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After the festivities of the Christmas and New Year holidays it was back to business again as members gathered for the Association's Annual General Meeting.
Back row from the left
Clive Sutton, Bill Walker, Mark Young, Dave Archer, Dave McGovern, Gary Sutton, Tony Haywood, Phil White.
Front row from the left
Ivan Brough, Bill Bancroft, Margaret Walker, Alan Oxby.
There were two main items on the agenda. Firstly, was the election of Officers, where there were a couple of major changes. Bill Walker the current Chairman declined to seek re-election saying that he felt that he had taken the Club as far as he could and thought that it was time for someone else to take the reins. Ivan Brough was subsequently elected as Chairman. Secondly, Alan Oxby took over as Treasurer from Dave Archer. Everyone was most appreciative for everything that Bill and Dave had done for the Association as Chairman and Treasurer respectively.
A list of the major officials of the Association can be found on the Club Officials Page.
The second main item up for discussion on the night was the rubber stamping of the proposed new rules which had been discussed at length in 2007. These were passed, and confirmed the new subscription rates. For rates of subscription see the Subscriptions Page. A set of the new rules will be issued to all fully paid up members.
Thursday 21st February 2008
GUEST SPEAKER
February saw us continue with our practice of having one of our own members as a guest at our monthly meeting. February is notorious for bad weather and it seemed a sensible practice to adopt rather than expecting a speaker to travel miles in treacherous conditions.
Tony Haywood is one quarter of the Norwood Stud. The others in the partnership are wife Sandra and daughter Toni who is married to Ian Norman, hence the name which is an amalgamation of the two surnames.
Tony Haywood
Members were certainly treated to a very informative and educational evening. Tony began by speaking of his early days in the hobby saying that he had always had birds, but it was probably not until his daughter Toni developed an interest as a Junior in 1978 that he began taking things seriously. Now that interest has moved on a generation with Toni's son Daniel, Tony and Sandra's Grandson also developing a liking for the Norwood Stud's passion of budgerigars. During those early years he obtained birds from the likes of George Gibbons, Ernie Revill, Jim Moffatt and Arthur Piper. For the past nine years however he had been making regular visits to Jo Mannes in Freiburg Germany who has terrific directional feathering in his birds. Tony was clearly impressed. On one of his visits there he came across some plastic nestboxes with thermal pads. Having ordered some for himself to try he was very complimentary and found them very easy to use and keep clean.
Plastic nest boxes which Tony has imported from Germany. Extremely easy to keep clean and help with the prevention of mite.
Our speaker then moved on to the topic of show preparation something which many of us fail to pay enough attention to. He added that although he has shown at the BS Club Show, the birds were often not ready at this time of year and the best that he had achieved had been third Best Champion. He said that he tended to get his birds ready or prepare them for a show, and then pick somewhere to show. He said that spraying helped to stop his birds moulting and confessed to adding a teaspoon of sherry to the spraying water. The audience did wonder whether this was for his benefit or the birds! He found the most difficult problem to deal with was blood and broken blood quills. Green series birds he felt were much easier to deal with in this respect than their blue series counterparts, and remarked that George Gibbons used to be one of the best fanciers at dealing with this situation. He stressed that showing is an art, sometimes you win when perhaps you shouldn't, and at other times you might lose when perhaps you should have won, but the important thing was not to get too disappointed when you lose, there is always another day. He then went on to give a demonstration of how he trims the spots of his birds for show.
Tony uses a pair of chiropodist's scissors to execute the delicate job of trimming masks.
Tony demonstrates the art of spot trimming to a captive audience
All done! See, I told you it was easy.
Many other subjects were covered in the remainder of Tony's talk including pairings and the vast topic of feeding. Interestingly, he said that he had never paired Cinnamon x Cinnamon until this year and also that his favourite colour is Light Green. So if that ever comes up in a quiz question anywhere, now you know. Square perches are used in the breeding cages and round perches in the flights. He also pulls the feathers on the vents of both cocks and hens before pairing and between rounds.
When it came to feeding Tony advised that if you buy birds do make sure that you ask the seller what sort of diet he/she feeds. His own birds get a varied diet of seed which he mixes himself since you pay V.A.T. on ready mixes. Plain canary, white millet and tonic seed are on offer together with red millet sprays. Cytacon and probiotics are also used. Tony also uses egg food and feeds wholemeal bread with a spot of milk to the breeding pairs. He concluded by saying that the modern budgerigars need that little bit extra. If you have a good system stick to it but don't experiment during the breeding season, you need to feed them correctly.
