What crazy mixed up weather we have recently been experiencing, near drought conditions in parts of the south east whilst in the rest of the country many other areas are getting washed away by abnormally wet conditions. Our West Country Secretary tried very hard to give his car engine a bath when, unsuccessfully, he attempted to negotiate an overly deep puddle. Fortunately for him the rescue services got to him before Carolyn could, whilst over on my south-eastern corner everything is tinder dry, so much so that whilst trying to burn some tree loppings I overdid the heat and inadvertently, via spontaneous combustion, managed to set fire to some of the garden fence panels even though they were some ten feet away, things got quite interesting for a few minutes!
Going through the August issue I read with interest the letter from Willem van Tol. Pretty well everything he wrote has considerable merit and would certainly go a long way towards bringing us in line with the rest of civilisation. Unfortunately all, or at least many, of Willem's excellent ideas have, unsuccessfully, been vigorously tried or contemplated over past years. Dedicated and forward thinking fanciers such as Dennis Ison, Paul Allen, John Elsdon and myself have both advocated and tried to initiate several of Willem's major points but, sadly, at the moment much of the Fancy does not seem in any sort of rush to accommodate any form of such radical thinking. However, with 'thinking' fanciers like Willem and a few others, plus a management committee that is at least trying to be progressive, maybe all is not yet lost. I am sure that many fanciers, including some of those who sit at the table of the NPA, will have taken heart from the article and will, hopefully, at some stage in the not too distant future take many of the comments on board.
There are already in existence several different tried and tested formats for grading/comment cards, any of which could be produced with no problems, but three of the major stumbling blocks for their universal use appear to originate from a lack of interest, or maybe ability, from some judges or often just too much pressure on the time allotted for their duties. The second of those could quite easily be remedied by giving them fewer birds or a good steward, but the former would need a major rethink emanating from the breed clubs or the NPA on the qualifying prerequisites of appointment to the various judging panels.
John Surridge's article is printed in full in the September 2009 issue of Feathered World
