SNFC 2010 programme

[Guest bigda]

 

fROM WHAT I TOOK AT THE MEETING THE OTHER DAY YOU HAVE GOT IT THE WRONG WAY ROUND ;D ;D

 

why do you think  the lanarkshire  delegates,  are going to  give up on.  trying to   get  the national  to see it there way and go with there proposals they made,   don't think the guys in the east are to bothered if  lanarkshire go  or not  myself,  but would under stand if the  shot  the lanarkshire fed  proposals down, as i am sure they don"t know what the races lanarkshire  has  in store  for them  as yet,  could post them up,  but  don't want to  cause  any  unnecessary  conflict  with the  national men  

[ALF]

 

why do you think  the lanarkshire  delegates,  are going to  give up on.  trying to   get  the national  to see it there way and go with there proposals they made,   don't think the guys in the east are to bothered if  lanarkshire go  or not  myself,  but would under stand if the  shot  the lanarkshire fed  proposals down, as i am sure they don"t know what the races lanarkshire  has  in store  for them  as yet,  could post them up,  but  don't want to  cause  any  unnecessary  conflict  with the  national men  

 

i WOULD NEVER LET THE DELEGATES IN OUR FED VOTE ON ANYTHING AND I TRULY MEAN NEVER EVER WOULD THEY GET A VOTE ON ANYTHING IF I HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT ;)

[Delboy]

Here we go again, LANARKSHIRE, LANARKSHIRE, this thread is about the SNFC race programme. Get back to the topic lads

[ALF]

Here we go again, LANARKSHIRE, LANARKSHIRE, this thread is about the SNFC race programme. Get back to the topic lads

 

In the end it's not about Lanarkshire Derek but let's wait and see if all the guys that stood up at our race meeting and said the SNFC were shafting our fed back up their statementes at the SNFC AGM IF as many doo then i think the SNFC will have to have a rethink but we'll wait and see what happens :-/ :-/ :-/

 

Alan

[Guest bigda]

 

i WOULD NEVER LET THE DELEGATES IN OUR FED VOTE ON ANYTHING AND I TRULY MEAN NEVER EVER WOULD THEY GET A VOTE ON ANYTHING IF I HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT ;)

 

agree  there  mate  but this ain't the same,  now they are dealing with the  big boys,   and have to  go to the agm in big numbers,  from lanarkshire to get there own way,  hoping the  guys from the east  sleep in, for the meeting, i   can see the lanarkshire put a  free bus on my self,  thats the way i would do it if  i  was national minded,   but  cant  see me get there  as  my birds   are getting pushed on  to quick,  to be able to build a team  for the distance, with all the bad racing just now  i am condeming to Manny stock  birds   over the last 3 years

[blaz]

Derek

5th  June   Newbury (321mls)

19th June  Eastbourne (388mls)

25th June   Alencon  (540mls)

3rd  July     Ypres & Andrezel (441mls & 580mls)

10th July    Lille (458mls)

5th Sept     Peterborough (ybn) 260mls)

Its the only wae tae test the 98% Sh-te Rule and cut down on your feeding bill.

Good luck with your proposals and lets hope common sense prevails and Lanarkshire can support the Greatest Club in The Land for another year.

Budgie

this would get my vote plus i am about the same distance give or take a mile

[Guest JonesyBhoy]

With diminishing birdages is it really that wise to have two Nationals on the same day..??

[Guest bigda]

ask the national why they  go with the unc and  kick there  chums out of bed,  and send them to ypes on the same day, ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[tyson]

what i think is wrong with raceing these days is there is no stability in the the race points because every year since we started flying the east route the race seem to get changed every year as when we flew down the west all the feds more or less went to the same race points ie longtown to dorchester then across the channel and when you draw a line through these points it is almost straight but on the east we are all over the place jmo

[Guest bigda]

I agree with you mate from Plymouth through  Swansea swindon,to Inverness is the real route for home and thats where the the great circle should  be measured from and on  that grid line  liberations bet you never thought  Cardiff  and Edinburgh where on the same grid line

[dava]

would like to see the races spaced out a bit better newbury seems to be a good prep race for alencon but an extra week between them would boost the entry for the gold cup race this giving you more time to set the birds up for it

[tyson]

you are right bigda if you ask somone what lies farthest west edinburgh or carlisle and the majority would say carlisle but by latatude edinburgh is furthest west

[Guest Gareth Rankin]

would like to see the races spaced out a bit better newbury seems to be a good prep race for alencon but an extra week between them would boost the entry for the gold cup race this giving you more time to set the birds up for it

 

I believe you have a great point Davie, just about all the other nationals have the races spread out with a 2 week gap between most of their races which alleviate's the congestion, but this in turn would mean that the first inland national would have to commence on the 29th May  ??? would that be too early to start the SNFC program ??

