August 2025 Membership Update

Latest News

2026 Proposed Rule Changes – Our national board voted on the 2026 proposed rule
changes and clarifications during their July board meeting. Thank you to all the members
who provided feedback to our board members and to those members who attended one or
more of the three special rule proposal zoom meetings that the board held.
Changes

1 Change the end of the ride year. Approved

2b Combining division weight classes. Approved

3 Sweepstakes award changes Not Approved

Clarifications

1 Scheduling and fees for sanctioned events Approved

2 Announcing time penalty points Approved

3 Pull is final Approved

2025 NATRC Raffle Tickets – Tickets are now available for our 2025 NATRC Raffle!
Purchase your tickets from any national board member for your chance to win. The drawing
will be held at the 2026 national convention in Austin, Texas. You do not need to be present
to win.
First prize is a Clingman 16” Gaited Western Endurance Saddle donated by our new
national NATRC sponsor Tennessee Saddlery. The second prize is a 1-year premium US
Rider Membership. For third prize, one winner from each of our six regions will receive a
$100 fuel card.
2026 National NATRC Convention Hotel Named – The Holiday Inn Austin Town Lake will
be our host hotel for next year’s national convention. Make plans now to join us in Austin,
TX, the live music capital of the world, the weekend of February 20-21 with Region 4 as our
host. If you have not attended one of our national conventions, you should. Meeting and
getting to know other NATRC members from across the country is extremely rewarding. The
convention program will have you going away inspired as well as motivated for the
upcoming ride season. Continue to stay tuned for more exciting convention information.
Ride Management Items – Currently, many of our processes immediately following a ride
are manually intensive. When we are a little lax on getting items submitted in a timely
manner, it has a ripple effect. IE: getting mid-year reports and standings posted. Here are a
few items that we, as ride managers, can give a little more attention to that would really help
speed up our ride reporting.
a. Timers – Please record minimum and maximum times for each division on the
timing sheet. Please complete the timing sheet with hold times at observations
and revised total elapsed time.
b. Ride Managers/Secretaries – Please collect timer sheets from the timer, scan
each timer sheet individually, and email to Ruth OR include a copy of timer
sheets with the scorecards.
c. Ride Managers/Secretaries – Please add judges, judges’ secretaries, rules
interpreter to ‘Manage Workers and Officials’ in RMS.

August 2025

d. Ride Managers/Secretaries – Please delete all in pending cancel file OR let Ruth
know that you want those in the pending cancel file deleted and she can do that
for you.
e. Ride Managers – Please pay NATRC rider fees in a timely manner. Ride results
will not be posted until ride fees are paid.
f. Ride Managers/Secretaries – Please get competitor scorecards in the mail to
Ruth within 7 days of the ride date. Do not wait to get an answer from a judge
about a scoring issue that you find, or a membership issue. You can email Ruth
about what you are working on, and in the meantime, the scorecards are in the
mail so the ride can be processed.

NATRC Logo Gear – Thanks to our enhanced sponsorship with long time NATRC sponsor
Distance Depot, NATRC logo gear is available. They have a wide selection of jackets, vests,
hats, gear bags, polo shirts, and sweatshirts available to customize with our official NATRC
logo. Click here for the current selection of available items, then check back often as more
items are introduced! Thank you, Distance Depot!
Updating Files – Microsoft Corporation announced that it will close support of Microsoft
publisher in October of 2026. This means that other Microsoft software IE: Word,
PowerPoint, Designer must be used for creating publications in the future. This also means
that many of our existing active NATRC documents must be converted, in our case, to Word.
Hoof Print has already been converted.
We have started going through all NATRC Publisher documents to either convert them to
Word or save them as PDFs depending upon their content or complexity. We have the
capability to edit PDF documents so some PDFs may become the new master documents.
2024 Management Manual Updated – The Management Manual has been updated and
posted under Admin>Ride Management. Repairs were made to broken links to individual job
descriptions listed on the Ride Management page. Help your ride managers and volunteers
be aware of this resource.
Reminder: Regional NATRC Clinics – Every region has been asked to offer two or more
clinics in 2025. Clinics are a lot of fun to put on. Our webpage has a lot of helpful information
and resources that will help your clinics be successful. NATRC supports clinics nationally by
reimbursing two clinics per region $100 for insurance costs. This is determined by the
earliest clinics to apply for their sanction and request the $100 reimbursement.
Reminder: New Honorary and Appreciation Awards Deadline – Mark your calendars
now for the new deadline for regions to submit this year’s Honorary and Appreciation write-
ups. The new deadline is Wednesday, October 1 st at 10:00 p.m. CST. Write-ups go to Ruth
Mesimer RuthM9496@gmail.com
Follow NATRC on the Web: Be sure to make our NATRC webpage natrc.org the startup
page for your internet browser. When you do, each time you open your browser, your
opening tab will be our NATRC webpage. It is an effortless way to stay current with NATRC!
Stay Current: Keep up to date with NATRC by following us on social media.
a. Follow us on Instagram @natrc_ctr. There are now 454 NATRC pictures on here!
b. Follow us on Facebook with our North American Trail Ride Conference (NATRC) page.
Subscribe today to our NATRC (North American Trail Ride Conference) YouTube
channel. Be sure to check this resource out. We currently have thirty videos posted here
that are specific to our sport. It is a wealth of extremely helpful information. All previous Let’s
Ride webinars are here as well.
Follow me on Apple Music @j_zeliff