I must admit that I was tempted to use this editorial to look back and pick out some of the hobby’s memorable moments of the past – both good and bad. However, what’s done is done and the dedicated fanciers throughout the world get as much pleasure out of the hobby today as they did in the past and so they also will in the future. Apart from that, although I enjoy reading about the hobby of the ‘old days’ I never was much of a historian.

Quite the reverse of me is John Mollindia, who has been perusing through the old records of the Luton & District Bird Fanciers Society, and has produced a booklet entitled ‘Another Trip Down Memory Lane’. John, who himself has been keeping birds since the late 1920’s, initially with British Birds but soon turning his attention to Budgerigars, wrote the following. "Thirty years ago we had a major problem at one of our Open Shows. We had to book an extra hall at the last minute because unexpectedly we had almost 2000 birds entered. Members rallied round and we managed to make extra staging.

This was not an end to our problems however, the show was staged on the same Saturday that Luton Town were playing Northampton Town just across the road! After the match, football fans packed into the show to see the birds, which boosted the club funds no end. Whether the birds in the talking classes learned new words that day was not recorded."

In this edition we have a listing of Show Results from the recently completed show season and although is does not cover every show in the UK, there is a good representation. What is surprising are the few shows that bench more than a thousand birds – just 5 reported here. It is also pleasing to see that a third of the top thirty shows managed to increase their benched entry and absent birds also seem to be fewer than in previous years. Not surprisingly, once again, the majority of Best In Show birds were from the Any Age section.

The Club Show

What another great Club Show it was last month. Congratulations to the BS for another first class event and well done to all exhibitors, especially Frank Silva who took three of the four major specials and all other winners. For the many fanciers unable to get to the show, this was the first time that birds were benched in their respective colours or varieties rather than within their particular show status groupings.

Of course those of you who attend the various Rare Variety Shows up and down the country will be very familiar with this format. Unfortunately, it just did not work for the Club Show. There was a combination of problems; difficulties in finding the birds, confusion in the layout of the catalogue, lifting confusion and a resistance in the fancy to accept change were the major criticisms. On the plus side, the meeting and awards area was much better placed and the Auction of Promises looked to be well supported. We enjoyed meeting friends old and new and look forward to the 2000 Show.

It will be interesting to see if other societies follow this trend in staging because I am sure it will work at smaller events. If they should the natural progression to this would be to concentrate the awards within the colours and varieties and do away with the global across sections awards all together. Perhaps even Best In Show and Best Young Bird, together with the Opposite Sex awards will disappear as well. What do you think?

It was interesting to see more innovative ideas being put forward by the BS, reported in last months Budgerigar World. Although at present they are only recommendations to be put forward at the AGM for ratification, I am sure most will go through. Admittedly not all fall truly into the category of innovation but more in the area of good sense. This is particularly true of having postal and proxy voting arrangements for rule changes and allowing judges to advertise the fact that they are judges.

I was particularly interested in the proposed status changes and applaud the aim of allowing Champion Status to be achieved more readily and particularly making the Beginner section truly for newcomers to the hobby, with a maximum stay of two years in this section. We all know of individuals who languish as a beginner for year in and year out and never move up. In my view, achieving Champion status in 8 years is far more acceptable although correspondence from current day Beginners have expressed some concern for this change.

World Wide Publicity

We’ve received a few comments with regards to the lack of reporting of World Wide events in the budgerigar hobby. You will recall that we used to run a regular World Wide News feature in Budgerigar World but this has not appeared recently. This feature has not been dropped, it is just that few publicity officers bother to publicise past and future events. We at Budgerigar World are keen to give the hobby the publicity it deserves but it is down to the various clubs and societies to ensure that we can provide this free service for them and for you by getting the reports to us.

Happy New Century to you all.

©Terry A Tuxford 1999