Thursday 20th March 2008
GUEST ARTIST
And now for something completely different! Our March meeting saw a visit by well known local artist Jim Thompson who hails from the Leicester Forest East area of Leicester. Jim brought Chris Dew along with him for company, or was it to carry all his equipment? Apparently the idea was that Chris would do a bit of talking while Jim carried on painting, well that was the theory anyway.
Jim hard at work at the easel
Jim Thompson
Jim has a natural talent and has been interested in painting and drawing from a young age. Although he uses other mediums such as paints, this evening he chose to work in chalks.
Jim brought along a portfolio which contained pictures of other birds such as a Kingfisher and this owl.
Everyone sat enthralled watching this very gifted man who produced such life like impressions that they practically flew off the page. However, there was a nasty shock in store. Pencils and paper were suddenly handed out and it was our turn next! Yes, Jim and Chris decided to have a little fun at our expense, it was all taken in good part and we all did our best but I really don't think Picasso has anything to fear.
At the end of the evening all the paintings were raffled and the money put to club funds.
Do you recognise this Dominant Pied Cock? You should do, he now sits proudly on the Home Page of our website. He was painted at our March meeting and Jim has very kindly given us permission not only to use him on our website, but he will also adorn our Open Show Catalogue in July.
Thursday 17th April 2008
GUEST SPEAKERS
From the left
Dave Critchlow, Steve Carlin, John Hilton,
Roy Townsend and Ben Hilton.
Doncaster B.S. meet on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at Parklands Sports & Social Club, Wheatley Road, Doncaster DN2 4LT. Meetings commence at 7.30pm. The Society also has a website www.doncasterbs.com
Doncaster BS is a club not unlike our own, like us they could always do with one or two more members but they regularly have between fifteen and twenty people at their monthly meetings. They try to provide interesting guest speakers at their meetings and this year their Silver Championship Show will be held on Sunday 13th July.
Doncaster B.S. Panel
Dave Critchlow the General Secretary is a Champion exhibitor and a BS Subsidiary Panel Judge. Dave specialises in the Redeye varieties and Lutinos in particular. He is the Trophy Steward and Website Co-ordinator for the Lutino & Albino Breeders Society and is due to be elected President of the Society at the AGM in May.
Dave did the honours by introducing the other members of the panel. Steve Carlin is a Novice exhibitor who keeps Normals and Spangles. Roy Townsend is an Intermediate exhibitor and also a BS Subsidiary Panel Judge. Roy keeps the normal varieties and although initially he used to have only 10 breeding cages, he has recently migrated into a garage and can now accommodate twice that number. The remaining two panelists were the father and son partnership of Ben and John Hilton. Many people will remember Ben from his early days as a Junior. The partnership now show in the Novice section and keep the main stream varieties plus Spangles and Dominant Pieds.
The Panel had a mixed reaction to the new Club Show date. The ring issue date was debated at length, as was the proposed two year breeder classes.
Throughout the evening the banter was lighthearted, and it was a case of enthusiastic budgerigar fanciers putting the world to rights, with practically all topics under the sun being discussed with our own members actively joining in.
Notts & Derby BA will be taking a panel to Doncaster for the "return leg" on Tuesday 14th October.
Thursday 15th May 2008
It's Bar-B-Q night at Alan's! To see what was on the menu see the Special Events Page.
Thursday 19th June 2008
GUEST SPEAKER
Our guest this evening was born on the 23rd August 1949, so are you really a Leo or a Virgo Geoff? Geoff was born and brought up in the Holbeach area of Lincolnshire. He joined the Cambridgeshire Constabulary in 1970 and had a career as a police officer for 10 years. In 1998 he became a Justice of the Peace and apart from budgerigars he lists his other hobbies as fishing and gardening.
However, it is in the field of athletics that Geoff really made his name and his prowess as an athlete is well renowned. Standing at 6' 5" and weighing in at 23 stones in his hey day he is our most capped British male athlete, with 67 International caps to his name. He is undoubtedly our best known shot-putter, putting the shot some 21.68 metres (71 feet 3.5 inches, in old money) to attain the British & Commonwealth record, a record which stood for 23 years. During his career he won 17 National titles, two Commonwealth Gold Medals & two European Championship Golds and also competed in 3 Olympic Games.
On turning professional he was also twice winner of the World's Strongest Man title.
His autobiography is entitled "Big Shot".
