SCOTTISH CENTRAL COMBINE
News from Balerno
The annual General meeting of the Scottish Central Combine took place within the Lauriston Clubrooms at 7:30 pm on Thursday 17th March 2016. As customary the three-year rotation of the Presidency occurred and Peter Keogh from the Central Federation stood down and the new President of the Combine is now Andrew Garvin from the Midland Federation. Scott Morrison from the North West Federation is now the Combine Vice President and I as a representative from the Scottish Central Federation have become the Combine Secretary.
Jim Jack or ‘Jacko’ as he is known, who has been the Combine Secretary for the last 10 years, stood down due to other personal commitments and I am thankful to ‘Jacko’ for stating that he will be there to support me as required. All the members present gave a huge vote of thanks to ‘Jacko’ for his great efforts in keeping the Combine together over the last few years.
President Andrew Garvin and the officials of the Scottish Central Combine thank Jim Jack for all his great work as Secretary over the last 10 years.
The elected officials of the member organisations of the Scottish Central Combine are committed to working together to plan and build upon the success of the joint liberations and convoying that took place last year. The simple yet effective arrangement in 2015 to create a standard race programme across the organisations achieved nearly every anticipated benefit. The Combine members were involved in larger liberations of up to 3,000 plus pigeons coming into the one area that in turn delivered better racing conditions and returns. This increased the numbers of birds entered into the traditional three Scottish Central Combine races for Yearlings, Channel and Young Birds and I am very hopeful that this upturn in fortunes for the Scottish Central Combine will continue into the 2016 season.
For the season ahead the Scottish Central Combine organisations will fly their first two Old Bird races themselves then on the 30th April the joint liberations and joint convoying when appropriate will kick in. That delivers a race programme from the 3rd race onwards that looks like this:
Appleby, Ripon, Wakefield, Newark, Leicester with the SCC Yearling Derby included, Newark, Appleby, and Littlehampton with the SNFC. The Combine Channel race will be a duplication race within the SNFC Ypres race on the 2nd July.
For the Young Bird season again the organisations will fly the first two races themselves then the joint liberations and joint convoying will start on the 6th August. That delivers a race programme from the 3rd race that looks like this:
Appleby, Ripon, Ripon and Wakefield and that will be the SCC Young Bird Open.
The costs involved to take part in the formal Combine races are minimal and are only asked for to create prize money. £0.50 for the Leicester Yearling and Wakefield YB races with £1.00 for the Ypres Channel race.
The Young Bird Gold Ring competition will again be in place this year with members being able to put forward up to 10 young bird ring numbers to their own Federation Secretaries before the 2nd Young Bird race, at a cost of £5:00 per ring. In 2015 the Gold Ring competition paid all the money collected and the winning members shared an extra £410:00 in prizes at the Young Bird Open race. Hopefully we will be able to increase that prize fund for this year’s competition.
The AGM was closed and the officials of the Combine gathered round ‘Jacko’ to give him another big thank you for all his work over the last 10 years.
Norman Dixon MBE
Scottish Central Combine Secretary
