Midlands National Flying Club Update

Your Vote is Important

  In a few days the members of the Club will be receiving their A.G.M. paper work which contains the proposals ballot paper. It is important that you get your vote in especially on a few shall we say interesting proposals that have been put forward. If you don’t bother to cast your votes then surely you shouldn’t be complaining if decisions are made that you don’t agree with because it is like the many people who moan and groan about the Government but never cast their vote, simply crazy isn’t it? I am aware that a few members take exception to the Committee giving their directives on each proposal but the majority of members do appreciate the input from the people who help to keep the Club running because by and large just like mother they do tend to know what is best!. So if you do care about the future of our fine Club get your vote in because it really could make a difference.

  What else is new? Well by the time that you are sitting reading this update your rings may well have dropped through your letter box. As the person who packs the rings orders it does mean that the early distribution date will give me my conservatory back but as an active fancier I find the new distribution date of the 1st December made by the RPRA Councillors recently pretty ridiculous. This is simply because anyone using their rings in early December are in reality putting them on 2017 latebreds. I have to chuckle when I think back to my region’s delegates some 20 odd years ago being ‘up in arms’ because a certain stud had youngsters for sale at Blackpool with the new year’s rings on their legs near the end of January. Now it seems that our governing body think that issuing rings some 6 weeks earlier than they were distributed in the past is perfectly acceptable, the mind boggles. Returning back to the A.G.M. propositions there is a proposal to provide an old bird race to be sent along with the young birds. Well the RPRA has allowed members to do exactly that with this their latest controversial decision.

  My advice is simple, keep your ring issue safe and wait because all late November early December babies will achieve is to increase your corn bills and be harder to train than birds hatched at the correct time of the year because December bred youngsters will ideally need training in March or April and by the time the young bird races come around will have gone stale and past their best unless you race them on the nest or even on the widowerhood system and is hardly young bird racing in my book.

Anyway as this will be my last report of the year I would like to wish all fanciers a Merry Christmas and a wish for a good 2018 season.

Mike Lakin