The Budgerigar Society - The Structure of The Society

The ruling body in Great Britain is The Budgerigar Society (BS) and part of its history is given elsewhere. The BS is further divided into ten areas called Area Societies who are affiliated to the BS (See Contact Us page for their details). Most fanciers are members of either the parent body (BS), their local Area Society and in many cases members of both. There are also six national Specialist Societies in the U.K. catering exclusively for the specialist budgerigar varieties and each is an associate member of the BS.

The BS is run, on behalf of the members, by a General Council (GC), (equivalent to a Parliament) consisting of 14 councillors. These are made up of 10 councillors, each having gained the highest national votes to represent their own area, the other 4 places being taken being elected by the candidates having gained the highest votes of the remaining candidates.

The Council is elected for a 3 years term and meets up to four times a year and the day to day running of the Society's affairs are invested in the salaried general secretary who is responsible to the Chairman of the Society. From this 14 strong council, a show committee is elected , and in term reports back to the council. All other matters are dealt with by the council, although special projects may be initially researched by one or two councillors before presenting the available options as an agenda item to the full council.

Each May the Annual General Meeting of the B.S. is held, normally in the Main room of the society's offices in Northampton. The GC usually also meets on the day prior to the AGM. in the main meeting room (above, left). Meetings of smaller committees take place in one of the two smaller meeting rooms, like the one above, right, on the first floor. Nowadays, all elections and Rule Changes are conducted by balloting all BS members; in this way every member has the opportunity to be involved in the Society’s decision making.

The General Secretary's office is also on the first floor

The Budgerigar "Fancy" is largely divided into two categories; the serious breeder and exhibitor and those who keep budgerigars in their back garden purely for pleasure.

It is difficult to ascertain how many fanciers come into the latter category but the former is more easily defined - although it is stressed that the fanciers in both of those categories are united by their common interest and membership of the society.

Those who fall in the serious fanciers' category ring their baby budgerigars for identification and exhibiting purposes. A light closed coded ring with details of the fancier is used to ring a baby budgerigar between the ages of 7-10 days. All rings are obtained through the office of the BS. About 200,000 rings are bought every year so this gives some indication of how many budgerigars are produced every year. Of course, this figure does not take into account those who breed for leisure and who may not use rings, so the overall number of young budgerigars produced each year is probably considerably higher. The ring is issued to date from from the 1st January, and the colour is changed every year.

As stated on the 'Benefits' page, the society issues 6 magazines per year to its members. Although we have around 3000 members, the figure of the serious fanciers are much more than that because of those who are members of their area societies and not members of the BS. A figure of 5 to 8,000+ is more realistic as an estimate of the total number of fanciers in the U.K., particularly as there are also budgerigar breeders who are members only of Cage Bird Societies (which cater for folk who keep a variety other than budgerigars (Canaries, British Birds, Foreign Birds, etc) and perhaps use only private rings, if any.

Overall Scene

There is most probably a small club within each town in the country, either catering exclusively for budgerigars or a mixed variety club. These clubs meet on a monthly basis with guest speakers invited from all over the country. They also run two or three shows a year for their members. Of course the public is invited to attend these shows and that is how recruitment to the hobby is initially made.

Most, if not all, of these clubs tend to affiliate to their area society. For example, within the London & Southern Counties BS there are about 40 affiliated clubs.

The Budgerigar Society in itself is affiliated to two bodies:

The National Council for Aviculture (NCA) in U.K. which is the voice of all bird keepers who keep track on all government legislation and represent the fancy as a whole.
World Budgerigar Organisation (WBO), which is an advisory organisation liaising with all the countries of the World that have a strong budgerigar following. (www.world-budgerigar.org)

It is a fact to say that the BS is the strongest and most well organised society in the World as both the secretary and immediate past chairman of the World Budgerigar Organisation come from the BS.

Other Pages in this tour: Introduction, Benefits of membership, History of the B.S, Structure of the B.S, Special Events, Society Contacts.

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