 

 

Cheers

Gareth

[andy]

Substitute Newbury for Wanstead Flats or Harlow, or do away with it completely, and have One Inland National from the Coast. Substitute Falaise for Clermont and have the Ypres race a week later which is an empty week. All these racepoints are on a  line, which the majority of the country is racing week in week out, with maybe the slight exception of Ypres being slightly more Easterly, but this racepoint was incluided for a completely different reason and should remain, with duplication as a yearling national also.

[Delboy]

My thoughts are this- our channel races should be from eastern points, as the vast majority of Scotland fly the east route nowadays. Traditional race points such as Rennes were ok when we flew the traditional route.ie Gretna - Dorchester. My programme would be Eastbourne 12th June, Ypres 26th June, Gold cup 2nd July Reims or Liege, 17th July Longest race. Both Eastbourne and Ypres can have yearling races incorporated. This makes only 4 Ob nationals but I think the majority of the SNFC members could cope going to them all, or at least 3 of them. My YBN would have separate libs as mentioned earlier.

[midnight_son]

When I was a lad (not all that long ago really) the SNFC staged 5 races a year, 80% of them were 500 miles or above to central belt and the only inland race was the YB national. Last season the SNFC staged 7 races less than half were over 500 miles to central belt and nearly half were inland.  Introducing Newbury was the thin end of a very dangerous wedge for those who keep pigeons with the sole target of long distance racing.

 

On the issue of feds joint convoying with the national. It’s all well and good the feds coming along, makes economic sense for them but one point that is missed is that national racing is a lot different to club and fed racing. They’re not all heading to roughly the same area like in club racing and the degree of difficulty of actually getting birds home is much greater. Is it wise for us to take a largely yearling convoy to Eastbourne for a national knowing it’s going to be tough for them.  These are the 2YO’s for the following season, shouldn’t we leave the feds to sort out their own joint convoying with neighbouring feds where they will have a higher chance of good returns and therefore more 2YO’s ready for the channel the next year. I think the SNFC should forget about staging inland races bar the YB national.

 

If we can all cast our minds back a decade or so we used to have the old Sartilly/Falaise/Avranches 1 race that was perfectly successful staged on the 2nd weekend in June 2 weeks before the gold cup race. Having a channel race on that weekend makes a spread of 5 weeks between first and last channel race which is just enough to get natural birds down on small youngsters or a long time on eggs. The pigeons that went to Sartilly 1 went back to Sartilly 2. That option no longer exists. If I send a hen to the gold cup and her favoured nest condition is chipping eggs or babies and she does well then I have no chance to get her back to the channel in that condition. I find this very frustrating because it makes it nearly impossible for these pigeons to compete for Dewar Trophies and Gold Awards as they are limited to one channel race per season whereas back in the 80s and 90s they had a good crack at 2 of them. I grew up with 4 channel races, it balanced the season and in my opinion it’s never been the same since we lost that race.

 

In an ideal world I’d like to see 4 channel races spread over 5 weeks. The feds should bang their heads together and form amalgamations or combines to economically get to the coast for the yearlings and the SNFC should leave them to it and focus on staging 500 mile racing for mature pigeons that have had a good grounding in their feds and combines.

 

My program would therefore be :-

 

Fri 11th or Sat 12th June – 500 miles to central belt (whether that’s Clermont line or Sartilly line I don’t mind)

 

Friday 25th June – Gold Cup (take your pick of racepoints 530-560miles)

 

A race from Nantes Tours Niort area/distance with flexibility to joint convoy with best available fit on either the Fri/Sat 2nd/3rd July or Fri/Sat 9th/10th July

 

Friday 16th July  - 500 miles to central belt along the lines of the first race.

 

At a push I would accept Ypres in place of one 500 mile race but I think  before we all fall in love with Ypres and how good a race it was in 2009 we should remember that Ypres this season was flown in very favourable conditions. Let’s remember we live in a country with a prevailing west wind and one day we’re going to get a stiff westerly wind out of Ypres and we’ll very possibly get creamed.

 

The issue of cost needs to be considered as well but it doesn’t matter if the individual races make a loss so long as the subs and the YB sales etc cover it. The SNFC doesn’t need to make a profit, that’s not the aim of the game – it just needs to clear it’s feet each year and not make a loss.

