ECTRA Committees are made up of a combination of board and general members.
Below is a full listing of the committees, a brief outline of their responsibilities and/or purpose, and the committee chairs.
All committee chairpersons can be contacted via email by anyone who has a question, concern or idea for that particular committee. For complete information on any committee please download the ECTRA Committees SOPs, available HERE.
Annual Meeting:
Driving:
- Answer questions about driving and promote driving.
- Write and send an annual report to the BOD Secretary at the end of the calendar year to be part of the committee reports at the Annual Meeting.
Drug & Medication:
- Keep records of all testing results.
- Report findings to the Board of Directors.
Education & Public Relations:
- Promote ECTRA.
- Promote educational clinics, forums and other activities in the interest of Distance Riding.
- Submit Newsletters to other horse-related periodicals for publication.
- Provide guidance, as requested, to members wishing to publish articles on Distance Riding and/or ECTRA.
TBN
Event Representative:
- The Event Representative is to keep records of the individual Event Rep Reports sent in to him/her.
- The reminders for this position should be sent to ride managers well prior to their ride dates.
- The Ride Managers should let the Event Representative Chair know who that person will be and then expect to receive the Event Rep Report shortly after the ride.
- The Event Representative Chair should then provide a year-end report of Event Rep Reports received, the number of questions asked the Event Reps, and what information was given by the Event Reps to the inquiry to the Board of Directors and the ECTRA membership.
- Write and send an annual report to the BOD Secretary at the end of the event year to be part of the committee reports at the Annual meeting.
Honorary Membership:
- ECTRA began the program of awarding Honoree Membership to those members who have worked for the advancement of the organization.
- They are members who have devoted time and effort to maintain and expand the reach of the sport of competitive trail riding over the years.
- This committee is given the privilege to nominate a candidate and send it to the Board of Directors for their approval. It is not necessarily an annual honor but one that is reserved to show ECTRA’s appreciation of steadfast members in giving them a lifetime membership.
- For the Annual meeting prepare a statement about the recipient for presenting this award.
- Write and send an annual report to the BOD Secretary at the end of the event year to be part of the committee reports at the Annual meeting.
ECTRA Board
Judges & Judging (Including the Judging Test):
- Establish judging standards and procedures as approved by the Board of Directors and provide these to listed judges.
- Provide Ride Management with a list of judges and keep such list up to date.
- Encourage, help and provide guidance to individuals interested in becoming judges
Dr. Joan Hiltz
See Above
Dr. Nick Kohut
See Above
Judge Testing:
Membership:
- Submit membership renewal forms to newsletter for insertion in the last issue of the year.
- Keep up to date records of all members and horse registrations.
- Report findings to the Board of Directors.
Mileage, Points & Awards:
Awards:
- Research products to be used for the year-end awards
- Notify riders/owners & order awards after points have been tabulated
TBN
Mileage & Points:
- Input ride results for ECTRA & AERC rides as provided by ride managers
- Create a spreadsheet with summary information for ride season results
- Create a spreadsheet listing all the award winners (horse & rider) to be used for the awards process
- Prepare annual Points & Mileage committee report for the February Board of Directors meeting
Newsletter:
- To annually publish a minimum of five (5) newsletters containing items of interest and use to ECTRA members
Nominations:
- September – Determine how many Directors are needed and how many of the current Directors are eligible to serve another term and if they wish to do so.
- Determine the same for Officers (Treasurer may remain with no term limits)
- October – Select/recruit members to fill positions as needed (at least one per opening).
- Put notice in Newsletter for anyone else interested in serving on the BOD.
- November – Create slate, send in nomination information to Newsletter, and send copy to Secretary to create the ballot for the Annual Meeting.
Jenny Kimberly
See Above
Protest:
- To mediate disputes among Management, Competitors and Judges.
- Upon request of any member shall consider and investigate grievances and/or cases of misconduct by any member, judge, or sanctioned trail ride, and refer their findings to the Board of Directors.
Ride Managers:
- This is a liaison Committee between the Board and the Ride Managers.
