This meeting was held via Zoom.
Present: Sandy Howell, President; Callum Mcleod; Susan Frazer; Arnie Steeves and staff-Russell Gammon.
Regrets: Ed Cavanagh; Karen Cavanagh; Catherine Lord.
In calling the meeting to order President Howell paid tribute to retiring Board members Callum McLeod and Karen Cavanagh for their input into making CGS a better organization.
Sandy has been doing a great deal of work on ongoing proposed revisions to the CGS by-laws and is moving forward with more drafting of revisions.
In addition she has led on making some revisions to the Milk Testing programs booklet. CGS will also be revising some of the application forms for programs in the very near future.
The Board spent considerable time discussing the future of registry services for CGS. Options are being explored through much work in cooperation with our current registry system and other industry partners. CGS is also doing some independent research.
Chris Grab from Alberta and Jonathan Dugdale will be welcomed to the Board in February. The Board invested time outlining contents of an onboarding package that will be supplied to the new Board members.
It was with great regret that the Board received the resignation of Catherine Lord from the province of Quebec. Catherine brought the prospective of a larger herd owner to the Board table.
The Board will follow steps outlined in the current by-laws to find a replacement.
In other business it was decided that a hard copy of the upcoming Yearbook publication will be mailed to all members. Newsletters will be emailed to those who have requested digital copies of publications only. The yearbook is more of a reference keeper item. The Yearbook will be published in late March/early April.
Work is underway to confirm a team of classifiers for 2022.
The pre-AGM Board meeting date has been set and this meeting will take place after reviewed financial statements have been received and reviewed. The Board has examined internal financial statements to the end of December. Current assets of the association now exceed $40,000. The review of 2021 financial performance is already underway.
Reminder that the Annual Meeting will take place on Saturday, February 19th, beginning at 12:00 noon eastern time and will take place via Zoom! Guest speaker at the AGM will be Dr. Jacques Chesnais who is heavily involved in supporting work on the Integrated Databases project.