Changes at the top!
The President has retired. Long live the President!The National Board experienced a number of changes at the 2006 Annual General Meeting in Melbourne last week. EFA President Russ Withers had finished his term as Chairman and retired from the Board, and Mary Seefried and Kerry Brydon had completed their first term as Directors. This created three vacancies for which four members including Mary and Kerry had nominated. Both were re-elected and former WA Branch Chairman Peter Hickson joined the Board. At a brief Board meeting convened after the AGM, Geoff Sinclair was elected Chairman and EFA President. Congratulation to Geoff, Mary, Kerry and Peter, and many thanks to Russ for the outstanding job he has done as Chairman and for his great contribution to Equestrian sport generally. Board Member profiles National EFA AwardsThe Welcome Reception for the 2006 EFA Annual Forum was the venue for the inaugural presentation of the EFA Order of Merit, the EFA Special Services Award and the Annual Awards for various category winners recognising special contributions or achievements during the year. The party was hosted by outgoing Chairman Russ Withers. It was an excellent evening. Guests had a marvellous time in a relaxed atmosphere at the Old Treasury in Melbourne. The presence outside of large numbers of G20 Meeting protesters and equally large numbers of police sporting batons first added excitement but was quickly forgotten. Russ Withers welcomed all in his usual eloquent manner. Australian Sports Commission CEO Mark Peters delivered a personal message from Federal Sports Minister Senator Rod Kemp, and then the two gentlemen presented the EFA National Sport Achievement Awards. Congratulations to all the winners! Geoff Sinclair farewelled Russ to collage of Withers photos in the background and finally surprised Russ by announcing him as winner of an EFA Order of Merit, the highest honour the EFA can bestow under its new EFA Member Recognition Policy. Congratulations, Russ!! EFA Annual National ForumThe Forum itself took place on Sunday and consisted of a reporting section, a presentation section and a workshop section. A number of "outside" speakers added new perspectives. They included ASC CEO Mark Peters, Swimming Australia CEO Glenn Tasker, Bellevue IT (EFA web site provider) Managing Director Paul Pascoe and the Chief Executive of Equitana producer Definitive Events, Daryl Herbert. Facilitator extraordinaire Mike Smith again ran proceeding for the day. Summaries of the addresses given by Mark Peters and Glenn Tasker are already published on our web. National Dressage Committee moves to new structureWell, it appears attendance at the National Forum helped convince members of the EFA Dressage Committee to vote for a change to its governance structure. The present representational system with one Delegate from each Branch will be replaced by a committee of five plus the riders' representative. Branch Dressage Committees will elect these five members from nominations across Australia. The Committee will then elect a Chair from among its six members. FEI Horse and Rider RegistrationsFrom 2006, competitors in all FEI-level events (not just Eventing as in previous years) need to have an FEI registration, also for their horses. The FEI has now advised the following: "Until now, no distinction was made between registered and non-registered riders and horses as far as rankings have been concerned. From now on, however, only results from riders and horses registered with the FEI for the current year will be taken into account for the monthly rankings. Once registration has been made, results in question will be included in the following month rankings." So the message to all riders, drivers and vaulters participating in International (CI) events is: Please make sure you and your horse(s) are FEI-registered. If you competed in an FEI event in 2006, you still need to register for that year. You can find the application form on our web at EFA Services > Forms, Passports, Registrations. EFA Horse ID DocumentsThe 'old' horse Identification and Ownership Record issued to horse owners and issued in 2005 and earlier will expire at the end of this year.
These documents were valid for lower-level FEI competition in Australia. They were replaced in July 2005 with an FEI-approved EFA National Identification Document that is valid for all levels of FEI competition in Australia.
If you still have only the "old" record for your horse and want to compete in FEI competition next year, please apply for the new document as soon as possible.
