Annual Meeting Treasurer’s Report
February 2010


To the AFCNA members,

Just a short note to supplement the numbers presented. Although numbers represent a story they certainly don’t tell the entire story of this fiscal year. AFCNA has made great strides in 2009 and some advanced planning for 2010 will surely help us over some of our greatest challenges.

A few of the successes we have marked this year include the saleof over $315K in socks and $68K in yarn- as some of you have noted we do carry Peruvian products, but by far our sales are of North American alpaca products. As of the end of the year we still had many outstanding orders to fill, a good news bad news scenario and one we’re working on to correct.

One of the great frustrations of the supply chain was that we didn’t have a firm control over the member’s fiber coming in. Now that all the fiber is being controlled, sorted, graded and accounted for right in Decatur at AFCNA we have a more firm grasp on those contributions and quality control over it that will surely show in the quality of our end product. Samples go out to be further evaluated to make sure sorters are on track.

At the beginning of 2010 we also were able to go directly to suppliers in Peru and obtain a more favorable place in the market
for alpaca products that we still don’t have the volume of fiber to produce. The ability to present a product to the American consumer that shows “alpaca” as the best choice is key in building demand.

We are also involved in product development for the short cuts and stronger fiber that we have in abundance.

We are confident that we are on the right side of the learning curve and will take AFCNA into this decade in a positive way. We have learned that being pessimistic about ordering in the tough economy underestimated the strength of our product. We are attacking the challenges of our outstanding notes head on and feel confident that with our generous member’s support that we will also tackle that challenge this decade.


Please do not hesitate to ask any questions about the financial stability of AFCNA and encourage more people to join us in this dynamic endeavor.

Most
sincerely,
Cass Galloway