| SURI NETWORK NEWS |
Fall 2020
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2020 Suri Network All Suri Fleece Show The Suri Network 2020 All Suri Fleece Show was a resounding success! This year our event looked and felt different than past years as the Board decided, even preCovid, to unlink our fleece show with our annual Symposium to change things ups. And there was Change when the pandemic hit in March 2020, more than we ever anticipated! This was Suri Network’s first mail in show and was held July 14-15th (right after the AOA National Fleece Show) at New Era Fiber Mill and Long Hollow Suri Alpacas in Lebanon, TN. The Suri Network All Suri Fleece Show is the largest Suri fleece show in the US. Again in 2020, the show was a Level III show, split by gender. Normally our show requires extraordinary planning and execution to pull off a successful show of this size. However, this was not a normal year. Complications from the pandemic created even more challenges than normal, as we developed creative solutions to address our new normal. We would like to thank our tireless Fleece Show Chairperson, Nancy Lindemood and our show superintendent, Judy Schroeder, assisted by Dawn Browning, for their leadership in navigating these challenges and executing a successful show. As the saying goes, it take a village and we want to thank all of our volunteers who helped work the show, our fabulous judges, Cheryl Gehly, Wade Gease, Gabriel Menn, Judy Keske, our judge apprentices Frauke Berman and Jacob Hart and finally Karl and Jan Heinrich of New Era Fiber and Long Hollow Suri Alpacas for donating their facility for the show. We also want to thank Margie Ault and the staff at AOA for assisting us in developing our pandemic protocols and working with us on other coordination issues. A special shout out to the following show volunteers who risked pandemic travel to help the show go on: Candy McMahan, Beth Sheets, Brenda Crum, Dawn Browning, Lynn Richards, Myndee Ebbers, Nancy Lindemood, and Suzie Conn Our twenty-five 2020 Fleece Show sponsors deserve a hearty round of applause for stepping up and financially supporting the show. Without their support, there would be no show and we deeply appreciate their commitment to the Suri Network Fleece show. A big THANK YOU to: Show Host and Royal Sponsor: New Era Fiber/Long Hollow Suri Alpacas Royal Sponsors: Big Timber Alpacas Impress Alpacas Memory M Acres Farm Premium Sponsors: 2 Point Farm Derwydd Alpacas Breeders Cup Award Sponsors: Heart and Soul Alpacas Heritage Farm Suri Alpacas Raynay Alpacas Sandollar Alpacas SuperFleece Suri Alpacas
Judges Choice Sponsors: Anderson Acres Alpacas Anonymous Donor Healing Springs Suris Heritage Farm Suri Alpacas Color Champion Sponsors: Akuna Matada Suri Alpacas BuzznHumm Alpacas Hasselbring’s Harmony Ranch Healing Springs Suris
Pines Edge Suri Alpacas
Wild Rose Suri Ranch Specialty Ribbon Sponsors: Macedo’s Mini Acre Salt River Alpacas Wings & A Prayer Alpacas Transport Sponsor: Healing Springs Suris First Time Fleece Entry Award Sponsor: Daydream Alpacas Volunteer Appreciation Sponsors: Boulder Hill Alpacas
Daydream Alpacas
The Suri Network All Suri Fleece Show had 256 entries in regular fleece, which was a record high number of entries! We also had 19 entries in cottage fleece, 48 entries in spin-off and 5 entries in fiber arts. In the regular fleece show, the color groups were split by gender. We had color championships for each gender and every color group, including a combined mixed color champion. The production classes were extremely popular, with split light and dark Get of Sire competitions and a large Produce of Dam competition. We also had entries from several farms located outside the US, which made the show even more competitive. There are only so many first-place winners in a competition like this, but in the Suri Network show, all entered farms are winners as they have chosen to have their Suri fleeces evaluated by the best in the industry. All in all, it was a beautiful array of Suri fleeces on display. The fleece show had a new award this year, the “First Time Fleece Entry Award”. This award encourages new or experienced Suri owners who have never entered the fleece show to enter their fleeces. This year we had five farms that were new to the show and eligible for the award. The winner of the 2020 “First Time Fleece Entry Award” was Baarrooka Suri Alpacas from Australia! Commercial Division: Diamond Cup (large entry) - Heritage Farm Suri Alpacas Sapphire Cup (medium entry) - SuperFleece Alpacas Emerald Cup (small entry) - Whistling Pines Ranch
Cottage Division: Diamond Cup (large entry) - Zinnia Fields Alpacas Sapphire Cup (medium entry) - Silver Lining Suris Emerald Cup (small entry) - Anderson Acres AlpacasAll in all, with the support of so many wonderful Suri owners, the 2020 Suri Network All Suri Fleece show was a huge success. We will build on this success and look forward to an even better show in 2021! |
Dear Suri Network Members, We hope you and your family are enjoying a beautiful fall season. The SN Board of Trustees recently held our latest regular monthly board meeting on September 28, 2020. With all the changes occurring in our environment, we want to communicate with our members to keep you current on our activities and solicit input about what is important to you. The Suri Network is more than an association. We are a community made up of Suri owners, like you, who are dedicated to preserving and advancing the Suri alpaca. We call ourselves a “Network” to emphasis the importance of us to be an interconnected group working for a common cause. Being interconnected in these times is especially important. 2020 Election
We are pleased to recognize our newly elected board members: Karl Heinrich, Joy Conwell, Michelle Pressler and Laurel Shouvlin, who join the returning board members: Liz Vahlkamp, Beth Sheets and Sue King. The board extends its gratitude and appreciation to our retiring board members who worked tirelessly on the board the last several years: Deb Christner, Nancy Lindemood and Margit Korsak.
