Hello to all our ORCSA members.

The middle of Summer is here already and time for the County Fairs and more Draft Horse Shows. Then soon the kids will be back to school again. Time sure has a knack of flying by way too quickly - unless you are a small child - then it manages to drag along too slowly!

ORCSA had its summer picnic on June 12, and for those who couldn't make, it seemed to be a success. Everyone who attended enjoyed a nice visit with each other and, of course, our potluck lunch was fabulous...it was suggested that we should consider going into the catering business to make extra money for our group!! A BIG Thank You to everyone who brought delicious side dishes to share. Another "thank you" to Al and Maria Sidell for being our 2005 Hosts. Our Chinese Auction was the best one yet and, I'd like to thank everyone for bringing items for it and also for participating in purchasing tickets on the auction. Our members seen to enjoy this little "tradition" each year.

Also, we would like to extend a big heartfelt thank you to Deb Bechstein for donating the beautiful embroidered hanging wall quilt featuring our breed of drafts. We sold separate raffle tickets on this quilt at the picnic and Andy Kavalauskas was the lucky winner of this quilt. I think he was definitely our "happy camper" of the day!

We are planning a Fun Event weekend for all members and their guests on September 17 and 18, 2005 at Norm and Anita Guiher's farm near Berlin Heights, Ohio. This will include a campout, fun show and wagon train drive/ride with a guarantee for lots of laughs and a good time. This will be covered later in the Membership Meeting Minutes included in this newsletter.

We have a new Youth Representative for 2005 - Emilee KayAnn Edwards, niece of Sandy and Kory Weldy. She came to our picnic and charmed us all. She has attended the Ohio Exposition Show in late June and has also gone to a couple county fairs to hand out ribbons. She is doing a great job, and I am thinking, she is having a blast along the way. If you would like to have her come to your county fair draft horse show, please contact Sandy Weldy at phone: 614-877-1212 or Emilee's Mom at phone: 614-879-9283. Emilee hopes to get to as many shows as possible to work as our Representative.

I'd like to wish everyone all the best with their horses this show season, whether you go to the county fairs and / or to some of the big shows. The Ohio State Fair dates for classes for Shires and Clydes are August 11 and 12. Check out the OSF website for info and also check out other show dates on our website - www.orcsa.com. Which brings me to another item of interest. If you have not looked at our website - please do and think about using it for your farm and horses, as a way to get your name and horses out into the world of internet advertising. Brandon Knapp, our web master, is very willing to work with you on your link, so please consider putting something together, and then he will get it on the site.

As Fall draws near, we will put out directions and more info on the September 17 and 18 Fun Event, but mark your calendars now, so you can plan to attend - you don't have to spend the whole weekend with us, but we sure hope you will want to, as this will be a memorable couple of days.

Our next Executive Board meeting will be held in Columbus at the OSF at 9:00am, prior to the General Membership Meeting, which is set up for August 12 at 10:00 am.

Look forward to seeing many of you in August at the OSF and also in September at our farm for the fun weekend. If any member has something to sell, whether it's horses, tack , harness or equipment, send your ad to me and I will include it in the newsletters.

We now have T- shirts in Red, White, Navy Blue and light Gray for sale with our ORCSA logo embroidered on them and also navy ball caps with our logo. If anyone is interested in purchasing some, let me know. The T-shirts are $15 and the caps are $10. I will bring them to the OSF in case any of our members who are showing or just visiting the fair would like to buy some. We will also have them at the Fun Event in September.