OSPF and APA Annual show update

[Hummer]

First to put a few rumors to rest, Hummer is still alive and well and still has most of his tail feathers still in tact despite the rantings and ravings of just a few colorful exhibitors!!!! LOL. By in large, most exhibitors that were able to get their entries in the mail on the postmark date we were able to get in. The ones that spent $18.30 for frantic attempts of which some were well over a week overdue we were not able to accomodate. Now, for those that might have said in passing to other people at Columbus they would like to enter birds in the show I would probably suggest that they should have either a) gotten an entry in the mail that Monday with the over 3000 other birds like a number of other exhibitors were able to do, B) followed up with some of those people they saw in Columbus to see if they passed any information on or C) let the show secretary in on the little secret that you really wanted to enter some birds!!!

On the upside, the show is coming along well. The coop tags are all printed and in Oklahoma. They will be setting up the show this weekend.
with 4500 birds (exactly) the show will still be single decked for easier judging and better security. Since the open exhibitors were a little higher than originally anticipated they are trying to secure another judge to make judging run smoother and easier on everyone. There was a good response to the turnout for the APA Banquet and more are still coming in. The interest in the sales area has been extremely high this year with a large number of sales coops and sales areas already sold. The will be a number of vendors and breed clubs with table set up during the show.

Tomorrow, Ann Charles will have a copy of the open and junior exhibitor list ready for publication in Exhibition Poultry. For those that demanded that they needed to know their exhibitor numbers before hand to pass on to friends and their favorite judges I am afraid those exhibitor numbers will not be listed in the publication. There will be a breed listing and numbers breakdown also included for the open and the junior show. This is a novel concept that for an APA or ABA Annual meet that an exhibitor list and breed breakdown can be available in print before the show every occurs. It's the times, they are a changing. Again, that website where Exhibition Poultry can be downloaded is http://www.exhibitionpoultry.net/ .

There are 9 breed clubs with nationals at the show. For the most part the breed clubs were easy to work with and have their information in for the online version of the catalogue with their awards and other information listed. There are two breed clubs that get Gold Stars from this ragged show secretary for their membership getting their entries in ahead of time, getting their numbers to the show and for good communication. That would be the Wyandotte Breeders of America with 103 large Wyandottes and 283 bantam Wayndottes. On a normal year we have a lot of bantam Wyandottes but the large Wyandotte numbers are way up. There are over 100 Partridge bantam Wyandottes so starred wins will be available for Best and Reserve of Variety at least. The other breed club that gets a Gold Star is the Japanese Breeders of America. They were able to rally together and get their numbers in early and get me awards information they wanted in the catalogue with plenty of time. There are 215 Japanese bantams entered in the Open show. One other breed club that comes to mind is only having a District meet but they rallied together and have members coming from coast to coast...literally. That would be the International Cornish Breeds. There 120 bantam Cornish and 51 large Cornish....and I know there will be some good ones!!!

So as the time the coop tags are being hung it is time to start thinking about rounding up birds for the trip.

Hummer

[Evy]

Sounds like you have it under control. Is your phone back on the hook yet ? Do you still have ''super duck'' to soothe your jangled nerves? :-)

[Bluze]

Tomorrow, Ann Charles will have a copy of the open and junior exhibitor list ready for publication in Exhibition Poultry.

Hummer

And, since this issue is 50% larger than the last one, I may be burning the almost 'midnight oil' to insure that it is up today!

Ann

[Bob308]

Coop cards and exhibitors list done- so I guess that you are on easy street now and can feed and water. Oh and prune....

If you were to venture a guess, what would the total have been if there were no 4500 limit?

[Hummer]

Coop cards and exhibitors list done- so I guess that you are on easy street now and can feed and water. Oh and prune....

If you were to venture a guess, what would the total have been if there were no 4500 limit?

Bob, I did get my first nipping frost this weekend so now it is time to start putting the garden to rest for the winter. I have been in denial that winter is coming but I guess with a few nipped leaves that means the denial method has a few flaws. Even though the coop tags are sent and the clerking sheets are printed and sorted there is still plenty of paperwork to keep me busy. I have to get all the display calculation sheets in order. There are about 150 bantams displays plus this year we will have the HPC largefowl, waterfowl and turkeys displays. There is an expectation from a couple of choice exhibitors that when I hit the door on Sunday morning I need to give a full report on how they fared with the bantam displays and if they did not fare as well as expect I might need to go back and recalculate just to make sure :o . I still have a long list waiting for me to copy and send their entries back to them since they did not make copies of what they entered. Normally, the panic attacks that they do not have a copy comes when they start to round up birds and realize they did not make a copy. This year about 30 or so need copies of their entries because even though the catalogue went out a month ahead of schedule I obviously did not give them enough time :twisted: .

My best guesstimation if all entries sent in were accepted would be about 5500 but I am still getting frantic requests to add just a few more birds. My original prediction for the show was 5000-6000 so that was pretty much on target. Still, a modest 4500 birds that are single decked should give people enough to look at and judge from the side lines.

Hummer