Which makes a good point. Are they so uninterested in what the average ammy rider thinks to not even go looking for things like this thread to get an idea what is going on out there?
If the responses in that article show anything my guess the answer to that question is that they simply do not care. They are very ‘la la la, can not hear you’.
Is this Mary just wanting to air her personal grievances or what? Her answer is not relevant at all to the question asked, and is just a detailed bash of someone who brought a complaint to her. What a terrible leadership strategy. WTF.
"What are your plans going forward? How are you going to address the concerns being raised?
I get complaints all the time. A person reached out to me who was very, very unhappy because they didn’t know that a particular championship had happened. I went back and got the communications department to pull all the communications to this person. The team can tell whether [the emails] were opened or not. All of [the communications about the championship] had gone to that person; [they] had all been opened. I wrote back very pleasantly and said, “Here’s what happened. Here are the dates on which you were notified with a lot of detail,” and I heard nothing. I wrote back one other time, maybe twice. I got a really nasty email back saying what a dreadful organization we are.
That is a person who is bashing away on social media. The person missed something that made them upset. That said, we’re constantly looking for how to communicate better."
THIS!!!
I agree that there seems to be a huge disconnect. Yes, it’s probably a thankless job; running any sort of organization like that without pay generally is hard and often thankless. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean that people don’t have valid issues! The two can co-exist. If people are upset with the governance organizations then the answer isn’t to complain that they don’t understand how hard it is, or that they don’t understand the rules. Slapping people down because they are upset is akin to biting the hand that feeds you.
Our problem is that the base of the H/J world, which is ammies, isn’t represented; this means that a lot of what comes out of those boards are decisions that don’t seem to meet our needs or demands. It’s actually fairly simple: when governance is not representative policies tend to not be, either. Why would they be? As others have pointed out show managers and high level trainers or owners aren’t going to see the H/J world from any perspective but their own.
Anyone who owns a horse and is able to compete is already in a different category from the average middle class family, but there is a HUGE gap between the usual one, maybe two-horse ammy and the top of the sport. And, increasingly, this is shown with the sorts of decisions being made supposedly on our behalf. If they want us to stop complaining they need to understand why it’s happening, not get in a snit and yell at us for being ungrateful.
I also love the comments about the by laws. Can By Laws not be changed? I think they can.
Ok, one more, and yeah I’m replying to my own comment haha. This run-around crap is what someone does when they’ve been called out on BS behavior. I manage a large crew of guys and see it all.the.time.
She got called out for poor behavior. She didn’t want to admit that, and so gave the run around trying to shift the blame off herself (or what she represents). The interviewers next question should have been “Yes, but what are you doing to doing to address the complaints?” to bring her right back to the question she dodged.
Textbook evasive maneuvering. Happens all the time.
Something that I think is very important is to ensure we hare real amateur representation throughout the organization. The Ted Stevens Act requires active high performance athletes to serve on certain committees. That was not the practice before, and it seemed to create a shift in the organization as well as turning out to be practical and beneficial. I’d like to see the same for ensuring we have active, showing Amateur riders from across the country in committees and in the board. I know not everyone loves a zoom meeting, but we’ve shown it can be done, and that meeting in person - which confined these committees to the geographically convenient and/or wealthy with time - is not the only way to work.
I also would like to see them doing more surveying of the rank and file membership, and publishing the results. Internet surveys are not expensive, and they’re a way to connect the needs of people back to the top governance.
I am going to agree with Mary Babick that most people don’t understand sports governance, and lay blame for things they don’t control. It’s not limited to USEF/USHJA - I’ve seen it in every kind of rule structure. And it can be immensely frustrating when someone goes out and tells a story about what happened, and on your side, as the professional with obligations, you are bound by confidentiality and can’t really lay out the other half. Being the anonymous Big Bad Guy is sometimes part of the job. There are real people trying hard that get unfairly attacked. I’m not saying that everyone attacked is getting a bad rap, but I do think there’s value in taking a moment to be measured and thoughtful and to try to ask questions that can be answered.
She asked:
“Also, why do people see show managers as “evil” or “against amateurs”?”
I can see why she felt that but I don’t think that’s an accurate characterization of the sentiment. It’s not that show managers are bad people, it’s just that they have a different interest and a different point of view than a person who comes to a show with one horse and jumps a few sticks. Trainers aren’t bad people either - after all most of us pay one - but again they have a particular point of view about what is important at a horse show. It’s not anti-show manager, it’s frustration that someone who is working as a professional in the industry is given a slot that was intended for an amateur RIDER.
And that’s what we want and wanted to see: representation from people who don’t make their living in the horse industry. Not just people who aren’t paid to ride horses. And certainly not people who are amateurs because they don’t, in fact, ride horses.
Similarly: nothing against Betty Oare, but I don’t think she’s a good representative of the amateur rider either. She used to be a professional, and she’s also a judge. I am fine with that in terms of allowing her to ride in the amateur divisions but again, she’s a person whose experience is almost wholly shaped by the professional horseman’s perspective.
I want to see amateurs who have held jobs in unrelated industries in these positions, and whose life experience has a non-horse component. I want it to be possible for people who are working amateurs with full time jobs to have meaningful input in governance at USEF, which means not only making positions for them but also recognizing the cost and time barriers that have prevented people in that position from taking part. The whole entity will benefit from the expertise these amateurs can bring, not just of what it is like to be a competing amateur rider in their region, but also their knowledge of computers or law or marketing or security or whatever else they can bring. Their network becomes part of our network.
