Good Intentions… My months are mixed up, so my columns are too. I am still feeling my way around this position so if I overstep once in a while consider it done for the good of the Brahman breed.
A good deal of January was spent by the office staff preparing for and hosting committee meetings in preparation for the January board meeting. I sat in on all of them and learned quite a bit, mostly by being silent. I plan to address some of the concerns raised by the committees in the coming months. I would like to assist the incoming board and new (and old) committee members in some long-range planning so that each year we build on last year’s efforts. I would like to do the same at the board of directors’ level.
ABBA needs a standing long range planning committee for the Brahman breed. I envision a small group of industry influencers (commercial producers, feeders and processors) as well as Brahman breeders to provide guidance. I personally think that the Brahman breed’s future continues to be bright but I want ABBA to have input from industry. In February, Iridiana and I went to New Orleans to the National Beef Cattlemen’s Association Annual Meeting. The ABBA is a member and we had a nice location with a lot of traffic and interest in Brahmans, but the interest in the Brahman F1 Program was phenomenal!
There are a huge number of folks that run smaller herds of Brahman cows in the southeastern USA without papers and they asked how to get in the program. We also had a few existing Brahman and F1 breeders stop by the booth. I’m pleased that there is so much interest in the ABBA Brahman F1 Program. Since I am a long-time arena director (announcer) at the San Antonio Stock Show, I also went to the Open Brahman Show in February. I was there again for the All Breeds Sale where ABBA had a booth. I wanted to drum up some more business for our F1 program and interest in the 2023 ABBA National F1 and Brahman Sale on April 1st. There is still plenty of time to send nominations in for purebred Brahman bulls and females as well as F1 females (March 17th).
Lastly, I hope to see a lot of you at the 2023 ABBA Membership meeting in Houston. I appreciate your constructive input and of course we will have a lot of deserving folks get awards for their interest in and support of the Brahman breed. See you there!
Joe C. PaschalJoe
