President's Update: November 2014
PLTA President's Quarterly Update: November 2014
Greetings from your PLTA President,
In the past few months PLTA has made strong strides toward becoming the vibrant, useful organization we all dream of. The Board of Directors passed a number of measures in August and put them before the membership at the annual membership meeting in September. Membership response was one hundred percent supportive. So, the following changes have been made:
1) The interim officers were approved as official.
2) The organization’s official name has been modified to Pack Llama Trail Association rather than trial association.
This name was already in place in the articles of Incorporation with the State of Idaho based on a typo made when the organization was created. Accepting it will allow a more expansive and inclusive approach to accomplishing our mission.
3) A mission statement for the PLTA was adopted. Created by merging the purpose statements in the articles of incorporation and the bylaws, it reads:
The PLTA is a charitable and educational organization, the purpose of which is to preserve and promote working llamas through education of its members and the public as to the breeding, raising, training, care, and safe and humane uses of working llamas as companions.
4) The Board of Directors opted to close recruitment of members to fill vacant board positions until early 2015. This was done to allow the current members to get up to speed as well as untangle difficult legal and financial challenges left by the previous leadership. It is in no means intended to discourage members from seeking those positions. In fact, each board member has been asked to look for understudies to help them with their tasks and grow into a position on the board. Please consider being one of those wonderful people.
Understand, the membership of the organization is now small. If it is to survive, members need to chip in. The board is identifying tasks that can be done in small chunks of five to ten hours so that no one is over burdened. Currently assistance is especially needed in the realms of technical writing, database construction and management, data entry, website construction and legal assistance.
To help sort out our financial issues and maintain accurate and appropriate accounts from here on, the board has retained services of an accountant with many years of experience working with nonprofit organizations. Janet Bailey comes highly recommended. She is working closely with our treasurer, Gina Obrien, to prepare for a legally correct audit. Janet has donated her services, an act of generosity for which we are greatly appreciative.
Progress has been made with our two new programs, the PLTA Challenge and GeoLlama. Member Anne Sheeter has agreed to be the program coordinator for the Challenge. A field test was done at the Cutsforth Park pack trial held near Hepner, Oregon in October. While certain details were demonstrated to need adjustment, the concept was met with great enthusiasm by the participants. This is essentially a pack trial without the trial and accompanying tribulations. Under the scrutiny of a PLTA trained official, groups go out on the trail and accumulate points for the weight their llama carries, the elevation gain it makes, the distance it covers, and the obstacles it successfully completes. The amount of participation in all these categories is left up to the handler, which removes the burden of completion required in a pack trial, and the anxiety that goes with. As a result, a lot of plain old fun is available, with plenty of opportunity for education as well. We are working to design a protocol that will be easy to undertake by any group from 4H kids to oldsters
The original GeoLlama proposal has been reviewed and undergone a field test. It too is undergoing revision to make it easier to administer and more fun to participate in. We have reduced the idea to a single application of the geocaching concept. To participate, a PLTA member can select coordinates from a database, go to the site, take a picture of their llama that corresponds to the image in the database and send it in to receive points for their accomplishment. There is much background work yet to be done to make this program functional. A program manager and help with data management are greatly needed. Volunteers step right up!
One of the early observations of the new board was that there are aspects of work that working llamas do beyond packing. Driving is an important one of them. In view of this, we have asked a group of active and knowledgeable llama drivers to design protocols for PLTA sanctioned driving activities. If you are interested in joining or assisting this group please contact the board of directors.
Finally, we note that members have been very active with hosting pack trials this fall. A total of six trials have been held so far this year, with the number of certified llamas increasing accordingly. Congratulations to the llamas, their owners and handlers, and especially to the trial organizers.
And did you know that changes in the trials have been made? Last winter the Board agreed to allow llamas to continue participating in trials after completing their certificates. For each successful subsequent trial, recognition of their added accomplishment will be made to their credential. Unfortunately, because the handbook did not get updated as planned, this was never made known to the members. The board has also approved allowing substitution of distance for mileage so that people hosting trials in gentle terrain can add all levels of trials to their event without concern for lack of elevation gain, but be forewarned, anyone planning to undertake an Extreme in flat country had better be ready to walk far and furiously.
Best wishes to you all, and happy llama-ing!
~Lisa
Lisa Wolf
PLTA President