Midlands National Young Bird Sale 2019
Midlands National Flying Club – President's Report March 2019
Following our committee meeting we have been very busy putting in place the changes for the 2019 season. The meeting was very productive and in an attempt to reduce committee meetings the agenda was long and fruitful.
Correspondence, Clock station amendments have been received. Changes in addresses, closure and changes of OICs. Our computer database has been amended and the details will appear on the Clubs website. Please have a look and if you know of any further amendments please inform us a.s.a.p.
Secretary,Mr Jon Dodd has taken over all secretarial work for the Club following the AGM and all correspondence should be sent to him at, 267a, Melbourne Road, Ibstock, Leics. LE67 6NS
Treasurer,Mr Mark Williamson has taken over as the Clubs treasurer and will deal with all financial aspects of the Club and is working closely with Tim Mourne our accountant to review and identify ways in which we can improve our cost structure and to monitor month by month the income and expenditure of the Club.
Prize Money, The structure of prize money has been looked at closely and the committee made the decision that the Club could no longer guarantee prize money. The total prize money will be calculated by the treasurer following discussions with the secretary. The total prize money sum shall be the sum of money remaining after the race expenditure has been deducted from the race entry fees. The total prize money will be split into 30% Open prizes and 70% Section prizes. There will be four Open prizes, 1st Open 40%; 2nd. Open 30%; 3rd. Open 20% & 4th. Open 10%. The section prizes shall be allotted pro-rata on the number of birds sent in each section.
A full example of the division of section prize money is available on the website and in the handbook. This change in the way the prize money is calculated will ensure the club is not compromised by guaranteed prize money and the available prize money will be distributed fairly across the sections.
Section Boundary Map, It has been pointed out that there is a mistake on the map and Leeds should be in the NC section and not the N section which will be amended and hopefully might encourage some new members.
Weather forecast, We are currently reviewing which weather experts should support the Club in 2019 both in terms of weather reporting quality and the cost of the service provided. We have suggested that the RPRA as a whole should acquire this information and publish on their website every weekend to aid pigeon racing in the UK.
Transport,The Club has a large fleet of vehicles which create a fixed maintenance cost to the Club. With the fall in membership within the sport, some of these vehicles are not being used and the Club will be looking into selling some of the fleet.
Marking Stations, A full review of all marking stations and times have taken place. The major changes are; Doncaster and Grimsby have both closed and a new marking station has opened at,
7 Lakes Country Park,
Wharf Road, Crowle, North Lincolnshire DN17 4JS
The marking times are 7.30 to 10.00am. The venue is just off the M180 and is central between Grimsby and Doncaster. The venue is free of hire charge. Grimsby was £100 per race hire charge and Skellow is no longer available. Breakfasts are also available in the complex restaurant. Google Map of location for website. https://www.7lakes.co.uk/contact/
Abbey Hulton, Stoke on Trent, This venue seems to be at risk as a long term marking option and so we are looking at potential alternative locations in the Stoke area and the final location will be confirmed over the coming weeks Todmorden marking station has closed
Spalding marking station has relocated to; Dorrington & Digby RPC, Digby Playing Field, Digby, Lincoln. LN4 3NA. no change in the OIC and phone numbers.
The rest of the marking stations are same as last year.
General Data Protection Policy, The MNFC GDPP has been uploaded to the Clubs website. The new subscription forms and race entry forms have been amended allowing you to inform the Club we can store safely your contact details. It also explains how we use your details to administer the Club. It is vital you ‘ opt in’ to the process as without your permission we can’t publish your name in a result or even send you your winning cheques!! Thank you for cooperation with this matter. All our software has been amended at no cost to accommodate the GDPR process.
Clock Stations,It is possible for all clock stations to use the RPRA TPRS software to transfer the data. This will help speed up the race results and save a lot of time. You can produce your own clock station result with the software. To access the software please click on the following link and follow instructions. Please note that this software is available for all clubs to use. All results can be done manually or you can extract the data from your ETS clock after you have printed hard copies in the normal way. Transferring the data to the MNFC cloud is very easy. Training videos are available and we can also provide some face to face training if necessary. The full RPRA results database is also up and running for 2019. We are also having Feds and clubs come on-board with a great opportunity to take pigeon racing forward.
Press Oficer, I would like to welcome on board Jo Cuthbert our new press officer and looking forward to reading her articles and press reports.
