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From the Desk of Marty Schaffel: A Good Night's Sleep

I hope everyone got home safely from our annual convention last week. And enjoyed a good night’s sleep relatively sober!

It was a great convention with some wonderful educational content and many well-deserved awards. But most of all, visiting with so many great friends.

As I look back on this past week, a few key things stand out to me. First of all, I am so very grateful for the current board of directors we have. We met and actively discussed numerous issues and problems. While we all did not agree with each other on every topic, we had very collaborative discussions, and we found our way to unanimous consensus on every issue as we deliberated on them. This is a huge accomplishment over the past two years. It was not this way when I joined the board.

Another huge milestone was the joint meeting of the ASR and ASHA boards. This came together in a matter of 24 hours. We discussed many critical issues and problems. The dialog was excellent.

From this meeting, we agreed on the following things:

1. The officers of the ASR and ASHA will come together to form the Joint Leadership Team. We will regularly meet and work together to navigate the various problems and issues we face.

2. Small teams will be assembled to tackle various problems and bring back solutions to the joint boards.

3. We are planning to have an all-day in-person joint board meeting of the two full boards to continue to address all issues and problems. We will continue to examine ways to work collaboratively to solve all existing problems and issues.

4. Discussions will be held about the pros and cons of merging the two entities, as well as separating them. Finding the right path for the future is critical.

With the number of horse shows and breeding on the decline, we need to solve our internal problems quickly. Because the external threats to our existence are too great to continue to have any form of friction or conflict among ourselves. I particularly want to thank Todd Graham and Matt Shiflet for their leadership and partnership in making this valuable dialogue possible. It is amazing what we can get done when we work together as a team!

Thanks to everyone for a great week.

Marty Schaffel, ASHA PresidentÂ