This past weekend’s national Canadian Warmblood Horse Breeders Association Annual General Meeting saw a changing of the guard with a new chair elected following founding chairman Chris Gould’s announcement that he would step down this year. Charmaine Bergman, of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, has been named the new chair. She was elected by acclamation at the CWHBA AGM and Seminar held March 15th in Leduc, Alberta. The meeting, which was set up to allow members from across the country to join by video conference from nine locations, ran on a tight schedule from noon until 5:00 pm.
Charmaine, who is a long serving national director and most recently was the secretary/treasurer as well as Saskatchewan Chapter president, takes over the reins. Gould, wwho has been at the helm since the the beginning of the association in 1988. He took the opportunity in his final chairman’s report, to give a brief synopsis of the CWHBA’s 25-year history and its growth into one of the largest and most successful studbooks in North America. His report, as well as the rest of the proceedings, is available on line here.
Using the video conference format, approximately 45 people were able to participate. The feature seminar presentation by Dr. Claudia Klein, assistant professor at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, on Managing Reproduction with the Problem Mare was extremely well received, generating comments such as: “video conferencing was excellent” and “I thought Dr. Klein’s seminar was great and the format for that worked great.”
Despite some audio issues early in the meeting, the day went quite well for a first time effort. Past CWHBA AGM’s have been weekend events, with ample time for workshops, seminars and lengthy discussions. That was missing this year; so there were no brainstorming sessions. However, itwas traded off for much greater accessibility to members and the chance to get together in regional centres for socializing and informal discussions. The trick for the future will be to find the right balance between accessibility and the ideal working environment.
All in all it was a compressed and productive meeting. The new board will now need to decide how to maximize the benefit of this webinar technology.
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