Getting meets for a poultry show

[Rich]

I'm posting this to stimulate some discussion on district directors of breed clubs. Currently, I serve as a District director of Cochins International. I am also a show chairman for the Delmarva Poultry Fanciers Club. I've been surprised recently at how difficult it seems to be to get meets placed at a show. Every month, when I get my poultry press, I review the shows, looking for ones that are located in my district and send them the paperwork for special meets of our club. For the past several months, I've written articles in the poultry press requesting meets of the various clubs for our upcoming spring show on March 7 and 8, 2009. No response. I've gotten a little concerned that many directors of the breed clubs don't take their jobs very seriously. I know if I write letters, I will get responses from 70 percent of the clubs but even that is not 100%. When we hold a show, I've made it a priority to get all show reports in the mail within a week of the show and have done that religiously for the past 7 or 8 years. Meets when placed at the shows and advertized can help the breed clubs get more birds in the show and help the breed club promote their breeds. I've been surprised that more club directors don't review the poultry press and send those meets out to the clubs, unsolicited. It's hard enough putting together a show and show secretaries and chairpeople have plenty to do. You would think that the breed clubs would help them by placing meets quickly so the host clubs can promote the meets.

Another thing is that many breed clubs have advertisements in the poultry press, if not monthly, then a few times a year. As part of that ad, why don't they include the contact person for placing meets. Many clubs in making contacts for meets will send correspondance to the Breed club secretarys who often don't place the meets. It would seem to me that somewhere along the line, the APA or ABA or both should develop a email list for breed club inclusion that would help the clubs hosting shows contact the breed clubs for meets. Any other suggestions out there?

[MattL]

Rich,
A good breed club district director will see that meets are placed at all shows in their District. A bad district director will sit on their rear and have the shows contact them. I have been a District Director for the ABA, Wyandotte Breeders America, RI Red Club and Plymouth Rock Club and I made sure every show had a meet and the larger meets were rotated around. So often these District Director jobs are filled due to lack of interest and sometimes they are merely a popularity contest. They do not have all that much to do other than place meets and write a small article once in awhile but I am amazed at those who chose to do nothing. Not sure this is a solution to your dilema but it is definitely the cause.
MattL

[egglady]

Rich,
The location of your club meet may be one of the problems. Due to the requirement for AI testing which many states do not do, it adds one more expense to an already very stressed budget for many poulty enthusiasts. The ABA held their Nationals there last year and that left many of us unable to participate. With the high fuel costs and other economic woes, additional costs for private testing is just one more thing that many of us just can not afford.
Kathy

[robin416]

Or being on the opposite side of that as a small club requesting to place meets with different breed clubs and never hearing anything back from the breed club. So the problem does flow both ways. I've had to chase down reps, directors and officers to try to get some response and this was before AI testing. I can see it getting worse now.

[annefoley]

The Gateway Poultry Show in Bloomington, Indiana no longer lists special meets as they are not really very special (no entries or interest). Even some state meets do not generate any birds in some of the less active breeds. I feel the whole system needs an overhaul.

[micofwis]

I agree with Anne. The more meets, the less special they are. For all but the most popular breed clubs, why place a meet where history shows only one or two exhibitors will enter birds? Smaller breed clubs are often working with limited funds, so offering club awards where one or two persons are guaranteed to win seems like a waste of limited resources. For old, large, established breed clubs with funding to spare the situation may be different.

[cmaddalena]

I do not agree with all that has been written. Yes, in the past even the IWBA has had Directors that do nothing. Cannot be contacted , do not respond to e mails, calls or letters, and do nothing or virtually nothing, in that instance many clubs contact me and I immidiately give them a meet if the Director is not responding. However, even Specialty Meets can hold some substance. In order to become a Master Exhibitor in the IWBA, an individual must exhibit at a show offering some sort of IWBA meet. At that time a show report is copmpleted and then sent to the secretary where it is tabulated and Master Exhibitors are announced in the January Newsletter each year. Many of us take pride in recieving the recognition of Master Exhibitor as it is one small way that a our hard work is recognized.
On the flip side, it is very frustrating as a Breed Club Secretary to try and get these show reports from the local club show secreary. We imposed a 60 day limit on recieving them but even that is overlooked and I continue to get reports up to 5 months after a show. When it comes to December Shows, the breeder loses out as those reports recieved after 1/30 of the following year are not recognized.
Always remember a club is only as strong as its membership. The club officers should show leadership, when they are not, it is the responsibility of its members to question, offer suggestions and help and to recommend replacement if need be.

[Rich]

I don't think the size of a show should have anything to do with getting meets. District directors of the breed clubs know where they have members who are exhibiting and they also should be doing their jobs by placing meets where they can. Show management has and obligation to get those meet reports into the breed clubs as soon as possible after the show. The IWBA is not the only group that makes club awards based on a compiling of points. I know the Plymouth Rock Club and Cochins Internation do similar awards based on compiled points.

