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December 2011- January 2012
Just a short note hoping that your Holidays have been bright and that you have a happy and healthy New Year! Please see Melanie Scholer’s article on the Christmas de Caballos Parade of November 20. It was the largest ever-- over 200 horses -- and filled the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve’s SUV with toys for the Toys for Tots Drive. Many, many thanks to Melanie and all of the volunteers and participants for this wonderful way to kick off the Holiday Season!
Our next CHAMP board meeting will be Wednesday, January 4, 2012, at 7 pm at the Clubhouse at Pueblo Los Cerros. We will be discussing the past year’s activities and planning the coming year’s calendar. Any CHAMP member or prospective member is welcome to attend. Our February general membership meeting will be on February 1 at 7 pm at the gymnasium at Sandia View Elementary School and will be our bi-annual Candidates Forum where we will question all candidates for municipal offices. It will also be our annual election of officers and directors. We have nine Board members and two alternates which have allowed us to have a quorum for all of our meetings. If you are interested and can dedicate about two hours per month for the meetings, we urge you to volunteer to serve on our board. No experience is necessary and new ideas are always welcome!! Just contact me at 250-4864 or by email at stevehenryesq@aol.com if you are interested in serving.
Steve Komadina is our President-elect, but he seems interested in trying to convince me to serve another year as CHAMP President. While I am honored by his gesture, I have had the fortune to have served in that capacity for the past four years and feel it is time to pass the reins, so to speak! Every volunteer organization has a core of dedicated individuals who make things happen. And I have been blessed by our board members over these past four years with their enthusiasm, hard work and ingenuity in developing our CHAMP activities to their present state: Nancy Nelson for her brilliant work in creating and developing the Horse Extravaganzas, Melanie Scholer for her Herculean efforts in the Christmas de Caballos Parade as well as her cooperative efforts between Parks & Rec and Dan’s Boots & Saddles for the Ditch Pony Promenade and Lefty Converse Memorial Horse Shows. To Steve Komadina for his work on the Recreation Ride and the CHAMP Trail Riding Committee, to John McKean for his creative development of our website, to Nancy Nelson for trying to sort out the minutes from our meetings from our entertaining, but seldom on-point humorous asides, to Kathryn (and Mike) Sikorski for their ACTHA trails obstacles clinics, and especially to Karen (and Daryle) Brooke who have not only kept our financial records, but created the data base for our membership list so we can now determine who has paid their annual dues and who has not! Our other Board members- Janet Crosby, Erin Doyle, George Marr and alternate Anthony Sidowsky- were always there to lend a hand with trail clearing, manure clean-up parade duty, and riding shotgun for Santa Claus!!! But if one person is perceived to be the “face” of an organization, it can distract from the purpose of the organization itself. CHAMP is much greater than any of its members and it is time for me to step out as President and turn the meetings and the vision for the future over to others. I will be happy to remain on the Board and will continue to work with the Village Administration, MRGCD, the State Department of Transportation, and local law enforcement agencies to coordinate cooperative events and secure permits and licenses. I will also stay involved with the Recreation Ride in securing sponsors and whatever duties the Board and Committee Chairpersons ask of me. But the “voice” should now be coming from other sources so that the community recognizes that CHAMP is about the horses and mules in this Village and the people that so love the unique equestrian lifestyle we have here. It has been an honor and a privilege to have served CHAMP these past four years. I hope that I have helped preserve, promote and protect our equestrian lifestyle, brought us greater visibility and provided activities in which many of you could participate and enjoy. We are truly the HORSE CAPITAL of NEW MEXICO!!
Ride long and prosper!
Steve Henry
President, CHAMP
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