Hendra VirusHendra virus (formerly known as equine morbillivirus) was diagnosed in a horse that was euthanized at Murwillimbah in NSW late October. This was the first time infection of a horse with Hendra virus that has been reported outside Queensland. Hendra virus infection of horses is a rare occurrence but is significant because the virus can potentially infect humans. Close contact with infected body fluids from a sick horse can cause infection and death. Fortunately such transmission is very uncommon. The case does, however, reinforce the point that it is important to take care when handling ANY sick horse and when performing post mortem examinations. Good hygiene and gloves etc. help prevent transfer of infectious agents. More .... FEI DirectoryThe FEI has announced that "due to exceptional reasons, the 2006/2007 edition of the FEI Directory will only be published online and not in hard copy. Indeed, a version identical to that which would have been printed can now be downloaded from the FEI Website at the following location: http://www.horsesport.org/FEI/fei_08_01.html." How things work in the EFARecent statements in the horse press and in Internet "chat rooms" have again made it clear that many members who speak up don't seem to be aware of how the EFA is structured and "how things work". So it may be useful to highlight a particular area in this newsletter each month. Rather than including the test and graphics in the newsletter itself, we will provide a link to a PDF file that those of you who are interested in this can download from our web. I hope this will be useful to at least some members. Today we are outlining the general structure of the EFA, which is made up of a number of Branches that are legally independently incorporated under their respective State or Territory Association Incorporation Act but whose constitutions contain the same objectives. The Branches are the "shareholders" of the National Federation and appoint the National Board. Download the first part of How things work in the EFA. Note: This is a Word document with embedded PDF files, so you need Acrobat Reader. The latest version is great: faster, more powerful (and unfortunately bigger). EFA Education – New Level 1 AssessorsDue to increased participation levels within EFA education initiatives over the past two years, the EFA National NCAS Committee has introduced a new specialist Assessor – the Level 1 Skills Specific Trainer and Assessor (SSTA) L1 Coaches qualified as SSTAs are accredited to verify candidates’ successful attainment of the skills and competencies within EFA Introductory Riding and Introductory Horse Management courses. To kick-start this qualification the EFA National office and EFA Vic Branch joined forces to provide the inaugural L1 SSTA training course for EFA NCAS L1 coaches seeking this qualification. This course was held at the Werribee National Equestrian Centre, 21-23 November 2006, with over 40 EFA L1 NCAS coaches attending. To date feedback about this initiative has been very positive. Congratulations to all those who attended and gained this new qualification. National Office Vacancy still openWe have had a pretty good response to our previous advertisement. Unfortunately, most of the likely candidates are now not available, so we have extended the closing date for applications to Friday, 08 December 2006. You can find a position description on our web. Christmas-New Year Office ClosureAnd just a reminder: The National Office will close at lunchtime on Wednesday, 20 December 2007, and will re-open at new premises almost next door on Wednesday, 03 January 2007. We will keep our postal address (and e-mail addresses) and have been told that we can also transfer our existing phone numbers, so let's hope all these re-connections work .... Dressage Squad Selection PolicyThe policy is now available for download from the web. New EFA Show Horse Rule BookThe EFA Show Horse Committee has worked hard in the past year to develop a more complete resource for Show Horse riders, judges and organisers. The new rule book collates all the existing rules from several documents into one and clarified some of the wording. The greatest development is in the back section. The EFA has gathered “guidelines” to assist everyone in the sport. For example, there are definitions for Show Hunters and Hacks, guidelines on traditionally-accepted dress and equipment, and guidelines for Show Organisers. These will help everyone in the sport and allow the EFA to go on to develop better judge training. The rule book will be effective from 1 January 2007 and will be available for free download from the EFA National web site. 2008 Beijing Olympic GamesThe AOC has already begun its information and training workshops for "Section Managers" who are the equivalent of our Chefs de Mission at World Equestrian Games. One of these workshops took place in Sydney on 10 November. Our High Performance Manager Brett Mace, who has been appointed Section Manager for the 2008 Games, attended the workshop. The Hong Kong Equestrian Company has advised that the dates for the Equestrian Test Event next year are likely to be 10 - 13 August 2007. Even with only nine months to go, however, the dates and indeed the format of the event are still to be confirmed. Australia intends to send two horses and riders to the event and is expecting the competition to be at two-star level. The organisers have now started to call for volunteers for the Equestrian competitions of the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games. More details. adidas Medal Incentive FundingThe AOC Executive recently announced an increase in funding for the AOC adidas Medal Incentive Funding Program. Athletes and their coaches who won medals at the 2004 Olympic Games and win medals in 2005, 2006 and 2007 (including 4th placegetters in 2007) at World Championships or other major international events of a comparable standard (agreed in advance by the AOC as “benchmark events”) will be considered for Adidas Medal Incentive Funding the following year. Clayton Fredericks with his silver medal along with the Eventing Team which won bronze, and coach Wayne Roycroft will now qualify for this funding due to their performances at WEG this year. The old and the new funding scales for this Program are listed below.
Young Rider International ActivitiesSiobhan Lapthorne has produced an overview of International Young Rider competitions in 2006. These include the FEI YR World Cup Dressage, FEI Children's Jumping in Canada, Dressage YR Derby in NZL, the International Showman in South Africa and International YR Jumping in India. To save a little space in this newsletter, we have put it in a separate document for download. Upcoming Major EventsOn the first weekend in December, you can go to the Decron EFA National Show Horse and Rider Championships at Werribee or the Shepparton World Cup Jumping. This is followed by the Lakes & Craters CCI*** in Camperdown (Vic.) and the ISS-Tempo Summer Classic including a World Cup Jumping Qualifier at the Sydney International Equestrian Centre 8 - 10 December 2007. Please check the web calendar for other events. Supporters and SponsorsI cannot close without thanking our funding agencies, sponsors and supporters. Make it a good day! Franz Venhaus | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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