Geoff Capes
B.S. President 2008
There was a good attendance of members and guests for the visit of B.S. President Geoff Capes. In welcoming our speaker Notts & Derby President Bill Bancroft mentioned the fact that Notts & Derby were trying to establish themselves once again after falling on hard times. Geoff in picking Bill up on this point hit the ground running saying that there were many clubs in a similar position. It was a sad fact of life that quite often the bulk of the work fell to just a few individuals, there seemed to be very little back up. He spoke from his own experience with the L.E.A. where he collated the information for the L.E.A. review. There were 9 Championships Shows held within the area but despite requesting info, they were still waiting for the review some 9 weeks later. There was quite simply nobody backing up.
Geoff added that he was heavily committed to the B.S. Club Show. In recent years he had been looking after the booking and distribution of the Trade Stands at the show. The whole system was now computerised which was a distinct improvement on the situation when he had taken it on. As he was President this year and would be judging, Fred Wright had agreed to take on this role. He would however still be doing the auction of promises so it was still going to be a busy weekend.
He moved on to discuss problems generally within the hobby saying that yes it was difficult for clubs to survive. Certainly ageism had crept into the hobby the number of younger people coming into the fancy you could count on one hand, people were now taking it up at retirement age.
Geoff stressed that computerisation was now 30 years old and new technology was being developed every day. He would like to see much better use being made of the technological revolution, this platform was endless for the hobby. Websites for example were extremely popular as were chatrooms and forums. He added that we always seemed to be preaching to the converted, we need to teach outside of the hobby and not to just existing society members. He felt that it would be beneficial to produce a B.S. Forum and that it would be exciting to think of say 600 people communicating by chatting on one budgie forum site.
Geoff was also conscious of the financial burden on the hobby. He said that the L.E.A. regularly lose £700 - £800 on their annual show although in their case this was a manageable loss, but in some cases societies needed to streamline and downgrade. Costs were rising at an alarming rate, things such as seed, food and petrol which would have implications for show promoting societies. There was also the added complication that Education Authorities generally were now worried about societies holding shows on school premises in the light of the outbreaks of bird flu.
Geoff expressed the view that the hobby will go right down to the wire before it can move forward again. The difficulty seems to be that whilst we know what the problem is, we don't know or cannot find the answer.
Geoff had some very positive thoughts on the subject of the B.S. Club Show. He feels that the current date is really a non-starter, adding that in athletics all the major competitions are held towards the end of the season and can see no reason why our show season shouldn't be the same. He encouraged members to support the Club Show, saying that the B.S. membership generally needed to do so. He appreciated that a lot of people do not like the Dome as a venue and said that ideally the Club Show should be held in the centre of the country. Geoff stressed that the Club Show which is run by the Show Committee needs to be self supporting and that it costs approximately £30,000 to run the show. He has interesting thoughts, saying that if the B.S. membership were say 4,000 and 2,000 of those members just showed 5 birds each, what a fantastic show you could have. Of course all judges should show there too, providing they were not judging!
In concluding the first half of his talk Geoff touched on the subject of apathy within the fancy. He asked how many people at the meeting had attended the B.S. A.G.M. and said that to save the hobby people needed to get out into the hobby. Yes, it was difficult to find time for everything in this day and age. He added that he loved showing at the Specialist & Rare Variety Show but this year it clashed with a Throws Fest weekend. As he has been National Coach for the shot for the past two years and the athletes are gearing up for the 2012 Olympics he said that he was expected to be there. He was therefore taking his birds on Saturday morning and would then go on and watch the girls in the afternoon. As he was presenting the awards at the SRVOS on the Sunday the boys would have to "stuff it". Nicely put Geoff, but like the big man said you do have to balance all the balls.
During the interval Geoff chatted with members, signed autographs and let everyone inspect and take photographs of the Budgerigar Society Presidential Chain.
50 CLUB DRAW
The B.S. President did the honours, by "juggling" this ball. The winning number, number 4 belonged to Alan Oxby.
PRESENTATION
Bill Bancroft, Notts & Derby B.A. President presents Geoff with a framed picture of a Recessive Pied painted by local artist Jim Thompson as a memento of the occasion. Bill stressed that this bird was not "flecked" and should at least remind him of what a good clear headed Recessive Pied looked like!
Following the break Geoff carried on where Bill had left off, talking about flecking in Recessive Pieds. He said that the standard for markings in Recessives was between 10 - 20%, although in Germany this was 50% and the controversy surrounding Dennis Spruce's bird was well documented. However, it did bring the whole issue of judging specialist varieties into the equation and it was really a question of balancing the whole thing out. Dominant judges were a bit of a worry and he did wonder whether it was a case of flag waving, I can drive, I've passed my test, I know everything scenario. When in truth you learn to drive after you have passed your test.
