There are several things about this statement that members should consider. They have made one very important point and that is "lack of communication". So I will give them one point for that and now lets look a little deeper into this issue.

• For there to be a lack of communications, someone had to know something useful that was not being told to the members. If you look at the meeting minutes for several months before the cancellation of the Nationals, all the board is talking about is what kind of trophies to award, who would be the judges, etc. There is not ONE sentence concerning the possible financial issues related to putting on the National. I have been told the office warned the board right after the last nationals about financial concerns for the next one. I was told that their answer was "HAVE FAITH". Apparently one or more of the directors are living in sin and faith isn't enough. Sometimes there is actually a need for leadership. Bobby Watts's sister, Alice Thompson, is the VP of the board. I see no place in the minutes where she bravely stood up and said there was any concern.

• Although Watts Farm may have understood the problem, the members that read the board announcement (see the bottom of Nationals Cancelled) only realized that the board was using a lot of BS as an excuse for the actions. (see Right Decision, Wrong Reason) . The association, as a whole, lost a lot of respect from the industry with the way the board communicated this and Bobby Watts' sister Alice Thompson was right in the middle of that announcement and how it happened.

• It is mind numbing to even think that they are recommending the board should have waited for the Boer Breeder magazine to be published to announce the cancellation. The cancellation was decided early April and the Boer Breeder has still not been published as of May 9, 2008. It is being held up by the board because they all want to review and approve the magazine before it is published. The publishing date has been moved out another month and that has resulted in moving the deadline for voting on new directors out another month. Guess who is in the middle of all of that, Alice Thompson, Bobby Watts's sister.

• They are absolutely correct that the cancellation of the nationals should have been communicated through the web site immediately and that brings up very interesting tidbits. There is only one committee that has anything to do with the web site and the internet and that is the Internet Web Site Committee. Now I wonder who is the chairperson for that committee??? How about Alice Thompson, the sister of Bobby Watts. Now lets throw a little gasoline on the fire. Who else is on that important committee covering the Web Site but Michelle McAfee, the partner of Bobby Watts and brother of IntlBGA VP Alice Thompson.

• So I sent letters out to the directors about Alice Thompson doing nothing related to the problems with the Web Site and you will not believe what I finally heard back from one of the directors. "Alice is doing a great job. She only took the committee because no one else would take it. There are too many more important issues that the board has to take care of than the web site. Alice is not responsible for getting things done to the web site. She is only responsible for gathering requirements" . So I asked the director "WHO IS THE ULTIMATE OWNER AND PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACTIVITIES OF THE WEB SITE???"  Well, that answer is a mind numbing NO ONE!!!!! And what reports have come out of the Internet Committee that is chaired by Alice Thompson and has Michelle McAfee, the partner of Alice Thompson's brother Bobby Watts. I have looked through ever meeting minutes for the last year and there has been NOTHING ever mentioned about the Web Site.

• Publishing the financial records would not have taken the bitterness out of the cancellation of the Nationals. IntlBGA has to report their financial records to the government each year and that report is available to the members if they want to see it. Any details that would have been important to alerting the members of a potential problem would have been buried in the report. What was needed that Watts Farm did not call for was an Operational Budget that the board follows and reports quarterly to the members. That would have given not only the members a heads up but the board would have been forced to see it for their self and maybe they would have changed their strategy from "Just have Faith" to "we are in deep doo doo, we better start PLANNING and TAKEN APPROPRIATE ACTIONS"

• It was critical for the board to understand the financial situation they were in this spring and the money needed for the national show. With only around $12,000 in the bank in March, 2008, Alice Thompson proposed that THREE people from the board personally go to Canada and California to personally see how two companies do DNA testing that IntlBGA may recommend to the members. That should be completely unheard of in any business world to be in a financial crisis and then recommend three people travel to Canada and California to see what could have just as easily been handled by a phone call and a brochure. Plus the poor judgment in understanding priorities of an association. How many IntlBGA members are sitting on pins and needles waiting to do DNA testing which the industry is saying with all of the line breeding may not tell you anything. Poor judgment, poor leadership and poor management of the association's money.

