The club annually elects officers for the next year at the November meeting. This year you elected the following members to serve as your officers and Board of Directors for calendar year 2006:

• Marketing – We would like to be more visible. Discussion was to improve advertising our club, produce handouts, upgrading our website by listing our club meetings, speakers, and planned rides. Not only via our Website, but also creating a meeting notice that can be distributed to local feed stores, barns, anywhere we can promote our club. This can also include local saddle clubs like Midway and Bent Tree to name a few.
  
• Membership – This is the heart and soul of our club. Renewal membership is due in January. Any newcomers are welcome throughout the year. If you don’t renew by March’s meeting, it will be assumed that you have dropped out of the club. New and renewal members, please, please provide an email address and phone number. I had so many returned email addresses and wrong phone numbers trying to contact people for the Christmas Party. By having updated email addresses, the club will save several hundreds of dollars not having to mail out the newsletter (we will still mail to those not having access to the Internet). We will now be posting the newsletter on our website and have a login/password for members. Upon renewal of membership, members will be asked to sign the Release of Liability and Waiver so all are current.
  
• Meetings – Please respect our invited speakers. This has been a problematic situation that has repeatedly been voiced by the board. The club tries to bring in speakers that are interesting to all, but please don’t talk while they have the floor.
  
• Rides – If we can get two ride leaders per ride, we’d be able to advertise a Level 1 ride along with a more progressive ride. This will entice more riders to join our monthly rides and not exclude any members.

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The speaker for our January 10th meeting is Dr. Kelly Fleming with the University of Georgia. Dr. Fleming will discuss equestrian topics that will be valuable for our members.

Our new club meeting location is Slapshots Bar & Grill in Woodstock. Dinner and socializing begins at 6:30 p.m. with the program and business meeting beginning at 7:30 p.m. Please honor the Meetings Goal presented in Marianne’s message above. Slapshots is located just off the east side of I-575 Exit 8 (Towne Lake Parkway), adjacent to Cherokee Ford. The address is 185 Woodstock Parkway and their phone number is 770-516-4921. This restaurant has undergone several owner changes in the past few years but now appears to be more stable. It offers a location convenient to a large portion of the County’s population.