As with lots of things in life we as small livestock breeders are now in the minority, with keeping pigeons we are a dinosaur and sadly we have been looking backwards over the past few years and we have been stagnating, going round in circles, going nowhere fast. The only thing that is going fast is the downward slide of the membership numbers. You only need to look to the mainland in Germany, Holland and France to see what they are achieving in numbers of fanciers and entries at the shows to see we are losing out somewhere along the way. As the National Pigeon Association we have been a member of the EE for 30 years to my knowledge, in fact I have been the European Delegate on three or four occasions at my own expense representing our NPA. I had hoped to have at least one European show here in England in my lifetime but it has never happened and we are getting past our sell-by date fast.
Reflections and hindsight are a wonderful thing but don't forget the NPA is a business, generating revenue to pay for rings, travel and salaries. Sadly as we all know we have been going downhill and the last thing you do if you are losing membership revenue is to put the price of membership up, for the loyal supporters to pay extra for the lack of action and interest in our hobby from the fence sitters, as this will kick the good guys in the teeth and we will lose more.
Here are a few things off the wall that may be of interest. I have been a member and supporter of the NPA for over 35 years, even when I was banned. The system was basically right in the past, it just got lost in its leadership who thought they were the establishment not us. Please don't get me wrong, I have not agreed with all the NPA has done but it is all down to a vote and if you don't vote you have no room to complain. It is said that a camel was put together by a committee and I am proud to have done my bit on the NPA committee for over ten years. I am still honoured to say my legacy to the Fancy is still the NPA Master Breeder and NPA Hall of Fame Awards, just two of my projects that got passed by the rest of the committee after two years of work and planning while serving on the committee in the late 80s early 90s. I still feel I have a lot to offer and will stand for election next year, 2008, as we need people from more than one show society sitting on the NPA committee, as we do not want the same situation we had a few years ago where the Doncaster BPSS had the monopoly on all the voting procedures, we need balance and objectives.