The Annual Suri Network On-Line Auction The Suri Network Product Development Committee (PDC) is about to launch the 2020 online auction. Bidding is scheduled to open on November 8 with close of bidding on November 29 and winning bid announcements shortly thereafter. The auction website - “Bidding For Good” - is a wonderful service for non-profit organizations like Suri Network to fundraise in an effective way that reaches a broad audience, truly a national/global outreach. We are excited to offer donors this platform as a great opportunity to showcase their products. In past years, donors and bidders alike have responded well to this auction. Donors will be recognized on the auction home page. Your donation can be a gift certificate for a service, or an item(s). Donations do not need to be related to alpacas or alpaca products; all donations are welcome! If you wish to donate, please contact Joy Conwell, chair of the Product Development Committee, at joydconwell@gmail.com, and include a picture of the item, a written description of it, its retail value and your company logo if you have one to share. The item will then be part of the auction line-up on the auction website (biddingforgood.com).
PurelySuri Magazine We previously reported that we are moving the PurelySuri publication to a publish date in January 2021 based on feedback from our members. This provides our members to access articles in a less busy time of the year and provides our advertisers an avenue to market their programs prior to the busy show and breeding season. We are now accepting advertising for this publication. Placing an ad in PurelySuri is a sure way to effectively promote your Suri alpacas and products to a targeted audience. This year we reduced the ad cost for SN members, so it is even a better deal for you to advertise. Go to https://surinetwork.org/Store#!/PurelySuri-Magazine-Advertising/p/25664167/category=6022046 to reserve your ad now. Ad deadline is October 30!!
2020 Annual Meeting The board decided to have the Suri Network Annual meeting in a virtual format on November 9, 2020. Stay tuned for more information.
Suri Network Symposium As we reported in our Summer Communication, the Board revised our Symposium plan for February 2021 to what we are calling a Virtual Symposium Series. This series of Zoom seminars will focus on our “March to Marketing” theme and will feature special guest lecturers on a variety of marketing and other topics to help you advance your alpaca business. We expect each zoom seminar to be one to two hours that you can sign up for individually or as a series. We are also planning to incorporate smaller groups in a “table talk” format to allow for better networking and sharing of information after the seminars. The Symposium Committee is now refocused to develop the speaker topics and schedule for this Symposium Series to be offered starting next February 2021. The committee welcomes your input as to marketing topics and speakers. Please contact Sue King at sue@bigtimberalpacas.com if you have input. A survey will be issued in October to solicit your feedback on the Symposium lecture series. Please take the time to complete the survey and provide your feedback.
Branding
SHIP The Suri Herd Improvement Program (SHIP) is a great way to evaluate your herd and develop breeding goals for your farm. The SHIP database was recently updated to provide more effective reporting and it now allows members to publish their SHIP scores for the animals they choose. This provides a marketing opportunity to showcase your alpacas SHIP scores and to search for other animals with the positive traits you are interested in for improving your own herd. Here is the link for instructions on how to query and make your information public to other SN members: https://surinetwork.org/resources/Documents/SHIP%20Database%20Queries.pdf It is not too early to book your 2021 SHIP assessment. Please contact the Suri Network office for more information.
Fiber Arts Crochet Shawl - Judges Choice
Cheryl Gehly Judging
Wade Gease Judging
Fleece Room Check-In |
