

Email me at glennewton@comcast.net or call me at 651-688-9504.