One of AERC's principal functions is that of keeping records for our horses and riders. This function accounts for much of the work done by the office. These records lead to year-end awards, to lifetime miles, to ride sanctioning, ride results reporting, the ride calendar, and much more.

The first computer program to support the office in record-keeping started in 1984, had an update in 1995, and moved to its present form in 2001. The present version, called TomCat, is used for all of AERC's horse and rider record-keeping. The office utilizes separate software for production of Endurance News -- which is done on an Apple Mac -- and for handling accounting matters.

Our membership has gone from 4,860 in 1996 to 6,590 in 2006. Ride entries have increased from 16,580 to 22,620. Membership and ride entries have both increased by 36% in this period. The office staff handling all of our record keeping has not changed. In addition, Endurance News is a greatly enhanced publication.

In this 10-year period our dues have not increased. One reason for that lies in a significant increase in productivity due to automation of our record keeping and changes by the office in their procedures. Not only is the process of entering the data much enhanced for the office staff but ride managers can sanction rides, input ride results, look up members to correct data, place entry/flyers with the ride calendar, and download all the needed forms online.

Members can see their records and their horse's records, update their personal information, renew or join, set up alerts for ride and points information, and access a great amount of educational and other information on our website.

In addition, members can keep track of their volunteer trail work online so that this information can help AERC in interactions with governmental agencies.

(The office staff is, of course, always happy to help when members phone. They are available from 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time.)

Our database now enables the Veterinary Committee to track ambient environmental conditions at rides with the intent of understanding treatment issues better. Access to the database has also enabled many studies to be done that help us understand trends in pull rates and other issues affect the safety of our horses in competition.

Moving to more automation and the internet has enabled AERC to offer a tremendous increase in member services while still reducing costs per member. We hope to continue this trend.