SNPDC Minutes 12-15-2008

Attendees: Christine Perala Gardiner, Donna Rudd, Sue Simonton, Holli Cox, Liz Vahlkamp, Eric Morti

The meeting began at 7:03 P.M. Eastern Time

The committee discussed the fiber sorting seminars in detail. Per the previous meeting, Donna Rudd has put together an outline for the seminar that we all approved. We discussed having each committee member host a seminar, with a presenter from near their farm. Donna Rudd is going to present for Sue and Christine, Liz is going to have Ann Mayes present, we will approach Mary Lou Clingan to present at Holli’s house, and we will discuss with Claudia to see who she might want to have present in Maine. Christine will prepare a shearing presentation with photos that we can each use as part of the demonstration. Donna will put together a budget for her travel expenses and Liz will prepare a full budget to present to the SN Board. We will charge attendees some amount of money to attend, but the cost is to be kept to a minimum to encourage people to attend. It was not decided if we would host these before or after shearing season. We will decide that once we have approval from the Board. The purpose of the seminar will be to educate breeders on not only fiber preparation, but also to further the attendees’ breeding goals.

Liz announced that Peggy Broz is resigning from the SNPDC. Peggy is selling her farm in full and expects to be fully out of the “alpaca business” by year end 2008, so it was understandable that she is removing herself from the committee.

Holli gave an update on the blog. It is now current, and it was agreed that once these minutes are posted, we will send out a reminder to the membership to check out the blog and see what we are doing!

Liz updated everyone briefly on the conversations she has had with AFCNA, NEAFP, and NAAFP. Just introductory calls, but they each seemed to like what we are doing to educate the membership. Each asked to be kept up to date with news articles and events that we present. Liz asked the committee members to consider how can efficiently reach these people going forward as well as the mill processors. We will discuss further at the January meeting.

The committee discussed fiber needs for 2009 and the possibility of purchasing raw fiber from one of the co-ops. This fiber would come graded and clean, thereby giving us greater control over the end product. The fiber would be used for roving with the fiber festivals and yarn for the pattern designs. It was agreed that this was a good idea and that we should pursue looking at the cost. Liz already has done this with AFCNA and will do so with NEAFP and NAAFP as well.

Claudia updated us prior to the meeting about the UN’s designation of 2009 as The International Year of Natural Fiber. She attended the meeting in New York and expects that the committee for that initiative will come back to us with a plan of how they intend to promote the designation in 2009, and what the cost would be to us. She expects to know more in 2009.

The meeting adjourned at 8:45 P.M. Eastern