mealybar

Is there a new website for the club? Just the usual one has had a freeze with 2007 information on it

Did it get back? :)

Budgie: Hey, hows you? Pigeon: I'm all white, but you look a little blue ;D :X :X I'll get my coat

Well done Matt

If you're a new starter, what were the first questions that came to mind? Equally if your not just starting, what were your first questions and queries? Motive of my post is to produce the answers of these questions in a re-jigged novices section to the website. So post up the first thing that flummoxed you, 1) we'll try and answer it if it hasn't been already, and 2) it'll go towards creating this new section to help others

I think the RPRA will be looking for an administrator/secretary and not a manager as we define. Peter Bryants job isnt to steer the ship, but keep the engines going. The changes that Stuart put up in the first post would have to come through region and then council, who are the captains of the RPRA ship. Completely agree that a PR person is needed; to keep on the ship analogy, the captains (council) go nowhere without Peter (keeping the engines going), but equally the whole lot stops unless someone brings in some fuel ;D For what it's worth; I think the PR person should be an office with responsibilities to all of the unions in the UK; RPRA, SHU, NEHU... we should be all working in the same direction on PR. Why not make it a post offered by the Confederation?

Thanks

Does anyone have the UNC email address to hand? Think its in the handbook, but I havent got mine with me :-/

A recent google search turned up the story of Percy, a racing pigeon that took 11 years to complete a race in Melbourne, Australia. Read the article on: http://www.pigeonbasics.com/news/news373.html to find a link to a poem about 'Percy the Prodigal Pigeon'. Has anybody got a similar story or know of any weird and wacky races in the pigeon world?

Lost in translation across the pond. The americans call linseed, flax

How about thinking before hitting the keyboard? How about coming in with some kind of constructive ideas or comment? Posts like yours make me wonder why you took the time to respond? You make a profit from selling birds, but wish only to ridicule, criticise and knock those trying to take the sport forward. This should be a springboard to defining pigeon racing as a sport, it is in the public eye, and they're on our side for once!

Cracking photos, well done Nathan

Decent run across the borders (missing the speed cameras ) might take two and a half hours. Then to get round the Edinburgh bypass, give it 3

What ISP are you on (people having problems getting on snfc.co.uk)? Sounds like it could be the ISP having incorrect DNS server information for that website. The DNS server converts the domain name, to the actual computer address of the website, which would be like http://212.227.85.120 (the number for pigeonbasics). I can get on through Tiscali.

Thunderstorm and heavy rain just now in Hartlepool

Get well soon ;D

If you contact the RPRA through their website http://www.rpra.org (make sure you give them your full address and post code). They should get back to you with your nearest clubs, and their contact details. All the best

UNC up at Huntingdon groups 1,4,6 7:30, others 8am.

Looks a good day for it, all the best Mark. :)

I'm not seeing it :-/

Welcome to the mad house Anna, good to see you

Social networking websites are all the rage! MySpace has 154,000,000 members, Facebook 16,000,000, etc. Most of the sites give the ability to create a 'group'; we should find these groups, or set them up and promote our sport on what may be the biggest shop window in the world. My personal favourite is Facebook which is now available for anyone to sign up. I've created a group 'Pigeons' at http://standrews.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2219409975 join ;D If you are a member of any of the other sites; search for a pigeon group; if there isnt one create one and tell us about it

The Up North Combine may have held races from there; UNC 01429 870263 The North of England Homing Union are the governing body for pigeon racing in the north east; they should have more details for the Wst Durham Amal, and others racing that route. http://www.nehu.co.uk/

Its a cracking blog site; well done.

Pigeonscout - I think this is a direction that the sport should move in. At the moment it is very much an individual game, every-man-for-himself. A problem would be in the introduction of the scheme - I did some preliminary work on implementing a leader board system for our mini-sites (on pb) last year; club against club in the federation, fancier against fancier in the club (with leagues). Brilliant work by Scott. The RPRA race was initially setup with free young fancier, and school places for the first year (golden jubilee) – it was initially conceived as a one year project. At present they give each region 2 free places for schools to participate. Personally I think with the RPRA race we've got away from the reason it was setup, and the fact that it brings a lot of revenue in has clouded this direction. When discussing the birds for schools, I was told that regions can purchase further birds, but there usually isn’t the demand. This wasn’t the pro-active promotion of the sport that I expected; and the sooner the one loft race is run again as a promotion of the sport, the better. I think One Loft Racing can become at least central to changing the public’s opinion of pigeons, pigeon racing and pigeon fanciers. I mean even within the sport the demand for one loft racing is overwhelming - the RPRA race sold 1,035 places in less than 3 weeks of opening. An idea that I approached the Future of the Sport Committee (RPRA) was to provide a number of birds and sell them, or a share of them to the general public, much like buying a share in a racehorse. This creates a number of new people who are aware of the sport, if not actively involved in keeping pigeons. So I am planning to implement this idea through Pigeonbasics this coming season. New technology has to be the key in brining young blood into the sport. That doesn’t necessarily mean the adoption of ETS (although ETS could bring its own range of options to the sport), but for example, using the internet to promote the sport, even through the basic route as providing easily accessible information, targeted at different age groups. Going back to a one loft race; how easy would it be to create a website so that each entrant can view results for their pigeon, when they entered and exited the loft, a daily photo-/blog, comparing your bird(s) to them of a friends; all instead of having a list of static results that the user is to trawl through? Very, that’s how easy. I think the underlying problem of any progress being made is a lack of understanding of what can be done, and what is being achieved in other niche hobby/sports – by the people who are in the positions to make the changes needed.