Referring to his own birds he said that 98% of his birds were actually clean, only a small percentage were flecked. He added that there was quite a high percentage of wastage with the variety in the region of 85%. When using Normals to Recessives it was important that the Normals did not come from a flecked line. He added that he had always been told not to use 2nd generation Split Recessives, but in his opinion it was a case of if it's good enough, use it. Much of his progress with the variety had been made by swapping birds. The majority of his birds were Green or Dark Green with a few cobalts.
When asked why Recessives? He said that it's a bit like athletics really, a Recessive is generally a small insignificant bird that everybody pokes fun at (he didn't exactly use those words!), he became a shot putter but it was always the milers or sprinters who got the accolades.
Geoff said that he had been a member of the Budgerigar Society since 1973. Originally his father had kept budgies in a wardrobe! He added that he had been fortunate to have made some great friends in the hobby over the years. Trevor Clarkson, Peter Curlew (based on Norman Horn & Jack Fisher bloodlines) Harry Bryan & Jack Freshney. His stud started with stock from Trevor Clarkson which had originated from Harry Bryan. Having decided to try and improve the Recessive Pied variety he went on to purchase Roy Stringer's stud. During the 1970s he remarked that the B.S. could boast 15,000 members and his own area the Lincolnshire & East Anglia was quite strong.
Geoff's current birdroom measures 25' x 15' and living in a conservation area obviously he can't build anything substantial. The birdroom houses 32 breeding cages, a row of 16 back t back. A 1 metre wide inside flight runs the length of the shed and he has a separate 1 metre wide flight for Recessives, there are also a couple of "baby walkers" on castors for the younsters.
The remainder of the meeting was given over to questions and answers with our guest covering many topics in a lively debate.
Thursday 17th July 2008
GUEST SPEAKER
Geoff Tuplin is a Champion breeder and exhibitor of budgerigars, who lives in the East Riding of Yorkshire. He is retired now but used to work for British Aerospace. He joined the Budgerigar Society in 1992 and is a current B.S. Panel Judge.
When our speaker was booked for the evening he gave the impression that he "didn't do talks", preferring to stick to a questions and answers session. Don't you believe a word of it, here is a man who is so comfortable and relaxed with his subject that I'm sure he would have been quite happy to talk all night!
Geoff Tuplin
Geoff began by saying that he has had birds practically all his life, being born into a "pigeon" family. Indeed he first raced pigeons when he was five years old. Perhaps his love affair with pigeons would have continued but for the fact when moving to a new house he discovered that it was in the deeds that he couldn't keep them. So budgerigars it turned out to be but it soon becomes obvious when listening to him speak that he bases a lot of what he does with his budgerigars on things that he has learnt and done as a pigeon man.
He places a lot of emphasis on good quality feeding, maintaining the fitness of his birds, and believes in giving them a rest between the breeding and show seasons. He admits to hating showing birds but considers it a necessary evil, having to show at at least two shows to enable him to continue as a judge, something which he loves.
Elaborating on his point about giving birds rest, he added that fanciers generally expect their birds to go from breeding, to being shown, to breeding again without a break giving them precious little time to recover and then wonder why they encounter problems. He said that pigeons for example do not breed when racing and if you put young pigeons in the dark it brings them through the moult. This statement has a lot of bearing on his practices today. For example he pairs up towards the end of September, he normally breeds 200 birds every year and his breeding is finished by early summer. From June until September his birds then enter a rest period. His windows are shuttered and apart from pilot lights his birds rely on natural lighting.
Geoff feeds a 50/50 mix of Johnston & Jeff's plain canary and white millet which he mixes himself and gives to his birds in seed hoppers. They also get Haith's tonic seed. Geoff is very complimentary of Johnston & Jeff's seed, saying that he has toured their factory and everything is stored off the floor, he also feeds their French red millet sprays. He has fed Chinese millet sprays in the past but would never do so again as they are stored for ages en route, whereas the red millet sprays come straight here. He also feeds Ultimate a seaweed protein, Murphy's Minerals, Grit and Softfood in four separate finger drawers in the breeding cages.
Geoff's thoughts on pairing up had members spellbound. 25 cocks are kept in stock cages. The hens are placed in the breeding cages with everything added to the cage as though they are going to breed. They are left there for a week. Then the nest boxes are added to the breeding cages and a square of wood with a small hole in the centre is placed over the nest box hole. The chewing of the wood by the hens trying to get into the boxes brings them into condition. He then catches up a cock bird from the stock cage and tests to see if it is fertile. If it is O.K. it is placed in a breeding cage with a hen. He tests the cock birds each day by gently squeezing the vent. If a white seminal fluid appears the birds are bang on. Geoff has even tested birds at Jo Mannes', Jo will tell you if a bird doesn't breed if you ask him says Geoff with a wry smile, but he won't volunteer the information. By using this method it saves wasting hens, admittedly you can still get problems with hens but generally the difficulty lies in coping with the number of chicks produced as all the nest boxes are full and you have nowhere to transfer youngsters to!
