AI Update
Late on Tuesday last week I heard that DEFRA had reviewed the continental racing ban but had decided that, despite the decision of the French Government to rescind their ban on pigeon racing in France, the restrictions on racing from the continent would stand. This tells half of the story. On Monday it was confirmed that the French Government had caved in to the French fanciers’ threat of ignoring the racing ban. This was based on the fact that the only French AI outbreak was recorded on the Moselle Franco-German border about 3 weeks ago. These facts were passed to the civil servant at DEFRA that I regularly deal with. To say that I received a less than helpful response from him was an understatement. “What the French do is up to them” sort of attitude. I felt that this was not the sort of response we should be receiving from a Government department as one of their stakeholders and so I escalated the issue to the DEFRA Chief Vet, Debby Reynolds. At least she promised to review the situation. That she did but no joy from DEFRA who still considered that there is an uncertainty as to the spread of AI in Western Europe. Needless to say this was very frustrating particularly as I am aware that young bird programmes need to be sorted and all the arrangements that goes with this. I know that the WHPU through Glyn Picton is pressing DEFRA as we are but it seems to no avail at the moment.

Anyway, as a footnote to this, I had already been in contact with the Association’s solicitors and I am due to meet with them and Counsel on 2 August to brief them on the saga so far. I will report back once I have news from them but I expect this to take at least a couple of weeks.

Flooding at the Reddings
The heavy storms in Gloucestershire on Friday 20th July (still summer according to my diary!) caused havoc at the Reddings. We sprung a leak through the roof of the building on the Friday and had to call out an emergency roofing team to deal with the problem. Unbeknown to us there was also a problem in our basement. I was in Bristol during Saturday but got a text message from Gill Purser who had called at the office during the day to advise me that the cellar had been under water. I eventually got back from Bristol at about 4 pm on Saturday and went straight to Reddings House. There I found that there had been about 4 feet of water as there was tide mark on some of the stationery in the cellar. The weird thing was that there was no flood water to be seen. It wasn’t until Wednesday that we were able to book a skip (and the largest they had) to start clearing out the debris. I have to say that Barry Mitchell and I had a Herculean effort to bring up damage stock and papers from the basement to the skip which eventually took three afternoons. In the cellar on Thursday, as a heavy storm persisted once again, I said to Barry ‘Can you hear running water?’. In the corner of the cellar we found that there was indeed a spring coming through the brickwork. It seems that the water table had reached its peak and, with no where else to go, seeped into the cellar. I am told that several other properties in the Reddings have the same problem although not all release this ‘spring’ water into cellars. So at least we now know where the problem is and we can try to resolve the matter. It was a pretty mucky job and quite surprising how much water had seeped into records and stock. The padded envelopes that your rings come in get very heavy when full of water!

The floods in Gloucestershire did mean that the Reddings was closed for a day on the Tuesday as we lost our water supply. I had to make contingencies on Wednesday (a couple of water butts and some hand wipes) so that staff could come back to work. We had to them hope for some rain so that we could at least flush the loos and bottles water had to be obtained for drinking etc. At the time of writing we have been without running water for a week now. Although we can get by with bottled water for drinking etc and rain water for flushing I am afraid that I miss my daily showering. And with 3 hot and sweaty days lugging soggy debris from the cellar I did hum a bit! Anyway thank you to all that have e mailed and called to say that you are thinking of us. It is appreciated and thanks for having patience as some of our service, including website updates have been a bit haywire of late. I have to say I have never seen anything like this before and it is by far and away the worst flooding Gloucestershire has seen in living memory.

Strays
Several people have suggested that with repatriation of strays being so difficult these days more use should be made of transporters returning from liberation sites. There is no reason why this sort of facility could not be utilised if the transporters are returning to an area where strays need to go. We should bear in mind the DEFRA licence condition regarding strays missing for more than 48 hours which is:

For a race within the British Isles, birds returning to their loft in England more than 48 hours after the start of the race should be isolated for a minimum of 21 days. The period could be extended beyond 48 hours in exceptional circumstances such as where bad weather causes a delay to the return of a large number of birds. If in isolation, birds should be inspected regularly and any signs of ill health notified to a veterinary surgeon or the local Animal Health Office if a notifiable disease is suspected.

There must surely be enough crates on transporters to take strays even one pigeon per crate so please consider this as a means of helping the fancy.

RPRA One loft Race
The first Hotspot race went off well. Jeremy was delighted with the weather after all the rain although the returns from the first race were a little disappointing from his point of view particularly as the pigeons had been trained just 10 miles short of Taunton.

Location of ETS pads at the loft
Rule 241 states “ The antennae of the ETS must be fitted within the confines of the loft or trapping systems, not underneath external landing boards. Club officials may make random checks at any time. Contravention of this rule will result in disciplinary action under rule 70A.” This seems straight forward. I have heard that some organisations are stating that ETS systems must be secured and sealed. Council felt particularly that this should not be the case as there was a security issue for people in particular flying to allotments. Moreover, those fanciers with larger lofts may wish to use different sections of their lofts for different races so they would be chopping and changing perhaps weekly. What is important is that the ETS MUST be located within the confines of the loft. To have it elsewhere is blatant cheating.

Registration of ETS
Anyone who has purchased an ETS for racing is reminded that they must register the serial numbers of same with their region secretary.

Young Fancier Competitions
The first and last weekends of August are the races where our young fanciers can do the business and report to us at the Reddings their best performances in club or fed races. There are prizes for the best young fanciers under and over 15 as well as associate young fanciers, that is youngsters who race with someone over the age of 18. We are very pleased to announce that once again Petron lofts and Brittany Ferries (Truckline) has supported this competition with £500 of prizes each. In additions the best all-round performance will win a TauRis ETS donated by TauRis. All the prizes will be awarded at the Tower ballroom in January as part of the RPRA awards presentation evening. Thank you all our sponsors for their great support.

Peter Bryant
General Manager
The Royal Pigeon Racing Association