Brief report of meeting of Council of Members

On Monday evening, October 8, there was an extra members' council meeting in Heerde. During this meeting one of the topics discussed was an advice from the Breeding Technical Committee (FTC) about the change of the predicate system. As a result of this advice, the main board is making a proposal, which will be discussed during the departmental meetings. There, members will have the opportunity to give their input. The board will then submit a proposal, amended or otherwise, for approval by the membership council. Another decision that was taken was that the pilot for the performance test will in any case be extended by 1 year. A proposal for a new style stallion performance test will be further developed in the coming period by the main board, after which it will also be presented to the departments. Subsequently, the proposal will be presented to the Council of Members.

The Council of Members further approved the nomination of a number of members for the Breeding Committee: Aniek Rolf, Katja Bleeker and Sander van der Putten. The Council of Members is pleased that these members have responded to the vacancies, because additions to the committee are urgently needed to enable the desired split in breeding policy between Breed Breeding and NWR/WPBR. Furthermore, the filling of the disciplinary committee was discussed. According to the statutes of our association, this committee is authorized, after the board has submitted a case to the disciplinary committee, to reprimand or fine members or honorary members who have acted in violation of the statutes and/or regulations. The membership board appointed Bastiaan Meerburg (chairman of the membership board) as chairman of the disciplinary committee and Reinier van de Ruit (secretary of the membership board) as secretary. A third member of the disciplinary committee will still be sought.

The working group Wijffelaars' memorandum was not discussed by the members' council because it was not yet completely ready. Peter Wijffelaars said that as a result of the breeders' evening held, various options would be presented in the memorandum, but that the Executive Committee would have to make a choice. The memorandum should therefore be seen as a suggestion to the Executive Committee. However, the executive committee will determine the content of the final proposal. This will then go to the members, and will be discussed in the departmental meetings. The council of members also talked about communication from the studbook. Great strides have been made recently, but there are still a number of areas for improvement, for example, with the Welsh Pony & Cob Magazine, the newsletters and the website. For example, it is unclear to members when they can expect what communication. The main board indicates that they are working hard on this, but also that they depend on the efforts of volunteers.

The association's financial results were also discussed. The picture for the year so far is generally positive: the number of members has increased recently, as well as the number of registered foals compared to 2017. Another positive point is that the number of members who do not pay their dues has fallen sharply. This is also strongly monitored by the main board: in the worst case, a member is first blocked and later expelled. The great advantage of tight financial policy is that a number of fees may drop somewhat in the coming year. It was concluded with the great news that the company Renolution BV of Jan Willem Sloof has committed itself for a longer period (5 years) as main sponsor to the studbook.

The next membership council meeting will be scheduled in late November, early December. This is after the departmental meetings. The agenda then will include a memorandum on honorary members, as well as input from the department meetings on the topics discussed above. The subsequent meeting will be scheduled in early March 2019.