Kathy may have given the impression that our show is tiny. When we co-hosted the ABA National with the Virginia Club we had over 2,300 birds, which was not the smallest national by a long shot. Our show prior to this had grown to have about 1,000 birds and we are now running around 800 birds dispite the fact that we give more prize money out than most if not all of the shows in the region except for Lucasville which is in a class by itself (and one of my personal favorite shows to attend). Also, to Kathy, if you didn't come to the ABA National because of the testing you missed out. Delaware sent out swabs so exhibitors could swab their own birds and mail them back. All that it cost exhibitors was the price of the return postage. Our state did everything in its power to accomodate outside exhibitors and we had a great show. I'll start another thread on this because it is sort of off topic of the current thread but worth discussing.

For those of you saying small shows don't warrent breed club reports, I think you are missing the point. Why should anyone be a member of a breed club if that club is not willing to place meets at the show at which they participate. The breed clubs have an obligation to support the clubs that are willing to host meets and any district director who doesn't place meets in their district is in my humble opinion, not doing their job. My question is how do we get them to do their job.

Matt, I agree with you and as someone involved in a very active breed club, you hit the nail on the head with your comments.

[annefoley]

I am finding this topic very helpful. The comment I have is that if only one person shows up for a special meet with five birds and none advances farther than BV, should the show turn in paperwork? If the breeder will get points from the breed club, it would be a pleasure to do it. If there are no points awared (as would be the case in many of the breed clubs) is it worth it ? It might be helpful if all breed clubs clearly spelled out how many exhibitors of their breed they must have, how many birds of their breed total must be shown, how many of each variety, etc. are needed for a report to be filled out. Or how about a breed club designating an exhibitor to take charge of making sure these things are properly handled. They may have more time at a show to carefully record the information and can get it to other interested breed club members faster. Sometimes our show has exhibitors who volunteer to record and turn in their breed club's report and they are appreciated more than you can imagine.

[MattL]

I have never been involved in a real small breed club so I can not speak how they operate. I do know as a former show Sec. of one of the largest spring shows in the US, I requested a meet from every breed club that was published in the Poultry Press, ABA and APA yearbooks. I also filled out and filed as many as 40 show reports within a month of the show. That is the duty of the Show Secretary to do this. As a District Director, if a show failed to file a timely show report, they did not get any more meets from me. There was a day where the better meets, State, District and National were highly sought after from the shows and it could get very competitive in placing these meets. The meets would bring in birds from the "points chasers' and thus increase show entries. With new government regulations and a horrible economy we are seeing many small shows drop by the wayside. I think the future will bring fewer and much bigger shows with higher entry fees. While a cheap entry fee may be a good deal for the exhibitor, if the show can not meet expenses they will not survive for long.
MattL

[Pathfinders]

Another interesting topic.

The Dutch club sec/treas. and I just discussed this at the OH National last weekend. We went back and forth about why there were Special versus State versus District meets, when the points awarded are the same. So we're looking at doing a potential overhaul of our point system to make a State or District Meet worth attending more than just a Special. But we'll see how that goes.

I will say that sometimes clubs award a District Meet to a show, then not a single breeder shows up. Have to wonder about that.

And I should probably just shut up and go finish the show reports that I haven't done yet, so I don't get labeled as any more of a Late Report Filing Show Secretary than I already am!

[Rich]

Breed clubs need to work these things out and I agree that perhaps the correct solution is for the breed clubs to determine how to to handle points (if they give them) for their various meets. You would think that a district meet would be more valuable to have than a state meet or special meet. Additionally, it would be great if the meets were placed far enough in advance so that the host clubs could promote the meets for the breed clubs as well. I just wish I didn't have to beg to get the meets.

[Pathfinders]

After spending the better part of Saturday filling out breed club reports, I do have some observations from the show secretary's chair:

- It would be lovely if the show reports had spaces large enough to fill out without causing RSI from being forced to write in 2 point type in the tiny little box given for info.
- It would be wonderful if a breed club would alert a show IN ADVANCE that they expect a judge to pick the CH bird between LF and bantam of a given breed. I don't really think this is a reasonable request unless the meet is a larger one (like judges don't have enough to do?!), but if you're going to ask for it, please let us know before the show so we can ask the judge to do it. To discover this when doing the show report is too little too late (and no, I didn't have time to read all the show reports before the show.)
- If you're going to ask for an exhibitor's list, why do I have to write in the name of the exhibitor? Can't I just put the number? And asking me to highlight those exhibitors that showed a given breed is a bit much, but I'll do it (albeit grudgingly.)
- I'd love it if the APA and the ABA worked together to get their show reports to be at least somewhat similar. I do like that the ABA asks for statistics (even though it was more work.)
- I wonder why some breed clubs don't seem to care about how the Juniors did. I wonder that about some shows too (but that's a topic for another thread.) On some reports there is all sorts of info about varieties for the adults, then all they want to know is, which was the best "X breed" Junior bird. Come on folks, we need to give the kids some strokes, no?

I suppose that's enough kvetching for now. I'm sure I'll think of more later.

Laura