I hope you are doing well this fall and looking forward to the Breeders’ Cup. Speaking of the Breeders’ Cup, we are counting down to a few key events for the NTWAB.

First up is our 60th annual Awards Dinner the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 30 at The Derby in Arcadia, California. All members were mailed invitations. We’ve received quite a bit of interest for the event – as always – and we’re headed toward a sellout so make sure you get your RSVP in as soon as possible.

The NTWAB officers and board are excited to honor our five award winners, and we’ve lined up a great roster of speakers to introduce them from the podium. The Breeders’ Cup will also present the 2018 writing awards at our dinner, leading off the program.

Speaking of selling, special thanks to member-to-be Byron King for his hard work on selling ads for the dinner program. According to NTWAB Treasurer Dick Downey, Byron and others who sold ads helped push our aggregate sales total to the highest level since 2015. As Dick said, “an MVP rookie-year performance.”

We’ll talk about those numbers and more during our semi-annual Membership Meeting Thursday, Oct. 31 at Santa Anita Park. I’m still working on details for the meeting – location and exact time – but a safe estimate will be late morning or close to lunchtime and somewhere near the press area at the track.

Membership applications are reviewed at the meeting, so please send along any letters of endorsement to NTWAB Secretary Jessie Oswald at jboswald68@gmail.com. Membership information is available on the bylaws page here at ntwab.org.

One final note is below, regarding workspaces and professional conduct. Looking forward to seeing you soon. All the best.

Professional Work Spaces

It’s a good time to remind everyone about decorum in the press box and media center. Please remember that these areas are work spaces, and everyone should keep conversations to a bare minimum and/or take them to another location. Please also be mindful of loud phone calls.

The NTWAB continues to work with our sister organization, Turf Publicists of America, on some ongoing issues that include non-working members of the media and/or guests with access to the press box or media centers.

I hope you are doing well this fall and looking forward to the Breeders' Cup. Speaking of the Breeders' Cup, we are counting down to a few key events for the NTWAB.