From the Registrar - Jan L. Wassink

Involvement

The low temperatures here are now dipping into the twenties with regularity so there is no doubt that fall has returned. Does that mean that winter is not far behind?

Just in case you haven’t heard, the llama community will have a presence at this year's FFA convention in Louisville, Kentucky on October 26, 27 & 28. Darrel Anderson, Mark Smith and Barb Baker are working hard to put together a presentation from the llama community. ALSA, LANA, CCI and the ILR are cooperating to fund the project but the above three volunteers are doing the work. The next time you see one of them, be sure to say "Thank You".

There are many other volunteers in the llama community, too numerous to mention individually, that also deserve a “Thank You.”You know who they are in your area so be sure to thank them next time you see them.

Now, I’m sure that all of you have all been breathlessly waiting since last month for me to elaborate a little on ways you can get involved in the ILR. The greatest need we have right now is for new members on the ILR Focus Groups. We started out with seven groups – Color, Classics, Fiber, Minis, Packing, Showing and Suris. Since then, both the Minis and the Suris have signed contracts with the ILR to do their office work and have their own websites so the need for ILR groups to promote those types of llamas has diminished. The board has recently decided to add a group on "Youth".

All the groups will be reorganizing to some degree over the next month or two and some of them will undoubtedly need at least a few new members. Their most immediate charge will be to complete their work on designing their particular pages for the I Want A Llama website – www.iwantallama.com .

The qualifications for becoming a member of a focus group are fairly simple: 1) a motivating interest in the subject of the focus group; 2) the time and desire to work on this for a relatively short period of time to get the web pages up; 3) the ability to respect and “play well with others;” 4) the ability to give up some personal preferences in order to accomplish the overall goals of the group.

So, if you are interested in any of the above topics and meet the qualifications, send us an email at ilr@lamaregistry.com offering to help on the group of your choice. We can not guarantee that your offer will be accepted at this time because we may have more volunteers than we can use. However, we will let you know if particular groups are filled up and we may be able to use you on another group.

Lastly, if you have an interest in an area of llamadom that needs to be presented to the public and we do not currently have a focus group covering that area, send me an email at ilr@lamaregistry.com offering to head up or work on a focus group on that subject. I will present your idea to the Board of Directors at their next meeting.