Carolyn Willis started the meeting by asking Sharon Svenningsen to the floor. Sharon explained that she was resigning as the Food Committee Chair as she needed time for move to Texas (a big applause for her!!). After the meeting, Gary Viall explained about his trip to Ireland. For lunch, Rose & Jack Otterman, and JoAnn & Jerry Pelarski provided Irish Old Man Shepherd Pies.

After lunch, Mary Malzkuhn talked about her visits to Stonehenge. She found this very impressive. Next was Nancy Rarus who talked about her visit to the Iditarod Trail Race Headquarters in Wasilla, AK (http://iditarod.com/resources/about/headquarters/). She also mentioned visiting Seavey’s Ididaride in Seward, AK (http://www.ididaride.com).

Last on the program was Pat Beech who shared her experience as an IditaRider in 2007 and 2008. For more info about IditaRider, see: http://iditarod.com/zuma/what-is-an-iditarider/. Pat rode with Bruce Milne in 2007. He was a rookie. For 2008, Pat rode with Rick Swenson who is the only five-time winner of the Iditarod (1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, and 1991). Pat explained that all mushers complete three mandatory stops:

1. *24-hour anywhere along the trail
   

2. *8-hour anywhere along the trail
   

3. *8-hour at White Mountain
   

More rules for the mushers can be found at:

http://d3r6t1k4mqz5i.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/2014-Rules-corrected-11-11-13.pdf