MIDLANDS NATIONAL FLYING CLUB

MIKE LAKIN

Midlands National A.G.M. Report & Results

First of all let me on behalf of the Club’s Committee I would like to wish all of our members a Happy New Year. It is certainly hoped that 2017 gives us better weather than the one that has just gone by. On now to the AGM which was held on Sunday the 8th January at the Derby Conference Centre as our usual headquarters ‘The Clock Warehouse’ is currently being refurbished.

There were a few members in attendance along with the Committee members, which they are welcome to do as the MNFC is no secret service or closed shop and we would certainly welcome good, hard working additions especially in several of our lesser supported sections as after all representatives from all sections has got to be beneficial to all areas of the Club’s radius. There was just one casualty with Brian Smith from the West section stepping down from the Committee due to work demands. I am sorry about this as Brian was a representative of a large section and new blood to represent the Western side would be excellent news.

There was a new member added to the Committee from the South Centre section in the form of Tony Brown who has been helping the club at the shows etc and Tony in fact built the mock loft that we used to promote our ‘Flying Back to Nature’ project.

The Club’s accountant Mr Tim Mourne answered a few questions and queries in regard to the Balance Sheet. Additionally he explained that though the ‘One Loft’ Balance Sheet showed a deficit in the accounts the fact was in reality that now since a deal has been struck to sell the loft that the One Loft series has resulted in a small profit. So as I wrote recently the venture hasn’t cost the non-competing members a single penny.

Moving on to the Propositions and from the 19 that the Club received 3 were successful. The actual voting figures are attached on the bottom of this report.

Let’s now highlight the changes that have been voted in for the future which are: 7 Rule 27 verification time has been cut from 60 minutes to 30minutes. Personally I feel that this is a sensible change because today we all either have a house phone, a mobile or a laptop. In the past it often meant a long trip to a pay phone and the possibility of missing an arrival.

The next successful proposal was number 10  which read ‘Any member having their arrival times published by a third party website prior to the official publication of the MNFC Leader board may be disqualified from the race.’ The thoughts behind this proposal is one of security which has been highlighted can never be too much. The third and final proposal to get the members seal of approval was number 12 which means that in 2018 there will only be one full MNFC young bird race which will be flown from Northern France with a second ‘Treble Chance’ type race from a similar race point two or three weeks later.

2017 Race Programme

The programme voted in for 2017 with the dates is as follows:

Old Birds

20th May Coutances, 10th June Fougeres,   1st July Ancenis,    22nd July Bordeaux / Vire

Young Birds

2nd Sept Chale,   16th Sept Coutances

Ballot Results

For             Against

Prop 1                            17                   181                          failed

2                            17                   180                            “

3                            17                   179                            “

4                              58                  140                            “

5                              83                  117                            “

6                              53                  143                            “

7                             126                   81                        carried

8                               36                  166                       failed

9                               44                  157                          “

10                             121                    8                            carried

11                               58                124                            failed

12                             103                100                           carried

13                               83                120                            failed

14                               78                 115                             “

15                               46                 131                             “

16                               67                  117                            “

17                              54                   129                           “

18                              51                   138                           “

19                              61                   134

( Variations in voting figures are due to number of abstentions)

The 2017 Midlands National One Loft

Gets the ‘Thumbs Up’ from the Members

After an uncertain and stop start beginning when the new Midlands National Flying Club loft started construction. Then following and AGM proposition to put it to the vote as to whether the members wished to continue with project in 2017. This of course brought the whole issue into question and in turn held up the promotion of the race series which was extremely frustrating for the lads who were building the extremely impressive lofts and all of the other people involved.

Now though the whole matter has been resolved with the members voting in favour of allowing the Club to get on with both the completion of the loft and to start drumming up support for what the Committee believes will prove to be a great asset to the MNFC and its membership. Many lessons were learned from 2016 and the new loft which is located in North Staffordshire is right up there with the very best as the whole design has been re-vamped to ensure what is best for both the inmates and the team who will be involved with the management of the birds. This will enable the pigeons to be basketed easily which we have learned is vital to ensure that the training programme can be carried out with the minimum of effort because basketing 700 birds is a considerable job.

The loft is designed with a strong grill floor which means that the management team will be able to spend more of their time looking after the birds rather than scrapping the loft out. This will also ensure that the hygiene factor will be at as high a level as possible.

The concrete base is poured - The base and heavy gauge grilled floor is started 

The base nearing completion - It's starting to get exciting as the first wall panels are being fitted

It's all coming together very nicely - Nearly there a close up of one wing of the loft and aviary

A close up looking down a section of the aviary - A shot of the lofts a real 'One Loft' Palace which very near to completion.

When it is finally completed prospective entrants will be invited to visit the lofts take a good look around and then if suitably impressed sign up and claim your bird(s) place or should that be perch? Surely this underlines the Committee’s belief that we have now got things right. Over the next couple of weeks more information will be available and also when the decision has been made who the selected management team will be for the coming year as at this present time following all of the uncertainty nobody has yet been employed to take on this specialist and high responsibility task as we considered that it would have been extremely unfair to select them for a job that may have not even existed.

So keep your eyes peeled for further details of the ‘open day’ and the necessary entry forms. We ask last year’s entrants to continue to support us because with your help we are determined to get it right in 2017.

In the mean time take a look at the photos of the loft from the early days up until how it looks now it is very near to completion.

Mike Lakin