More than one person appears to think that the Regional Type Conferences are about having a pro and con breed standards debate or even a vote.

Neither is correct.

The purpose behind the regional type conferences approach is three fold; firstly to educate members about what is involved in establishing and maintaining an alpaca breed standard, secondly to give everyone an opportunity to contribute towards defining an acceptable alpaca breed standard and finally the vote.

To achieve this, the various conferences will all have to adopt a similar format:
Each conference will have a panel of veterinarians who will present on basic alpaca anatomy, form and function matters and discuss how a breed standard would affect the overall health, anatomy and function of alpacas. A panel of experienced AOBA certified judges would give a presentation on how alpacas are judged in the show ring and how a breed standard would affect judging of alpacas. Currently we use a relative system for halter judging and an absolute system for fleece judging. A breed standard would not therefore affect the results of a given class, but most judges believe it would help make the judging more consistent from show to show.

Each regional type conference then decides what characteristics would make up an acceptable alpaca breed standard. Features such as fleece character, head type, muzzle length, top line structure and bone density. Each of these features is then discussed in small groups and at the end of the day, a position paper is written for that particular regional conference.
Each position paper is then circulated to the entire AOBA membership. The AOBA and ARI boards will then take the regional position papers, sort the results into an aggregate ?beginning document? for the final Type Conference. This will go through exactly the same process as the regional conferences. The ending document will be the final document voted upon by the membership after it has been circulated, reviewed and discussed by the entire AOBA and ARI membership.

So the first regional type conference is now over and appears to have gone reasonably well.
There is a feeling that the first conference was too pro breed standards and that it would have been better served if there had been an expert to speak against breed standards. The AOBA board say that try as they might they were unable to find an expert who would take on that role.

As Winston Churchill once said: "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

By Adrian Stewart