- Would arrange a Ride Managers clinic at the Annual Meeting.
- Know the ECTRA rulebook and where to find information concerning competing in ECTRA sanctioned events.
- Provide the Board with objective opinions about sanctioned ride events.
- Provide input, skills, and knowledge towards specific projects that ECTRA might undertake
- Assure no conflict of interest occurs between competitors, ride management, and committee members
- Honor confidentiality when matter of conflict are brought the their attention
- Reviewing and updating Ride Manager information on the ECTRA webpage with Board consent
- Providing guidance/mentorship to new ride managers
- Encouraging and promoting new sanctioned rides
- Assuring all ride managers are administering the ECTRA rules uniformly
- Networking within ECTRA and the greater equine community
- Would write an annual report to the BOD Secretary at the end of the calendar year to be part of the committee reports at the Annual Meeting.
Safety:
- The safety committee will accept any information as to accidents/injury at ECTRA rides.
- The committee will inform the BOD and act at their request.
- The committee will publish articles in the Newsletter and other publications to inform and make suggestions as to how riders can prevent accidents and injury to riders/horses.
- The Safety chair will write and send an annual report to the BOD Secretary at the end of the calendar year to be part of the Committee Reports at the Annual Meeting.
Louise Lester
See Above
Sanctioning:
- Sanction Competitive and Endurance Trail Rides that meet the minimum requirement of ECTRA.
- Coordinate all Trail Ride Dates.
- Provide a list of all sanctioned trail rides for publication
Trail Preservation:
- To represent ECTRA in all matters concerning riding trails in our sanctioned area.
- To learn and speak for ECTRA’s membership in meetings, workshops, and other assemblies of trail enthusiasts.
- To report to the membership any information gained from his/her discoveries at these meetings through the Newsletter, website or FaceBook.
- Write and send an annual report to the BOD Secretary at the end of the calendar year to be part of the Committee Reports at the Annual Meeting
Veterinary:
- The role of this committee is to be a resource for information and to advise and answer any Veterinary and Equine Welfare questions for the ECTRA Board and ECTRA membership.
- In addition, if needed, it would:
- assist the Drug and Medication Committee
- participate in the judge’s clinic at the annual meeting
- be a potential resource for the Newsletter articles
- suggest speakers/topics for the annual meeting
- Write and send an annual report to the BOD Secretary at the end of the calendar year to be part of the Committee Reports for the Annual Meeting.
Dr. Joan Hiltz
See Above
Dr. Nick Kohut
See Above
Volunteer:
- Will record all mileage and time accrued by participating ECTRA members who volunteer at ECTRA rides.
- Will arrange to order year end awards for participants
- Notifies awards of recipients
- Will write and send an annual report to the BOD Secretary at the end of the calendar year to be part of the Committee Reports at the Annual Meeting.
Website:
- Maintain the ECTRA website including, but not limited to:
- General website content
- Analysis of site visits per month/per year
- Updating main page information on a monthly basis
- Update Who’s Who listing after yearly elections and as needed
- There are usually formatting issues that take extra time to fix
- Upload current Newsletter and update links
- Archiving old Newsletters also takes extra time but is a once a year occurrence
- Upload current ride list and update links
- Maintain ride calendar on website including changing ride status, uploading entry forms, linking entry forms or websites as needed
- Upload miscellaneous forms and updating pages as requested by committee members or board members
- Respond to requests for information that come in via the website
- If additional pages outlined in yearly report were to be added to the site there would be a fair amount of time needed to populate them but this would be a one-time occurrence for most of the information – changing monthly information should be a matter of copying/pasting and therefore should not take that much more time than the current expenditure.
- The website is one of the main public faces of ECTRA and provides information to members as well as the general public on
- What ECTRA is
- Upcoming rides (including entry forms in some cases)
- ECTRA Rulebook and Rider/Driver Handbook
- Limited Ride and Award Information
- Contact information for the board and committee members
- ECTRA membership form
- Ride Manager Forms and Procedures
- Write an annual report at the end of the calendar year to be part of the committee reports at the Annual Meeting.
Rev. 03/5/2022