Important Updates for 2016

11 Sep Important Updates for 2016

At the last SEDA Board meeting, the Board discussed some important changes which will be made affecting the 2016 membership year. These changes will take place beginning December 1, 2015. Be sure to read these changes in their entirety and direct any questions to the SEDA Board.

Volunteer Hours

For  2015 we experimented with not requiring members to have volunteer hours. This did not work well. We sincerely appreciate the countless hours many of you put in, and your response to our calls. However, it was extremely difficult to get people to volunteer for the shows we offer and those we support. Shows simply cannot happen without manpower. In lieu of that fact, we are reinstating the volunteer hours requirement – with some important changes. Beginning with the 2016 membership year, ALL members age 9 and over will be required to volunteer a minimum of four (4) hours to be eligible for Year End Awards. There will NOT be an option to submit a payment in lieu of hours volunteered. Members will be allowed to coordinate someone else to fill their requirement, but show management MUST be made aware of this at the time the volunteer hours are worked. Show management will be responsible for submitting the hours to the SEDA Membership Director for recording. A form will be provided to them for this purpose (download it here). Members will be expected to check the status of their volunteer hours on the SEDA website.

In addition to the Competing and Non-Competing Volunteer of the Year Awards, we will also be adding a Youth Volunteer of the Year award. We do appreciate every hour our volunteers put in, none of this would happen without you!! We are working on some other volunteer incentives to help you feel more valued, but need some input on what would be meaningful to you. Please contact the Board with suggestions!

Show Year

For 2015 we had adjusted our show year to coincide with the changes made to the USDF show season, due to the changes necessary to accommodate the National Dressage Finals and the moving of the Region 9 Championship’s date. This made sense at the time we made this change. Since then, however, the USEA has changed the area that SEDA is now a part of – we are now Area V. Because of this change and the dates of the championships for Area V, it makes more sense to have our membership year AND our show year return to the dates of December 1 – November 30. How will this affect SEDA now? Our 2015 show season will still end September 30. Any show scores earned and submitted after October 1, 2015 will be counted for the 2016 show season. Juggling the different organizations can get complicated, so we hope that this will make things easier for everyone with just one set of dates to remember.

Junior Age Declaration

Because we are both an Eventing and Dressage club, we have three sets of rules we are dealing with: USDF, USEF, and USEA. Hence, there has been some confusion regarding the age declaration for Junior riders.

For SEDA, beginning in 2016, for dressage competition, per USDF rules, a rider is considered a Junior/Young Rider until the end of the calendar year in which they reach the age of 21.

For eventing, per USEA rules, a rider is considered a Junior until the end of the calendar year in which they reach the age of 18 – for the Beginner Novice, Novice, and Training levels. Our Year End Awards will be based upon these designations. When entering a competition, please ensure that you are indicating the correct designation so your scores are submitted to the proper category. Please also ensure that your membership form has the correct information.