Bilco - RP Column 09/04/10

[willie reynolds]

Bilco's Bulletin 09/04/2010




The Real Management

We were all treated to that lovely photo of the early Gerald Clock in Rod Adams column of 5th February, but he didn't say how he came by it, just that this was his latest acquisition. But I know! Management bought it for him. Yes, the boss, She Who Must Be Obeyed - the Presence he always nods in deference to, the lovely lady who looks after him, nurtures him, feeds him. She bought it for him! And you thought he was big bold Rod didn't you, to'ing and fro'ing when he pleased, buying clocks if he liked them, flogging the family silver to pay for his extravagant tastes? All a sham. No wonder he calls her The Management. She is!




Changes to Council....?

We all gasped with amazement (well 99.999% of us did) when we heard the news that Council had accepted a delegate year in, year out, who wasn't even a delegated member of his club with the right to represent them. He wasn't. He wasn't even a member of the club he claimed to represent, and hadn't been for some time. But he liked the fix the feeling of power, sitting on the Council, deliberating on the sport and the control he had over fanciers' lives. He elected himself and nobody challenged him for a long, long time. eventually he was ejected. I would like to see annotated against Council member's names the name of the Club that delegates him to attend in their name. Then, as I have said so many times, I would also like to see Council members who have served in that office for a cumulative ten (10) years or more, to be removed and their places taken by new, fresh blood. How many of the 13 Regions that make up the RPRA actually mandate their Council representatives on how to vote on topics dealt with by Council? I know the SW Region does, I've seen and heard it for myself, but how many others do I wonder?




One Loft One Vote?

Reading comments made by the BBC secretary, about the five couples on BBC Committee, brought home to me that the Welsh Region President and Region Secretary (with their respective wives) are in fact occupying four places (25%) of the BBC Committee, and if they chose to do so could exert considerable pressure on the club to choose race points favouring their part of the country, not that they would do so, but it brings home the fact that they could effect a swing to an area. this in turn made me wonder, are husband/wife partners eligible to have two votes on RPRA matters? I thought the rule was one loft one vote but I may be wrong.




The Older Generation....

Must have felt really at home, reading the RP of 11th March, for the old dogs came out into the sunshine with Mike Shepherd (the baby), Jack Curtis and myself all having a page, but rod Adams was AWOL sadly. Mind you, he's still a boy I suppose. All it needed was Claude Hill and Doug Went and we would have had a party.




Polycarbinated Lofts

Fanciers are cottoning on to the uses of polycarbonate and plastic cladding panels over the top of the basic structure, not so much a reinforcing but as an aesthetic feature. I first saw this in the 1970's in Belgium and used it myself after I saw the lovely job Nigel Rigiani had done of his loft, now sadly gone. It cleans with a wipe, never needs painting and I ran a light broom and a bowl of water and household bleach over mine last weekend, it came up sparkling, all the green algae of winter gone in a flash. I built in a new sputnik on the new YB section, and the pair of OBs I left in there as caretakers were in and out of it as Fred Bloor and I were building it. Talk about alterations upsetting them, not a chance. Last year I built in a raised weldmesh floor in the aviary, using one inch square mesh. Last week I crackled a tenner at my neighbour and he was across the fence like a shot, floors up, shovel in hand, and hosed down after like new. I told him to be careful to get the flooring square in case a bird might try to get below, and sure enough one did. She paddled about there all day but when I came out after dusk to lift the panels to release her, she had found where she got in and got herself out again! The two feet high space under the aviary is fenced too, in case Master Reynard ever gets ideas about visiting. I had a cat gain entrance that way 48 years ago and vowed it would never happen again.




Harambee Exposes the Weakness

Has excelled himself in his latest Talking Straight (The RP 19th March), and his very highly qualified managerial expertise exposes the weaknesses of the amatuer bunch of Councillors and the way they jointly try to run and manage the RPRA. Yes, there are those on Council with the ability, but they are only part of it, and as always happens other parts of the team will shove their noses into the pudding and upset it all. I wonder if the General Manager is man enough to take on board such good advice, and strong enough to be able to convince Council of the need to be able to convince Council of the need to do likewise? As Ted Bennett pointed out, if Council Propsition 7/3 had been passed to reduce Council by a third of its size, what savings could be achieved, and that's just for starters. I reckon a recount of the Regional Member/Councillor entitlement should be checked as a matter of

urgency.

The ring fiasco that has held so much attention this year is based on a rubbish assertion. It is supposed (and I do not use that word lightly) on a statement that a Belgian plastic ring had been heated, stretched, placed on a pigeon and when it had cooled was unable to be differentiated from a standard ring placed on a bird last year. To which my reply is Oh Yeah? So how did they manage to get the paper insert to stretch and then shrink again? Crap! Fevered imagination of one man and the rest believe it. Then the herd mentality kicks in and they stampede down the dark corridors.




Unlikely Triangle

An unlikely triangle is it not? Yet there may well be a connection. Scottish National Heritage has been faced with the possibilities of Golden Eagles being killed by wind farms at a site on the Isle of Skye, and having done their sums, added a bit here and taken off VAT there, they arrived at an acceptable limit of 15eagles possibly being killed over a 25 year period. Now, if bird conservationists are prepared to accept those odds insofar as a really rare race bird like the Golden Eagle is concerned, I wonder what sort of limit the RSPB would consider as acceptable regarding Sparrowhawks and racing pigeon breeders, bearing in mind the numbers and frictional activities both parties can engender in each other?

At this moment in time the killing rate of Sparrowhawks and our pigeons is just not acceptable. If you are not aware of it, the penalty can be a fine of £2,000 or six months inside with all the benefits. Oddly enough, if 15 Golden Eagles were to be killed by wind farms pylons no fines would be levied, nor jail sentences imposed, yet such loss would indeed be a tragedy. Very odd that! Perhaps a question from our leaders to the RSPB might evoke an answer that is acceptable to both. What we seek is the right to defend one's birds without penalty within the curtilege of one's own property. What sickens me most about the whole BOP scene is the way that people, ordinary people, have become twisted, perverted even, by the people who run the conservation societies. Informers are now paid to report any and every transgression, no matter how trivial to the RSPB.

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