The World Show January 2014
by Ghalib Al-Nasser
Despite
the 1600 mile journey to Bari, southern Italy taking our two hard working conveyors
Richard Lumley & Gary Mann over two days to reach to attend to the 62nd World Show
organised by the Italian Federation on behalf of the legislative World organisation
Confederation Ornithologique Mondiale (COM) which was formed in 1952 our COM-UK team still
came back with 6 gold, 2 silver & 3 bronze medals. There are 41 countries affiliated
to COM stretching as far as South Korea in the east to Chile in the west with Tunisia
& Ukraine joining this year. The southern hemisphere show is usually held during
July/August in South America while the northern hemisphere show is usually held during
January in Europe.
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It is always a great atmosphere at this
event where fanciers from all over the world attend and the friendship is best to none. On
the Saturday evening are the Gala Dinner and the medal announcements with over 500
fanciers and partners attending the evening. This is unique to COM as fanciers attending
from each country are called to the stage to be presented with their national flag while
their national anthem is being played. This year we had about 15 British fanciers
attending and we all went up to the stage. It is always so wonderful to be part of the
family of nations sitting together and enjoying each other’s company. On this
occasion we have increased our total medals to 11 from last year’s 9 medals. It is
only natural that the host country tends to do well as Italy had the largest team (16,750)
and of course the largest number of medals won (1821) from 2091 exhibitors. |
Much
praise and sincere thanks must go to our two conveyors of our British team, Richard Lumley
(COM-UK president) & Gary Mann, who spent a considerable amount of hours in taking the
entry and then transferring the team to that country and bringing them back safely.
Nevertheless a lot of effort goes into that work; so our sincere thanks go to them for
this tiring and thankless task.
This
year’s show had 100 judges invited from 13 countries all from Europe with our own
Geoff Walker also invited to judge the Coloured Canaries. The show received an entry of
25,895 from 3340 exhibitors coming from 19 countries. It is mind boggling indeed. Our
COM-UK team had a further increase in entry from last year with 195 birds, including the
team from Gibraltar, from 32 exhibitors.
Throughout
the opening time we manned our COM-UK stand supplying refreshments and nibbles to the
thousands of fanciers who pass our stand, and also looking at the wonderful birds and the
various mutations that you normally do not see at our shows. It was, as usual, a great
time meeting fanciers from our country as well as other countries making new friendships
with so many judges, fanciers and workers as well as renewing old friendships.
Richard Lumley, President of COM-UK, said that it was a good start to the
long journey to Bari and the transportation of the birds went like clockwork with the new
purchased carrying boxes. The two conveyors had to stop every 4 hours to feed the birds
and the long 1600 miles journey was good. He was pleased with the results increasing on
the medals from last year. His disappointment was that it was the first time that Bernard
Howlett has not won a medal with his team.
Gary
Mann, our second conveyor and the person who takes all the entries, does all the driving
which he enjoys and he always like the world show as it gives him the opportunity to see
all his friends from other countries on arrival and always look forward to see them again
next year.
Chris
Smith, COM-UK Vice President, benched 3 birds in the Fife & Hoso section and gained 90
points and said that the quality of the Fifes are excellent from various countries. Our
Fifes can hold their own with the continental Fifes. Many exhibitors got 90 & 91
points which were close to the medals. |
COM-UK officials at the U.K. stand:
Richard Lumley (President),
Gary Mann (Conveyor) & Ghalib Al-Nasser (Secretary)
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Simon
Tammam, COM-UK Vice President and regular exhibitor at the World Show and past medal
winner had this to say “I was accompanied by Maurice O'Connor for the long
journey to Bari by car which took us 2 days to complete. The show hall was very nice, the
lighting very good, and the number of birds at the show was breathtaking. The quality of
the exhibits was very high and to get into the top ten must be regarded as a great
achievement. As I was busy on the sale stand, I had little time to go around and
enjoy the show properly, nevertheless, I was very happy with the results obtained
by the birds I entered in the competitive classes (3 Borders and 2 Fiorino crested
frills). My lightly variegated crested Fiorino frills, gained 4th place with 90
points and 5th place with 89 points in a class of almost 40 birds where the gold medal
winner gained 93 points. The clear borders, both gained 89 points and the H.
