From the Chair with Chris Williams
Hello and welcome to a brand new column “the season at St Leonards & St Ives RPC “ I can say with my hand firmly on my heart that this is the most friendly club that myself and Dad have been members of in over the twenty year period that we have lived in Dorset, it is worth the thirty mile drive to spend time with fanciers who love their sport. The clubs young bird season started from Newton Abbott on 1st August but unfortunately only two members were able to send, lack of training being the reason after the strange shortened old bird season, the race was won by Jim White, a new member, returning to the sport after a long gap, flying birds from his friend Rod Berry of New Milton. Congratulations Jim and its brilliant to see a fancier returning to the sport! The next race on the card was from Yelverton and with a few more members getting some training in 6 members sent 87 birds, Mike Blake, our club chairman took the red card 0n 1027, closely followed by another on 1026 to take second, both these birds Vandenabeele from Phil Thomas, then on Sunday morning found that they had both made the fed sheet 6th and 7th Dorset Federation. 3rd and 4th club cards went to club secretary Jenny Mills, the first to the loft an SVR blue white flight hen bred from the cock she purchased at Blackpool this year. This was a difficult race for us all in extremely hot conditions, many empty perches at the time of striking the clocks, but luckily many more had returned by the evening when the weather cooled off, and even on the loft the following morning, an unusual occurrence these days!
The federation cancelled the race for the 15th August due to a severe weather warning, a particularly good decision in our opinion so it was back to Newton Abbot on 22nd August with 6 members sending 105 birds. The red card went to Jim White with four dropping together to take the first four places, 23rd, 24th 25th Fed. Jenny Mills had seven drop together, but unfortunately a neighbour was gardening very noisily by the loft, and it took four attempts to get them in, oh the joys of young bird racing. Next was the partnership of S and C Williams, our loft location is such that with these shorter races we probably fly an extra 15 miles compared to our given distance so for us to take 9, 11,12th position in our first young bird race is something we are proud of. Due to a poor forecast we only sent 10 of our youngsters all of which were safely in the loft at the end of the race, so all in all not a bad day at the office!
Sadly, On the 24th of August several members attended the funeral of John Ravenhill at Bournemouth Crematorium. In line with Covid rules only the close family could attend the service. Thank you to the Dorset Fanciers, and Gary Frewin, who represented John's old friends from London, who came and stood outside to pay their respects to John on his final journey. A very big thank you to Tony Cottrell who took the time to basket eight brightly colored birds, (John liked pied pigeons) one bird for each decade of John's life. The birds were liberated by Tony when John's coffin was taken from the hearse and just as if they had rehearsed they went over the hearse, disappeared over the roof, turned and flew back over in a fly past, a very fitting last liberation for the man who had for so many years been the federation's race controller. R.I.P.
As I’ve written before during the winter the club erected a new marking HQ to which all the members contributed and I must say its very impressive and works very well on marking nights and now we are in the process of adding decking. If we carry on working to plan I am sure it won’t be long before the club is hosting another of its famous fish and chip nights, socially distanced of course but until then let’s look forward to next week’s race.
Good luck to all, and like everyone at St Leonard’s and St Ives RPC remember enjoy your pigeons!