[Delboy]

Hi Jamie, you have put up a programme that most out and out distance fliers , including myself, would accept but, the programme I put up is to benefit all aspects of the SNFC and its members . When I started in pigeons there were only 2 - 3 channel races  :-/

[Guest Gareth Rankin]

Bloody hell Delboy i didn't realise that you were that old ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Guest]

Bloody hell Delboy i didn't realise that you were that old ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

 

he was at school with your dad, ;D

[Delboy]

I AM HIS DAD  ;D Joking aside, everyone knows Gareth is older than me

[aye ready]

I would like to see the snfc drop the ypres race altogether.The distance into central scotland is around the 450 mark we already have an eastbourne race which is almost 400 miles and a newbury just over 300 miles far too many middle distance type races in my opinion that dont have the magic of the 500 plus events.If ypres was dropped there would be more doos for the 500mile races there only a certain amount of doos to go around jmo.

 

 

me personally and i know it's being talked about is to approach the snfc and duplicate the scottish central combine race into ypres and i would go one  further and have the scc yearling derby on the same date/race and you could possibly bring in a few more birds for the national aswell

[Guest Gareth Rankin]

I AM HIS DAD  ;D Joking aside, everyone knows Gareth is older than me

 

I just look older, this is down to the 60 mile Kelso races in the last few years were Kirkie gets the first drop and Larkie the last drop added to this not everyone dyes their hair which is standard practice in Kirkie:X

 

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

 

 

 

 

[Delboy]

 

I just look older, this is down to the 60 mile Kelso races in the last few years were Kirkie gets the first drop and Larkie the last drop added to this not everyone dyes their hair which is standard practice in Kirkie:X

 

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

 

;D ;D I am very proud of my natural youthful looks auld yin   ps. Dont have a go at my Kelso rockets  

 

 

 

[glencameron]

I believe in the shorter nationals. In my opinion they offer good racing and they potentially help the sport go forward.

 

Undoubtedly the SNFC is a club that is geared toward the long distance races and this is correct but I do not believe it has to be to the detriment of the club to have two inland races.

 

Federation memberships in most areas are dwindling, to a large extent the inland nationals represent a potential economy of scale for Federations racing above 300 miles in Scotland. Let the fed program take you so far all other races above that distance could be nationally organized. Perhaps they can be housed under another umbrella organization outside that of the SNFC but anything out-with nationals tend to be shooting stars (Fanciers tend not to like specific areas dominating the races so begin to break up such organizations). At present the Inland Nationals make a small profit which helps fund the longer races. I believe it is preferable to run an organisation on a self sufficient level rather than relying upon sales and other outside activities etc. Also it could be noted for the North of Scotland some of these races still represent a fair distance.

 

Another perspective:

 

The shorter races afford an avenue for the club fancier to experience a national race. If the club fancier gets encouragement at a shorter race, the adrenalin of the National can’t be match when going back to club racing, after a while they realize they need to get some long distance lines in to compete in more of the SNFC program (I.e. the long races). Therefore in summary the Inland races offer a form of progression into the long distance races and aspirations. Times have changed new starts (the few we get) are not automatically geared into the long distance racing. And likewise once for these fanciers once they have seen a pigeon home in good time at the longer races they will be hooked.

 

Like everything it is only an opinion but it is one I think is based on assisting the progression of pigeon racing in Scotland for the next X many years. As time goes by we are going to be duly forced into greater cooperation and sharing of resources.

[Guest Gareth Rankin]

I believe in the shorter nationals. In my opinion they offer good racing and they potentially help the sport go forward.

 

Undoubtedly the SNFC is a club that is geared toward the long distance races and this is correct but I do not believe it has to be to the detriment of the club to have two inland races.

 

Federation memberships in most areas are dwindling, to a large extent the inland nationals represent a potential economy of scale for Federations racing above 300 miles in Scotland. Let the fed program take you so far all other races above that distance could be nationally organized. Perhaps they can be housed under another umbrella organization outside that of the SNFC but anything out-with nationals tend to be shooting stars (Fanciers tend not to like specific areas dominating the races so begin to break up such organizations). At present the Inland Nationals make a small profit which helps fund the longer races. I believe it is preferable to run an organisation on a self sufficient level rather than relying upon sales and other outside activities etc. Also it could be noted for the North of Scotland some of these races still represent a fair distance.

 

Another perspective:

 

The shorter races afford an avenue for the club fancier to experience a national race. If the club fancier gets encouragement at a shorter race, the adrenalin of the National can’t be match when going back to club racing, after a while they realize they need to get some long distance lines in to compete in more of the SNFC program (I.e. the long races). Therefore in summary the Inland races offer a form of progression into the long distance races and aspirations. Times have changed new starts (the few we get) are not automatically geared into the long distance racing. And likewise once for these fanciers once they have seen a pigeon home in good time at the longer races they will be hooked.

 

Like everything it is only an opinion but it is one I think is based on assisting the progression of pigeon racing in Scotland for the next X many years. As time goes by we are going to be duly forced into greater cooperation and sharing of resources.

 

 

A post with common sense in abundance. 8)