My thoughts exactly. Betty is, undoubtedly, a wonderful horsewoman and an asset to our sport, but what does she have in common with 99% of amateurs?
Also to clarify myself on one point: I said, we don’t want people who make their living in the horse industry to count as amateurs for this purpose. I would expand that to say that we want representation from people who don’t make or control any significant income from horses. Even if your show manager is a volunteer, they have huge financial worry and risk in the game. And I applaud them for taking that on and managing it, because without that we don’t have horse shows. But, it’s not the same perspective as a person who does not receive any industry money or connections to pay the bills they’re responsible for paying, nor the same perspective as the person who has to live in the outside world in order to pay their bills.
It’s not that this is a purer or better perspective, it’s just different, and it’s almost completely unrepresented within the current governance structure.
To add to that, no one is going to vote against their own interests, even if it benefits the industry as a whole.
So, a show manager is not going to vote against his/her bottom line. Having them available for consult is important, even having them on the board is ok, as long as there are counter balances to that with an equal or greater amount of average ammys.
Warning! Rambling multiple unrelated thoughts ahead:
I found the whole Glenn Petty thing almost beyond my understanding. First, why would he even want that? He has two business interests in the show world; As a show manager and as the owner of a training stable. While both of those things would allow him to show as an amateur, I’m not sure he has ever shown as an amateur and a lot of his family also works as show managers and trainers.
Across every committee you will see names you saw from another committee. I know people who have reached out, asking to be considered, yet we see the same names, over and over and over again.
Something I try to remember is we used to be the American Horse Show Association. Not the Horse Association, or the Horse Rider’s association or even the Horse Shower’s Association. It was the Horse Shows Association and to all intents and purposes, still is. It is wildly populated with horse show managers, even to the Amateur seat.
Understand, I don’t think horse show managers are the enemy. We all like to make money when we work hard to provide a quality product. Horse show managers are a service provider, but to a customer base that doesn’t really have a lot of options. Like your cable company, or the doctors who take your insurance.
People often bring up sponsorships as a way to lower costs. However, you can look in some prize lists. Almost every single class, championship, special event, division, seating area, etc. is sponsored. These sponsorships put money in the manager’s pockets, not lower the costs. I remember a horse show shilling their sponsorships, saying they were raising money for to such and such a charity. I was fairly heavily involved with that charity and deduced that the horse show sent about 10% of the money raised to the charity. Not that they ever promised how much they would send, but the constant selling point was money also going to the charity.
Not strictly on-topic, but I have a suggestion regarding the makeup of the board of directors of USEF & USHJA.
Would it not make sense to require the board seats to be allocated based on membership contribution status? For example, if the membership revenue for the organization broke along these lines:
30% Amateur
30% Junior
15% Professional
15% Trainer/Barn Owners
10% Show Managers
Then allocate the board seats appropriately:
30% Adult Amateurs
30% to Parents of Junior Riders
15% to Professionals , etc…
When this is accomplished I think then (and only then) would we truly have an organization that represented the interests of the membership. An organization whose governance is so disproportionately allocated to industry professionals is primarily, and by design, going to serve the industry.
My categories most certainly need refining but I think you get the idea.
We USEF/USHJA members are funding an authoritarian oligarchy and the rank/file equestrians are getting tired of the taxation without representation. I think the end is near for the old-guard in these organizations… Thanks to Roby Roberts for shining a bright light on these selfish, sycophantic, tone-deaf elitists.
Couldn’t agree more - I said the same above. Not that hard to figure out the appropriate distributions of membership representation.
Actually, I think it would be VERY difficult to figure out the distribution, especially as many people fit in multiple “slots”.
That’s a problem right there then. They need to clearly define slots.
I know there is a lot of ambiguity around ametuer status, but it should give them a chance to revisit the definition.
I love this idea. I think, though, that the Juniors should be represented by Juniors and not their parents. Perhaps that means they are unable to vote on anything, but to have them represented by themselves instead of their parents would be important/ better IMO and IME. I was a member of a riding club where we had a parents board and a girls board - we often didn’t see eye to eye for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the girls wouldn’t understand how their decisions could or would effect other things, but there were also times where the parents (on the board) lacked the horse knowledge/ understanding, or were not looking out for the interests of the kids or the organization. Not saying all parents are uneducated or self-serving, just that some are. But, also, this would be a great way for a younger population to get involved in the organizations.
I am not concerned with Betty having a seat. At least she is a competitor and horse owner and has been for a long time.
I’m not sure why Mary Babick suggested the AHSA was all horrors. Yes, it was a Horse Shows association. Maybe there was a lack of transparency. I don’t recall there being any earth shattering rule changes or things like that back in the day. And my horses did get drug tested from time to time, so health and welfare seemed to be handled. I paid one reasonable fee and had somewhat of an idea what that fee paid for. What does my (and my horse’s) USHJA fee get me? Not sure it’s really the programs… then why all the separate fees to enroll in the programs? Why does USHJA need to do the rulemaking if the rulebook is the USEF rulebook that covers a lot more than just hunter/jumper/equitation sections.
I think she’s tried in the past to answer the question of why we need the USHJA and every time I just don’t really hear an answer that makes any sense.
My list includes:
OK that’s more than five.
Other random thoughts:
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