Suri Network Spring Newsletter
Hooray! Spring has sprung and the days are getting longer. As we move into the cria season with green summer pastures, going out to care for our beloved alpacas seems easier than in the winter months. It’s fun going up in the evening to watch the crias move and stretch in their mommas’ bellies as they bed down for the evening after getting their pellets. Such Peace. It is the hope of all of us on the Board that such tranquility blankets you, your families, friends, and alpacas this year.
Hats off to the Online Auction Committee! We are very excited to announce the tremendous success of our Online Auction. Our thanks to the committee for recruiting such great items for the auction, for the generosity of the donors, and for the enthusiasm of the bidders who won! This year the auction nearly doubled the income from last year’s auction bringing in over $10,000 to apply to the Suri Network initiatives that benefit our members and our beloved Suris.
As we move toward membership renewal and the Suri Network All Suri Fleece Show, the Board and its committees are hard at work and we have some exciting projects to share!
The Fleece Show Committee is in the midst of planning for our upcoming Suri Network Fleece Show. That means it is time for all the Fiber Artists to get to work on their projects to enter our Fiber Arts Competition. We are excited to have Wini Labrecque as our Fiber Arts, Skein, and Spin Off Judge. This will be the third year for our Triple Crown Award as well!
Don’t forget the Spin Off Competition! It’s another great tool to help you better understand your Suri’s fiber. Simply pull a 2 ounce sample from a fleece and send it in with the appropriate entry paperwork that you download from www.alpacareg.com .
Spinners get those wheels whirling so you can enter your skeins! If you’re not a fiber artist, consider providing yarn or fleece to someone who is, and encourage them to enter the competition.
The fleece show is once again taking place in Kentucky immediately after the AOA Fleece show and we are excited to have Amanda VandenBosch and Stephanie Glyptis as our fleece show judges this year. Sponsorship opportunities were made available April 7th and registration for the Fleece Show opened a couple of weeks ago.
Volunteering in the fleece room is a great learning opportunity, so consider coming to Kentucky to help out from July 21st to the 24th. This is a week later than usual which should make fleece skirting, packing and mailing a bit easier for our entrants in the northwest who shear a bit later than those of us to the east and south.
Our Membership Committee is working on some new ideas to bolster our membership. As a Suri Network member, you can give a free membership to a newcomer to Suris. Do you know a new Suri owner who isn’t a member? Send Cindy Grigg their name and contact information (office@surinetwork.org).
To make our nationwide community of Suri Owners closer, the committee has added a “get to know you” feature where the Network includes short biographies of some of our members in eblasts we send out. If you are interested in participating and sharing something about yourself, please contact board member Randy Brealey via email at randy@thealpacaplace.com .
Membership renewal is just around the corner, so please pay attention to the email reminders. Very few affiliates provide so much to their members- the largest Suri fleece show in the world, a magazine dedicated to Suri, an amazing herd evaluation program, a website filled with information, and a community of great Suri folks who are always ready to help one another out.
The Suri Network has a long history of innovative programs, and we continue to implement new initiatives to encourage ownership of Suris and the use of their fiber. The Marketing Committee is currently working on 2 such projects. First, working together with the Branding Committee, they are in the early stages of developing a new landing page for our website to attract anyone looking into Suris or Suri products.
The current website is a membership site and is not as attractive to the public as we would like. This new landing page will provide a sleek, general introduction to Suris, using beautiful photos of Suris along with the videos we have created. It will entice the public to look further into all things Suri, both the animal, its fiber and products, the show system, and making Suris part of family life.
A “Find A Farm” feature will allow viewers to find farms and vendors close to them. Links to the current membership site and the extensive information offered there will be included. We think this will add great value to your membership.
The second Marketing Committee project comes on the heels of the 4 fantastic videos that were created under the direction of the Suri Network’s Fiber Committee. Those fiber arts videos are on your Suri Network YouTube channel. You can embed the videos, or a link to them, on your own site. Please do!
This next set of videos will focus on owning Suris and all the great opportunities that having Suris presents. Scripts, filming, and editing of those videos have begun with more still to come.
PurelySuri Magazine has been published and should have arrived in your mailboxes. Dale Davis once again, generously donated her time to do the layout. We look forward to another stellar magazine in early 2026. If you would like to write an article or have ideas for a topic for the next issue, please contact Chris Fredericks at whistlingpinesranch@yahoo.com .
S.H.I.P.- No other group in the industry offers such a unique and valuable tool to advance your herd. AOA Certified judges Stephanie Glyptis, Arturo Pena, and Cheryl Gehly are the classifiers available to Suri owners for this incredible opportunity.
The S.H.I.P. evaluation involves scoring your animal on 8 fleece traits and 8 conformation traits. That data is entered into a database for members and interested parties to search. Owners who have had their animals “SHIPPED” often relate the greatest value comes from the conversation between you and the classifier about each animal.
We suggest that farms in a region organize a classification together and have a classifier come to their area (sometimes after judging a show close by) and visit several farms. They can share the travel expenses of the classifier. A host farm might invite other smaller farms to bring their alpacas to their farm to be “SHIPPED”. While huacayas won’t have their data entered into the S.H.I.P. database, they can be evaluated as well. For 2025 the Suri Network Board has voted to waive the $75 administrative fee to lower your expenses for S.H.I.P.
S.H.I.P. Committee has been busy checking in with members who have had evaluations in the past, for “SHIPPING” your alpacas should happen every few years to help you assess how your breeding program is progressing. We know spring can be busy with crias and shows, but remember, your Suris can be classified in the fall too, BUT you must have the Suri’s most recent fleece with a table set up so that it can be examined. All the details for S.H.I.P. are available here. If you have any questions, please contact Candy McMahan at mgbcandy@aol.com .
The Fiber Committee has just finished updating the Resource Directory- another one-of-a-kind innovation of the Suri Network. This 29-page pdf document is available online here and includes great references for working with and facilitating the best Suri fiber for personal use or sale. It includes a list of shearing supply businesses, fiber art resources, an updated survey of fiber mills, a description of processing options, and much more. Everyone should print this out and have it on hand as their first “go to” for sources of information and places where you can find more.
Most of our standing committees are seeking new members. Even if you have not had Suris for very long, you certainly have something to offer. If there is a committee that you are interested in joining, please contact Cindy at the office (970.586.5876), or any of your board members listed here.
The Nominating Committee is working on a list of candidates for our coming election. To keep an organization relevant to its members’ needs, it is important to have new people who can offer fresh ideas and perspectives. If you are interested in serving on the Suri Network Board of Trustees or have a person you would like to recommend, please contact Karen Ball heartandsoulalpacas@gmail.com and she will pass along your suggestions to the committee.
LASTLY (you thought this newsletter would never end) WE NEED PHOTOS! Do you have any great pics of Suris with kids, Suri crias, pastures with Suris, Suri fiber art, Suris with people, Suris being silly… okay you get the point. The photos do need to be of print quality, which means that they need to be at least 300 kb or preferably larger. If the photos have kids in them, we need to be sure to have parental permission to use the photo. We will try to give credit when we use the photos, but that won’t always be the case. Send your photos to laurelshouvlin@gmail.com or office@surinetwork.org.
Thanks for hanging in there to the end of this newsletter! The board is excited about the projects our committees are working on. We hope that the start to 2025 has been filled with great things for you, your families, and, of course, your alpacas!
Sincerely,
Your Suri Network Board of Trustees