The person they are talking about is Wynema Adams and anyone that knows Wynema needs to remember what the Watts Farm is saying about her. Wynema may be THE MOST POSITIVE IntlBGA face in the US and one of the best representatives the association has. I have not heard a negative thing about Wynema until I started running for a director position in the association and then I started to hear rumors about certain directors not approving of her. Would you like to know the name of one of them. I bet you can guess and that leads directly back to the Watts Farm note. Now lets look at the details of this issue.

• It is impossible for the Watts Farm to say Wynema is doing something that is not her job because "THE INTLBGA BOARD HAS NOT DEFINED THE JOB RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE OFFICE PERSONNEL" If there are no job definitions, how can someone be outside of their job responsibilities. I have looked through the meeting minutes and there is no call from the board for clarification of the job roles. What has been called for by an article by Al Paul (see Al Paul article) is for job definitions to be defined for the office staff and an organization chart drawn up to show who is the only person on the board that can call the office and tell them  what to do. It seems that the office staff have 8-9 bosses and each of them giving different directions. Al Paul discussed this in his article that was to be published in the Boer Breeder magazine until "quess who" saw the draft. The board rejected the article for being included in the magazine and  censored what the members could see about problems within the board.

• The things that Wynema is probably doing is answering members that call her asking for her thoughts. We have called her several times on questions and she has always helped us. We moved our focus from registering with ABGA to IntlBGA because of the wonderful help Wynema has given to us in the past. We went to an IntlBGA show in Greenville in April, 2008. Wynema was there on a Saturday with her IntlBGA table advertising the association. I wanted to talk to her in private and was standing 10-20 feet away waiting for people at the show to quit talking to her for just a minute. One of the show sponsors came up and asked if they could help me. I told them I was waiting until Wynema had a break from people wanting to talk to her. The show sponsor told me I had better pull up a chair because there is always someone wanting to talk to Wynema about the association or their goats. That is exactly the type of person that an association wants representing them. IntlBGA members should be thankful that they don't have ABGA's Executive Director, Robert Swize. There are big groups in ABGA that have been fighting for years trying to get him out of the association. Later someone pointed out Derrie Minyard, IntlBGA President, to me. What a contrast between Wynema and Derrie. Derrie and his wife sat in the stands watching the show and I did not see three people come up and talk to him. When they went to get their snack at the show, they did not talk to anyone and no one was talking to them. Now which one is going to get new members or keep current members? The Watts Farm should be a shame of even bringing this up.

• Wynema does not advertise her farm for free in the magazine and Watts Farm should be a shamed for even suggesting that. Now lets look at a comparison between a free ad Alice Thompson, sister of Bobby Watts, took in the March/April 2008 magazine. She has a full page ad for the Eastern Regional Show for free. There is no problem with her getting that for free. However, she included a privately sponsored show for the next day and that took half of the page. She should not get that for free but she did. Everyone is required to pay for advertising their own privately sponsored shows but Alice did not do that. (see Alice Regional Ad). Now look at one of the ads Watts Farm is complaining about Wynema getting free ads for her farm. (see Ragland Ad). It was Wynema's job to get advertising for the magazine and in the ad she is just giving a testimonial for the company that she uses the product. Wynema brought in an ad that brought in money for IntlBGA. Wynema did not get a discount on the products. The board is offering the office staff a finders fee for any new ads they bring in. That is all of the office staff except Wynema. Wynema has received no personal benefits from these ads she sold to the companies. Only IntlBGA has benefitted. Alice got free ads for her personal sponsored show. That space could have been used for a paying company but it was not. Wynema is not taking any of the premium money that is available from IntlBGA for putting on a Regional show. That is $2,500. Did Alice turn that down in order to help the association??? You got that answer right. Plus, did she accept the $600 for putting on two shows in addition to the Regional? Tell me again who is getting the benefits????