Geoff demonstrating to members how he tests his cock birds for fertility.
He has no heat at all in his birdroom, adding that heat is for people not for birds. His birdroom is never warm, there are louvres in every wall.
It was a strange quirk of fate that led Geoff to the budgerigar hobby. His wife comes from Lincolnshire and they were visiting the area one day in 1992 and passed a house with a sign board outside saying "Budgie Auction". Intrigued he went to investigate and found Geoff Capes auctioning off the late Jack Freshney's birds. It was here that they met Tom East's wife from Hull, Geoff's home town. As he became established in the fancy his mentor became Ken Spraggs from Bridgwater in Somerset. He said that Ken always gave him sound advice and told him from the outset that whatever you put in, it will eventually come back out.
50 CLUB DRAW
The winning number, no 13 belonged to Mrs Brenda Brough.
During the break Geoff a Hull City (Tigers) supporter discussed tactics with President Bill Bancroft a Derby County (Rams) supporter.
Whilst tackling a question about French Moult, Geoff remarked that we had never found an answer to the problem. He said that he had once had a lengthy discussion about the subject with a vet whilst at a function at London & Southern Counties B.S. The consensus of opinion was that it was a viral infection. The difficulty being that whilst you can fumigate the birdroom, you cannot fumigate the birds and disinfectants don't work on viral infections. The first step would have to be to change nest boxes. Moths also spread feather dust.
Geoff made it perfectly clear to his audience that as a pigeon man he had no qualms about killing anything. He once killed 40 of his best birds because they had feather problems. He says that feather cysts are inherent and they only pass it on. To progress satisfactorily you must only keep the fit healthy birds. The minute anything doesn't look right in a nest box he kills it. To illustrate his point further he relayed the tale of "snotty nose". As soon as his youngsters are ready to leave their parents and the breeding cage, he doesn't bother transferring them to nursery cages, or flight cages, they go straight into the main flight with a few adults that have not been used. The sexes are kept together and never split. Usually after a few weeks they start picking up. During the year in question he had transferred all the youngsters into the flight as usual but they were not thriving and seemed listless. On closer inspection he noticed one blow a bubble from it's nostril, but to make matters worse every single one of them had identical symptoms. As a result he killed all 160 chicks that he had transferred into the flight. Eventually the culprit was identified as an adult Greygreen Cock that he had brought in which he had put into the main flight. It was an expensive lesson to learn and although he still continues to transfer his young birds directly into the main flight he ensures that any "foreigners" are kept isolated.
Feburary 19th 2009
At the february meeting night the guest speaker was Mr Mick Freakley he gave a slide show in two parts. The first part was his and his partners birds, and how they were bred.
There were some very good birds. Before the second part he presented the President chain of office to Bill And Maggie Walker.The second part was on British Wild Birds taken on the norfolk broads,in the garden of his home and when he was out on walks, it was very interesting there were birds in flight and on the water..
Members really enjoyed the evening.
Thank you mick for a very enteraining evening.
MARCH 19TH 2009
At the march meeting we had a visit from Geoff bowley and John lees,they both spoke about how they start in the hobby and Geoff talked about winning the club show.They both told storys about all the leg pulling between Geoff and his dad,there was lots of laughter and quiet a lot of micky taking.
A good night was had by all thanks ivan
At the March meeting MR B HOUGH was the speaker.
He started by telling how he went in to partnership
with is brother and all the good birds they have breed over the years
also he spoke about their feeding system they are useing,the seed they use is by County Wide, and currently they are having a very good breeding season, their best for a very long time. A good night was had by one and all, so thank you to MR B HOUGH
ON MAY 21st we had a knock out with LEICESTER
(WITH BIRD ) the results ANY AGE 26 BIRDS Ist 2nd 3rd
D. SWANN 4th D PAGE 5th 6th C THORNE 7th A KIDGER.
FULLY MOULTED 1st 2 nd J HORSPOOL 3rd 4th J THAMPSON 5th R BOSTOCK 6th 7thD DHUGLES.
BAR HEAD 1st A KIDGE 2nd M & D WALKER
3rd 4th 5th 6th P JORDON. NOTTS was well beaten.
But we all had a good night The food was provided by
the PRESIDENTS MR &MRS B WALKER.
