The BRAC Members Appreciation System is a point system that rewards members for their club involvement throughout the year.
Our club is run solely by volunteers and anyone seeking to become a member must be willing to be a volunteer themselves. This means that every member is expected to make a considerable contribution in time and effort towards the success of club events and activities. In exchange for their hard work, members in good standing are presented the opportunity to participate in the annual members appreciation clinic to train with some of the best agility trainers in the country.
Originally, the system was aimed only at long-term club officers, such as the president, treasurer, board members and specialists, such as the Equipment Manager and similar positions. From the beginning, points were linked to the annual BRAC Clinic, with given numbers of points being required to qualify to attend.
That structure was expanded to include principal trial workers, such as trial chairs. In addition, a number of jobs were added to the points list to reward those who participated in setup/tear down at trials, and who attended club meetings. Over the years the point system has been tweaked on a regular basis, both by adding point-worthy activities and by moving various functions between rewarding by voucher and reporting by points. The latest changes were implemented in 2020 and 2023, responding to a need to beef up the club’s financial structure as well as aligning the point values of specific jobs more closely with their core responsibilities.
The “point year” runs from one clinic to the next, which is natural given the fact that the clinic is the focus of the point system. Thus, one starts accumulating points by working at a clinic, and that accumulation process proceeds until the next clinic. Now, that period runs roughly from September 1 to August 31 of the following year, but if we change the clinic date, those dates will change as well. If a change is made, procedures will be implemented for ensuring that clinic entry requirements are adjusted equitably.
Click here for a spreadsheet detailing each job and associated points earned towards the clinic. These are the current rates, and some will surely be changed as time goes by. Comments will gladly be received by any Board member. A list of all Jobs/Volunteering opportunities with brief explanations is available in the Member section.
When the club switched from requiring that clinic qualification be based solely on points to a system that allowed a combination of points and vouchers, the question arose about carrying over unused points from one year to the next. The solution to that problem was to convert points remaining in each member’s total after the Clinic to vouchers, at a rate of one voucher per two points.
Under this system, a club member having 140 points as of July 1, 2019, could have attended the 2019 Clinic at a cost of 100 points. The remaining 40 points would be converted to 20 virtual Vouchers, which could then be credited against future trial entries.
As of January 2024, unused points for board members and other annual positions are converted at face value.
