Thank You from the President of the Collie Club of America

Collie Club of America News
“Your Online Newsletter”

September 2025

Message from the Desk of President, Mike Esch

Dear Members,

I hope most of you have had the chance to log into our beautiful new website by now and set up your member profile. We have been using the new website for everything related to the 2026 National. We will soon be using it for dues renewal and you will need to be set up before you can pay your dues on-line.

I want to personally thank the many members who have assisted Joan Johnson and her team at Blue Ridge Graphics to get our site created and going live in record time.

These people and what they did are:

  • Judy Guthrie & Lisa Finken – Membership coordination
  • Lori Montero – Setting up all the accounts
  • Nancy McDonald – Past national winners, Register of Merit (ROM), Sunnybank photos, Best in Show (BIS) photos
  • Julianna Falk – Conformation & BIS results, photos
  • Jackie & Ron Caruso – Photos, elections, Judge Bios process, Legacy Interviews
  • Judy Guthrie – Bannerblu Winners
  • Joe Reno – Judge Bios process
  • Noreen Bennett – Performance explanations, Register of Merit Performance (ROMP)
  • Phyllis Autrey – Performance results
  • Marianne Sullivan – AKC Gazette articles
  • Gayle Kaye – The History of the Collie
  • Michelle Esch – Juniors
  • Sue Webber – National Specialty Section
  • Isabel Ososki- Editing Health Section of The Collie As A Family Dog
  • Lenise Adams & Chandra Flaim – Gathering photos, permission forms
  • CCA Membership – Sharing personal photos & cheerleading

In any project of this sort there are always some people who go above and beyond the call of duty. This group for us includes:

  • Judy Guthrie
  • Julianna Falk
  • Phyllis Autrey
  • Nancy McDonald
  • Lori Montero

I’d like to take a moment to elaborate and recognize some of the incredible behind-the-scenes work that went into creating the new CCA website.

This special group of “Best of the Best” volunteers of Judy, Phyllis, Julianna and Nancy dedicated countless hours combing through old club records, Yearbooks, National catalogs, and other CCA materials to ensure the site was filled with accurate and meaningful content such as dog pictures, show results, past National winners, ROM winners, etc. Judy has embraced our strategy to simplify the Secretary’s job as much as possible by allowing technology to be our friend and eliminating much of the duplication that was in the job. All four served as trusted sounding boards, helping Joan refine and enhance the site every step of the way.

And then there is Lori Montero, another member of the “Best of the Best”. For the past 18 months, she has been diligently learning the Treasurer’s role which is no small undertaking in itself. In addition, Lori provided steady support to Joan while taking on a tremendous amount of technical work behind the scenes. She set up much of the National Store, transitioned us from PayPal to Stripe, and configured the coding for each financial transaction. Her efforts ensured that funds flow seamlessly into the right accounts and financial reports which is an unbelievable
accomplishment that deserves our gratitude. She has been working hard to make sure that we remove as much complexity as we can in the Treasurer’s job. You will not see much of Lori’s efforts on the screen which is why her contributions to “make the motor run flawlessly under the hood” is so meaningful and worthy of a super special callout.

Ladies, I tip my hat to all of you!!!

And, of course, I want to thank Joan Johnson and her team for everything that has been done for the Club!

Please reach out to these people and let them know how thankful we all are for their contributions!

Thank you ALL!!!!

Best regards,
Mike Esch