is this a dieing sport?

[snowy]

myself & westy starting up this year, couldnt have been helped anymore than we have, especially the people on this forum, have been donated some good quality stock birds by generous members of this forum, & nearly everyone has offered more, we had to say no, due to space, as these birds will be breeding us our first 2006 racing birds,

to be honest i dont think we would have gone  ahead with racing if it wernt for all the friendly advice & generousity of the members of this forum.

thanks again all. ;D ;D

[carl]

I agree with snowys post,the help i got when i started in the sport was excellent.I was given birds from some top flyers in my area and my club,whenever i needed some advice i was always gave excellent advice from the longer serving members of my club.As for this forum its my racing pigeon bible.I have had all the advice i need from this forums members.

 

In my eyes the sport is not dying

[andrew]

Please note the comments below are my opinion only

 

***

 

In my opinion the sport is dying becasue there is not enough been done to amke the sport more attractive to new starters first of all there is the common steriotype pigeon fancier i think if the sport was more up to date e.g using ETS and changes made to the racing structure may be more young fancier facilitys etc this would get more fanciers in.

 

in holland and belgium there are far more young fanciers starting up and most have the ETS system this proves its not all that expensive its just the fanciers which dont like change holding the system from comming in to the uk.

 

The sport needs a huge "Upgrade" More Advertsiment make it more appealing to new commers, i know many have said to me the introduction of the internet has helped make the pigeon sport more widley recognised.

 

we should not be using ETS, working out results by hand etc the sport should move with times, i know in our club we have introduced a new young fancier he started by helping doing the result on the computer which most fanciers could not cope with so he helped with that he has now started racing. but it does not help when young fanciers help the sport work hard for clubs etc when the "exisisting fanciers" always moan about what their doing etc or finding faults when they cant do it themselves.

 

Why do fanciers always complain about fanciers sending 100's of birds all they are doing is helping support the sport by putting money in to clubs etc you can always beat them, i have sent between 1 and 10 birds many times and beat many fanciers sending lots of birds. we need some good birdage races in uk to many clubs racing 42 birds etc this is not a race ! whats going no there should be more bigger races with 10,000 birds + thats the best racing

[DinUtah]

This is what we did to get some new flyers.  Our Race secretary who is super  pro pigeon racing, put an ad in the pet section of the local paper. (this is 10 months ago)  Something along the lines of people interested in a competitive  sport tied to good animal husbandry and so on..Of the many that responded, 7 were very interested and we all set them up with youngbirds for young bird races.  All were late 20s and early 30s 4 baught electronic clocks and 3 borrowed clocks.  6 of the 7 are fired up for old birds this spring.. So the newbies are out there.  We also added a category for newcomers so they could see their names on top of the sheet.  2 of them were competitive with the old timers. Anyway,  every little bit helps the sport,, Denny

[PC]

We ive not long started in realy. tho i didnt need help as ive more joined the family team on a more commited basis. so i have picked up lots over the precceading years. i found ppl most helpfull i asked one well know flyer  how much a couple of birds from his good red line would be & he replyed " ive never sold a pigeon in my life n im not starting now u want some ill breed u some"

& I was gifted 4 cracking looking birds very well breed a van hove, a koopman, a camphiusx engels, & a dirk van dyke bird by  a top flyer in our club he'd brought them in 2 cross in to his & decided if it aint broken dont fix it

as for the sport dieing out well id be more worried about the animal rights ppl trying 2 get it banned it maybe in decline at the moment where we are but remember its a world wide thing & whos to say how many of our newer citizens here coming from countrys where its popular wont join us if we welcome them

    n thanks  for the birds if any of you read this   ;D 8) ;D

[Guest shadow]

AT the rate clubs are disbanding it will not take long for the the sport to become unviable to the remaing clubs due to cost for transportation etc as less birds carried means higher costs for the few fanciers left. I would hazard a guess and would say the majority of fanciers are 50-70 plus years of age and in 20 years most of will have packed up due to health and cost problems. The intake of new members under 30 is not big enough to keep things going, and one loft races will be the mainstay of the sport

[Diamond dave]

THE SOLUTION

I 'd concentrate on targeting the older generation and coax them into the sport. The youngsters have got too much in front of them to be commited to a sport such as ours.

I think theres more chance of someone who is retiring or perhaps someone who is already an animal/bird lover taking up the birds.

 

BRIGHTLY COLOURED BIRDS

I would suggest that the appropriate bodies have a NATIONAL PIGEON DAY - lets take over all the pet shops in the country - put a few show pens in them and put a brightly coloured cock in between a couple of widowhood hens - They'd be showing all day!. Have someone there, preferably one of the younger member of the club,

(no offence to all the "grumpys" out there but it's a fact that if we are to attract more people into the sport, the current image needs to be changed) with a clock/thimbles/race rubbers etc to present our great sport. - Joe public couldn't fail to be impressed.

I think the pet shop owners would be only to willing to give us the space for three show pens especially the big corperates like Pet city, Pet smart etc. etc.

 

GOOD EXPERIENCE

Incidently it was a couple of the so called "old grumpys" that started me in the sport

and the help and knowledge that these fantastic people have given freely, I reckon is worth about 8 years in experience if you tried to do it on your own.

 

SO MADAS26 I think you must have all the oldest and grumpiest old gits in your area!!

[madas26]

"SO MADAS26 I think you must have all the oldest and grumpiest old gits in your area!!"

 

i doubt that m8

 

 

goodluck on with ur pigeon day....