Club’s Handbook 2019, This is being updated with all the amendments for 2019. We hope to have the handbook printed in March so they will be posted out in early April. Could I remind members that their Club subscriptions should be paid by the end of March and only members who have paid their subs will be sent a handbook.
Annual General Meeting and Presentation,The AGM will take place at Shardlow on Sunday 12th. January 2020 at 1.00pm
The 2019 Annual Dinner & Presentation will take place at the Doncaster Racecourse on Saturday 23rd. November same weekend as the Doncaster show. I am pleased to inform you that a deal has been agreed with the Doncaster Hilton Garden Inn which is adjacent to the racecourse for discounted rooms for B&B for the Saturday night. Room booking details will be on the Clubs website when they send the link and telephone number. With the hotel being attached to the racecourse this will mean that the Club will not have the expense of hiring coaches to ferry guests to and from the venue.
Tony Whitehurst
Midlands National Flying Club – Presidents Report February 2019
On the 27thJanuary 2019 the Midlands National Flying Club held its Annual General Meeting. The elected committee felt that it was vitally important to communicate to its members some of the key AGM items and outline the key areas of focus for the club and very importantly the financial challenges going forward.
The 2018 minutes were accepted and then the accountant gave a very detailed report of the Clubs financial position and after another challenging year racing there was another serious deficit on the racing account. The committee have taken this on board and will be working hard on initiatives to reverse this trend. He then asked if there were any questions from the floor, there were none and the accounts were accepted.
Resignations, there were over 200 resignations which were accepted with regret, the committee are well aware of the general decline in pigeon racing and members leaving the sport, however we also know that some of our members were not happy about a number of different things within the Club and chose to leave. The committee discussed this issue at length on a number of occasions. Of course we cannot reverse the trend of people leaving the sport, but collectively agree that we should be doing everything possible to ensure that we have a better relationship and interaction with our members such that people feel more engaged and part of the future of the club.
To start this process this year for the first time we asked our members as part of the AGM paperwork about their views on a couple of issues. Our aim will be to continuously carry out this same process on a number of areas so that the committee have the memberships view on certain matters, which the committee can then consider when having to make decisions. I would ask as many members as possible to return any future question responses such that we have as wide opinion as possible.
Question 1, Do you agree that the NC section should be deleted, and the existing section members be included in the previous northern section? And the members view was 51 agreed, 19 disagreed and 27 abstained.
Question 2, Do you agree that prize money should be reduced or abandoned altogether in order to keep race fees as low as possible? And the members view was 30 agreed, 67 disagreed and 4 abstained.
As you can see from the above members voting on propositions and responding to the questions was quite low as a percentage of the membership and the committee hopes that this can be increased upon for any future questionnaire.
At this point the President declared that all committee positions be vacant, and each position was proposed and voted on resulting in some role changes in 2019 and these will be updated on our website and within the yearly handbook. Two key points are that all future correspondence for subscriptions, rings and race entries should now only be sent to,
Jon Dodd at 267a Melbourne Road Ibstock, Leics. LE67 6NS
Result of the postal ballot on propositions; proposition 1 resulted in 61 votes for, 34 votes against and 2 abstained, proposition carried. Proposition 2 resulted in 17 votes for, 77 votes against and 3 abstained, proposition failed.
The AGM was then closed but I would like to report one other matter, as many members are already aware that the committee towards the end of 2018 to cease being involved with one loft racing. When the idea was first brought to the table it was by no means a unanimous decision to go down this route but all the committee got behind it and our hopes and aspirations were to generate extra profit for the Club which would be used to keep running costs down and also to promote ‘ the Future of the Sport’ initiative. However, after three years the committee’s view was that financially we were not gaining any benefit as shown in our financial statements and more importantly the one loft race had become a significant distraction away from our core focus which clearly has to be putting on good quality races for the Club members.
I would like to finish with some positive news in that we have had at least 57 new members since the AGM and dispel the rumour by stating the committee has never spoken about increasing the marking fee to £5, and finally, I wish all members old and new good luck and good fortune in the 2019 season.
Tony Whitehurst, President
CHANGE OF SECRETARY
For all postal please ring orders, subscription renewal, postal race entries please send them to,
Mr Jon Dodd
267a Melbourne Road
Ibstock
Leicestershire
LE67 6NS
(Click to downloaded the amended postal subscription form)
Online Orders
For all online orers and race entries please continue with the normal process.
