United States Lipizzan Registry
8480 O'Hare Road
Las Vegas, NV 89143-1235
503/589-3172
USLR Statement on LANA’s Withdrawal
From the LFA Unification Process
December 21st, 2010
It was with considerable surprise that the USLR representatives to the Lipizzan Federation of America (LFA) heard the representatives from the Lipizzan Association of North America (LANA) announce their withdrawal tonight from the Lipizzan Federation of America (LFA) unification process.
During 2009 and 2010, the unification process involving all three Lipizzan organizations in the United States, the American Lipizzan Breeders Association (ALBA), LANA, and the USLR has been characterized by the successful development of Bylaws implementing a democratic, member-driven organization, by the successful development of streamlined Rules and Regulations governing the registration of Lipizzan horses and by an agreement on modifications to the LFA’s Articles of Incorporation registered with the state of Arizona’s Corporation Commission. By in large, the LFA’s Interim Directors’ teleconferences have been congenial and productive.
However, LANA’s announcement of their withdrawal was mute on LFA’s successes and focused instead on the final but unresolved issue of choosing database software to store pedigree information and other records needed to run the LFA as a member organization.
Currently, the USLR uses Filemaker Pro, vendored by FileMaker Inc., as its database software and LANA uses Alpha Five, vendored by Alpha Corporation. A Database committee chaired by Rennie Squier (ALBA), including Sandy Heaberlin and Melody Hull (LANA), Melinda Suydam, and Lyn Schaeffer (USLR) and Jeff Kelly, was tasked to determine the costs of implementing either a Filemaker Pro or an Alpha Five solution for the LFA. The estimate for Filemaker Pro was about $600 to $900 depending on the number of users; LANA has developed a professionally programmed application in Alpha Five for the LANA/Lipizzan Pedigree Trust (LPT) database that they proposed to share with the LFA free of charge. The USLR representatives were skeptical that an application developed using licensed software on LANA equipment could run on LFA equipment to access a separate LFA database without having to also license the underlying database software, Alpha Five. Muffin Smith reviewed Alpha Five’s website for cost information and followed up with a call to Alpha Five’s sales to ascertain if separate licenses were needed in order to run LANA’s application on LFA equipment and found it would cost the LFA approximately $1,300 to license Alpha Five for its use on its own equipment.
LANA however has chosen not to discuss the issue further or to offer enough technical details to illustrate how their offer is without cost. LANA has yet to even respond to the question of which numbered version of the Alpha Five software they’re using or to verify that the LANA application can run against a database residing on equipment other than their own. Had LANA offered a demonstration of their application the USLR and ALBA representatives would have been happy to see what Alpha Five could do for the LFA.
Instead, LANA has chosen to describe this skepticism on the part of the USLR over the database selection issue as evidence of the collusion of the USLR with ALBA and as an indication that the USLR wishes to implement only USLR solutions to the database issue.
The USLR regrets LANA’s withdrawal from a process that had been making progress and developing trust between the three member organizations and remains willing to resume the conversation of the past four years of unification efforts. The people who have not left the unification process remain committed to the concept of unification of the Lipizzan organizations in the United States.
The USLR is very sensitive to the frustration of its members who have waited several years for the unification to be completed. Until now, the USLR has abided by the LFA’s policy of waiting for LFA Board approval before releasing information about unification. With LANA’s withdrawal from the unification, the USLR reclaims its commitment to be open and transparent on all issues and we embrace this opportunity to fully inform our members of the nature of the disagreement that LANA proposes as evidence of the USLR’s intention not to unify.
We expect LANA to continue to participate as an organization within the LFA, as it functioned before unification, to provide the international Lipizzan community with a single point of contact for the United States Lipizzan owners and breeders.
However, the USLR now returns to its initial founding purpose, to serve its members. The USLR hopes to harness the immense positive energy and the spirit of volunteerism of the U.S. Lipizzan community to revitalize past initiatives that were set aside to work on unification.
The USLR listens to its members and always will. The USLR Board of Directors renews its commitment to its members to be open and transparent to its members, to value their input and to seek their opinions in all things Lipizzan. This message will be posted on the USLR website, emailed to our current members, and reflected on our FaceBook presence. Please continue to join with us as we move forward to preserve, protect, and promote our Lipizzan breed.
USLR Delegation to the LFA:
Tim Foley
Keith Duly
Muffin Smith, Interim LFA Secretary
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