Our May meeting was held the 11th at Clover Valley Equestrian Center with Vice-President Kris Brown presiding. She is a member of the "new show" committee, which brought us the latest on the new show our chapter voted to hold this fall. Our initial idea was to keep costs as low as possible in order to keep entry fees as low as possible and call it the "Bare Bones League Show." But the Yamhill County Fairgrounds arena was not available in the time frame we desired and no other nearby venues could be secured. So the show committee came up with a totally different show concept to be held the weekend of September 21-22 at Mt Hood Equestrian Center, which is available for a fall two-day show. Saturday schooling show will offer dressage trail, musical freestyle (with no scoring requirements), Prix Caprilli, Western Dressage, a costume class, and if time permits, USDF Test of Choice USDF classes (entry priority will be given for the “fun” classes). We discussed offering a lasagna or spaghetti feed that evening, catered by the concessionaire. The idea is to promote this day as a fun, social event. Sunday will be an ODS League show, and will include the Rider tests and Western Dressage as well as USDF classes. We realize recruiting volunteers may be a challenge due to the distance from our "home base," so we discussed requiring competitors to volunteer for at least two hours each.
We then brainstormed at length about a fitting name for our new show. Some of the names suggested: Harvest Hash, Cornucopia of Dressage, Dancing Bears, Dressage before Hibernation, and Shoulder-in to Autumn. Dressage Do Si Do, with its nod to the Western classes, got the most votes. The show committee is moving forward with the approval process.
Karina introduced the idea of forming a standing committee within the Oregon Dressage Society to promote para-dressage and network between para-equestrians. We moved, voted and approved setting aside a percentage of the profits from our fall show to start a fund for the future needs of a para-dressage program in Oregon. The ODS office has since advised that as long as we are setting aside funds for education or raising awareness of dressage-related issues, we should be fine within the non-profit framework of our organization. This is not a committee that is directly related to our chapter, but is of interest to us all.
Many thanks to Connie for providing pizza and pop to fuel our discussions!
Our next chapter meeting is scheduled for June 10 at Clover Valley Equestrian Center.
