MNFC’s ‘Flying Back To Nature’ & ‘Secret Messages’ Websites Ready For Take Off!

When the Midlands National Flying Club made the film ‘The Queen’s Wings’ it was both successful and a fine tribute to our reigning monarch. The feedback was most gratifying with scores of positive comments. It was soon very evident that the Jim Jenner produced piece was a superb way of portraying the pigeon sport. The many benefits were also obvious for our younger generation as pigeons are the ideal way to introduce living creatures to children, especially those who are brought up in an inner city conurbation environment.

You see university studies have revealed that young children that are raised and deprived of an association with either nature or a living creature often fail to reach maturity as well balanced adults like those youngsters that do. As a lad myself that was able to spend much of my time on my grandparents’ farm I can vouch for the huge positives of a childhood so close to nature. I must say that I had a wonderful childhood being as ‘free as a bird’ in my formative years. The benefits of being with and looking after animals are immense. This has left me with a lifelong passion for animal company, especially my pigeons.

Well we aren’t able to bring the countryside to the cities but with the aid of the World Wide Web we can bring living creatures into the class room. Filmmaker Jim Jenner has been a long time pioneer in this belief and living and being able to go fishing and spending most of his free time in Montana, one of the least inhabited states of America’s countryside, he is well aware of the joys of wildlife and animals in general. Jim told me about the book ‘Last Child in the Woods’ that is the work of Richard Louvre, which brilliantly tells of the pitfalls of rearing children deprived of any contact with both nature and animals.

With the financial support of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association and the aid of Jim Jenner plus the help and advice of Richard Chambers of Kingsmead College, the Midlands National Flying Club has been able to help Jim in his attempts to get a foothold into schools. The fact is that racing pigeons are such a wonderful education tool, as becomes abundantly clear when one goes onto the newly created website www.flyingbacktonature.com which is largely the work of Jim and Peter Humphries with a considerable amount of supporting input from Gary Daykin and Richard. This new website is ready for lift off. I would recommend all readers who have access to the Net to visit this site and see just how wisely the RPRA have been aiding the MNFC to get this funded to both educate our schoolchildren of the benefits of nature and introduce them to the world of pigeons.

All readers can help this valuable venture to be a nationwide success by recommending their local school to ‘fly back to nature’ by telling them about the website. It is abundantly clear that if we don’t recruit new faces to our wonderful hobby pigeon racing will cease to exist but with your assistance we can give it our ‘best shot’ to get it introduced into the modern school curriculum. In this way we can make sure that the RPRA funds and the MNFC efforts  aren’t wasted but actually spent wisely to get both new fanciers into the sport and even more especially to make teachers and children aware of the great benefits both mentally and educationally of ‘Flying Back to Nature’.

In addition to this new website the Midlands National Flying Club, under the directorship of Gary Daykin and the website skills of Peter Humphries, has produced another, this one being called ‘Secret Messages’ www.secretmessages.org.uk which tells of the huge part that the racing pigeon played during the two World Wars. As 2014 is the centenary year in commemoration of the First World War, the MNFC thought that it was an excellent time to remind the people of Europe just how important the humble ‘bird of peace’ was to our cause, saving thousands of service men their lives including airmen and sailors from a watery grave. As pigeon fanciers we should all be very proud of our pigeons and their noble past history.

The Club was delighted to have in attendance at our latest ‘Flying Back to Nature’ meeting the new RPRA President Brian Walsh plus one of his Vice Presidents Dr. Geoff Richmond and members of the ‘Future of the Sport’ committee Alistair Ewart who is a great supporter of our endeavours and Don Mackay. These gentlemen were very supportive of our actions and they brought with them the BHW Editor Steve Richards’ daughter Laura and her colleague Helena who both work at the British Homing World. These young ladies have agreed to help with the production, packing and distribution of information packs to all the schools and colleges who wish to take part in either of our ventures. Already there has been quite a lot of interest from several schools but with everyone supporting the schemes we are sure that it is only the merest ‘tip of an enormous potential iceberg’.

Royal Approval

Very exciting news was revealed that the Royal Lofts under the direction of H.R.H. Prince Charles have given their blessing to one of the Royal Lofts’ birds carrying a goodwill message from a local mayor in France back to the Royal Lofts in conjunction with a MNFC race in 2014. What better way could there be to mark the significant part that our birds played in the ‘Great’ wars?

The Flying Back To Nature logo

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