[jimmy white]

i have a chap with me now reading these posts with me, he has lofts and is on the swither to start again,,he knows he wont be short of getting birds,, he was quite a reasonable flier , but is put off by,in his words  "all the argue bargue, and the splitting of clubs,ie having two nationals"  hes now asking me" how you can have two nationals"   this chap packed in about 4 years ago, and still likes pigeons very much. i have tried my best to get him to start, i know hes on the swither, can anyone help convince him, as i know he would be happy with pigeons. jimmy

[Guest]

If you have the time and love watching the birds come home, regardless of whether you have won or not, I would say go for it. I myself hate all the arguments that pigeons seem to cause, but the love of watching the birds come home to my back garden makes it all worth while. Just make sure your partner (life partner not pigeon partner) doesnt mind, Jimmy will explain why I say this LOL.

[big_al]

JIMMY TELL UR FRIEND TOO GET OF HIS BACKSIDE   ;D

AND GET HIS LOFTS READY , TOO BE FLYING YB'S . AS I KNOW THERE ARE A LOT OFF FANCIERS LOVE TOO SEE HIM RACING THE DOO'S AGAIN. MYSELF & MICK INCLUDED.

HE TOLD ME A FEW YEARS AGO HE WAS GOIN TOO HAVE A BREAK FROM THE BIRDS. I THINK 4 YEARS IS LONGER THAN A BREAK   . SO TELL HIM TOO STOP HANGING YOUR WALLPAPER JIMMY & GET ON WI GETTIN THE BIRDS TOGETHER. HE CERTAINLY WON'T BE SHORT OF BIRDS.

 

[tam pepper]

 

               racing pigeons is in a downward spiral in this country like everything else , we are watching the demise of a once great country , pigeon fancieres ass a whole are very nice friendly people , but terribly apathetic, they moan and groan about things like the price of the feeding , sparrowhawks and peregrines killing their birds , cats you name it they will moan ,

when something good happens like someone starting to train the birds , they say how good this would be , but dont patronise it and it usually stops ,

in our area we had a pet shop start up last year , myselfand another member persuded the owner to stock pigeon food, accesories, grit minerals and all the usuall stuff ,  she got stocked up most went once or twice then stopped , she told them if she did not have the food they wanted , they could order and it would take a week ,    she stocked up on all the popular brand name foods i might add the food was 50p a bag dearer and they complained ,  they frefer to make a 32 mile round trip to save 50p on a bag not 1 of them were buying more than 3 bags at a time some people cant see the wood for the trees .

when some thing good happens , it doesnt last ---------------- tam pepper

[Diamond dave]

Jimmy

 

Tell your man "welcome back" He will have to admit its in his blood!!!!

You have to agree with Sbelbin - despite all the argue bargue and two nationals etc etc. You cant beat  it when you see those birds coming home to your loft (Win or Lose)

Tell him - good luck from me.

[jimmy white]

IVE SHOWN HIM THE POSTS , [bIG AL HAS COTENNED ON I WAS ON ABOUT , AND I AGREE WITH HIM WHOLE HEARTEDLY]HES BETTER BACK IN THE SPORT, I THINK WEVE GOT HIM CONVINCED NOW, BUT HE SAYS NEXT YEAR,  BUT I NOTICED HES BEEN SPRUCING UP HIS LOFTS NOW ;D ;D ;D, I WAS A BIT MORE POLITE THAN YOU BIG AL , AND TOLD HIM TO GET OFF HIS FAT A,,, AND GET GOING, YES,G.H  ;D ;D ;D

[saleman]

GOOD ON YOU BIG -AL AND THE DOC GIVE HIM A PUSH FOR ME

OR EVEN BETTER STILL GIVE ME HIS PHONE NUMBER, I'LL GIVE HIM A WEE CALL AND TALK TO HIM FOR A MIN OR TWO, JUST LIKE I DO TO YOU ;D

[mealybar]

You may be right, but with that positive attitude to the sport its no wonder "racing pigeons is in a downward spiral in this country"!!

 

In the US I’m sure they have their fair share of problems within the sport (whole regions wanting to ban keeping pigeons altogether, etc) but they have had an increase in membership of around 10% with the last annual stats I saw. They for sure dont have a defeatist attitude towards the future of the sport!

 

Get involved in something to make a difference, or support those who are; we can talk about the negatives in the sport all day (as with any sport) but what we need is some constructive comments in order to right what is wrong, and some support towards those who are trying to make the difference.

 

Stop the rot!!

[carl]

in our club we have 27 lofts flying the 2006 season and its the highest our membership has been for years with 46 members,

 

just three weeks ago while i was out and about i bumped into a old freind i have not seen for 10+ years,he asked me what i got upto these days,i said pigeons,pigeons,pigeons.He asked if he could visit my loft as he had kept a few high flyers in the past and would love a look around my lofts.Well three weeks on my freind has his own loft next door to mine,he took over the oldest most rotten loft on our allotment site and most of the members said he wouldnt do anything with the state the loft were in.Thanks to a handfull of or members who have helped do up the old loft for him he now has a loft to fly the 2006 youngbird season,BUT he never had one single bird only 20 rings,i took the rings from him and asked the members of our club would they fill a few rings for him and everyone i asked apart from one members said yes,he has since been gifted some nice looking stock birds also.

 

 

i say stop thinking about the sport dying and do something to help get new members into it.

[jimmy white]

, due to hi circumstances at the moment,hes decided to start  next year, hes even doing his lofts up now  [ i can agree with him on that, knowing his circumstances]

but he thanks you all for the replies  [thats got him more interested]