Budgerigar Society Press Release 30th August 2021

Summarised report of the General Council Meeting held on Thursday 19^th August 2021

One councillor absent due to family illness.

Articles by GC members – GC Members will be writing a series of articles on budgerigar related subjects for publication.

Website – The website service had been continuous with no issues raised and the site is being kept up to date. An average of 5 password resets are being received daily from members logging on to the site for the first time. There are still a few issues with the shop which are being dealt with – this has not affected members.

Preparation is being made to put back issues of The Budgerigar in a “Flip Book” format onto the website.

The claims letter to the previous website companies that failed to meet their contractual obligations is now with the office to deal with.

Convention 2025 – The Chairman advised that while the Convention to celebrate our 100^th year is 4 years away it made business sense to start the preparations. The committee selected will need to look at venues and dates before going into the details, but he suggested it would be good to take the Convention back to Harrogate, which was the venue for the first Society Convention in 1954. He asked members of the GC who had other venue suggestions to submit them to the Administrator. After discussion it was agreed unanimously that the 2025 Convention sub-committee will comprise of M Roberts, G Findlay, G Al-Nasser, J Cosby, A Richards and A Terheege.

Sub-Group updates

Engage sub-group – Country Wide seed has offered 10 vouchers (one per Area) for a bag of Society Blend for a Members’ Survey in The Budgerigar.

Process sub-group – The group had met recently, and the Metrics / Objectives Paper should help with decision making and timescales. This will be discussed at the next GC meeting.

Shows Sub-group – The Judges Handbook is nearing completion with just a few final additions before being submitted to the sub-group and then the GC for approval.

Bronze Shows – A suggestion from the sub-group on upgrading Bronze shows to make them more attractive to our membership was met with unanimous approval. At present Bronze shows receive 6 rosettes and 26 CC’s pre-graded at 1 point. It was proposed that from the 2022 show season the rosettes be increased to 14 (the same as for Silver shows) with the CC value remaining unchanged.

Club Show Director’s verbal update – the Chairman welcomed Dave Hislop to the meeting and added that he and his team had been busy, and two sets of Club Show Committee minutes had been presented.

Dave Hislop brought the GC up to date with matters following these meetings as follows.

Minutes of 24 June 2021 – Club Show Committee – The Spring Event 2022 – The Raffle prizes for the event have increased and now consist of birds from the R&M Miller and the Ackers & Bird partnerships; financial donations of £100 from R Simpson and £50 from D Hislop; 3 new plastic show cages from BS President Phil Reaney and a Trolley Cage donated by C Edmondson.

Dave requested a budget for the Spring Event to cover costs including the purchase of trophies. This would be considered at the next GC meeting. G Al-Nasser agreed to help sponsor the trophies with the sum of £100.

The Club Show Committee propose to stage the Spring Event show by colour rather than by sections. Following discussion, the GC voted to accept the Club Show Committee recommendation of staging the Spring event by colour and judging on the show floor, with three against and two abstaining.

The Minutes were unanimously approved.

Minutes of 27 July 2021 – Club Show Committee – the main item of note was the replacement of the existing Trophy Stand.

The requirement is for a collapsible lightweight stand to replace the existing heavy wooden stand which had served the Society well over many years. It was proposed to contact a potential manufacturer, who is a member, and if this fails to place a notice in the “Budgerigar” to see if another member can do the work or has any contact with a company that can manufacture a stand for us. This was unanimously agreed.

Dave Hislop also confirmed that the 2022 Club Show would be his final event as Show Director.

The Minutes were unanimously approved.

Patronage update – The Patronage Administrator advised that five shows have been held so far this season. Benched entries range from 98 to 498. He reported that a further 16 societies had applied for patronage and there were three 2020 Area Shows planned, which the BS are sponsoring for £250 per show.

Judges return – D Cairns – a question from D Cairns asking if the annual judges return would be required for 2021 following the lack of shows. It was confirmed that the GC had already agreed that this return would not be required this year.

Date of next meeting –Thursday, 9^th September 2021 at 7.15pm via Zoom.