Variegated 88 points. Unfortunately I was just one point out of a bronze medal, hopefully
will have better luck next year in Holland”.
Ghalib Al-Nasser with his 5 medals with
Olena Hoenko (left) President of the Ukraine organisation and Polina Zymnykova secretary
of the Ukraine organisation
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Ghalib Al-Nasser, secretary & publicity officer of
COM-UK, was over the moon in winning 4 gold medals in the opaline grey, yellow-wing, crest
and dominant pied and also a bronze medal in the yellowface variety. He said that since
the NCA joined forces with the IOA in 2011 to form COM-UK budgerigars have been exhibited
for the first time at the world show in 2011 and ever since our team always won medals at
every show since then. He was pleased that he had improved on his 2 gold & 1 silver
from last year but also pleased that Roger Carr, president of the NCA, won a bronze in the
lutino team. His only disappointment was that Roy Aplin, president of the Budgerigar
Society, was not among the medal winners on this occasion as he was in the past. |
Stan Bolton, president of the LCA & Southern LCC, won a gold medal with a
broken cap blue lizard canary hen improving on his bronze medal from last year. He had
this to say “It was very pleasing to achieve my goal in the very short time that I
have been keeping the blue lizards. I will be trying very hard to get among the medals
with the gold and silver in Holland next year. I would like to thank Dave Allen, Chris
Smith, Gary Mann & Richard Lumley for helping me to get my birds to the show as
without their help Stan Bolton would not have won a gold medal”.
Brian
Hogg, last year gold medallist, said “this is my 8th time exhibiting at the world
show and won medals at 4 of them. This year I benched 2 Lancashire Plainhead canaries and
got 88 points and I am proud that my club the High Wycombe CBS benched about third of the
COM-UK team. The show hall was very good with good lighting and wonderful birds in the
bull finch and foreign bird sections. There is also a fantastic sell section and encourage
fanciers to come to the show and buy what you want as this is the place to come and buy to
improve your stud”. |
Stan Bolton who won a gold medal with
his broken cap blue lizard canary hen
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Another
regular winner at the world show is Maurice O’Connor who is renowned for the quality
of his Irish Fancy was pleased to win a gold medal in the team of Self Green Irish Fancy,
silver in the lightly marked buff hen and bronze in the team of clear yellow Irish Fancy.
He had this to say “The recent World Show in Bari Italy was
like a breath taking experience, as over 26000 birds were
exhibited. Pleased to say that 231 of those were my beloved Irish Fancy. I was
in a very strong competition. My team of self buff Green’s were awarded a Gold Medal.
My Light Variegated Buff Hen took silver & a team of Clear Yellows took bronze. Must
say none of this would have been possible without our very experienced conveyers Richard
Lumley & Gary Mann. My Birds were delivered & returned in prime condition which is
much appreciated.
Saviour Camilleri who won a silver with
his Norwich Yellow cock |
Saviour Camilleri from High Wycombe has
exhibited at the world show for the past 6 years but he was over the moon this year when
his Norwich Yellow cock won a silver medal. He had a very nice feeling throughout the show
period after 27 years as a bird keeper. He was also pleased that the gold medal winner
from Turkey was bred from his blood line. He said that he sold birds to Turkey 4 years ago
and pleased that his blood line achieved gold for another exhibitor. His aim is to win the
gold next year and to encourage more UK fanciers to exhibit at the world show. |
Geoff
Walker has judged the coloured canary section at the world show 7 times including this
year and had this to say “It is of course a great honour to be invited to judge at a
World Show. The Bari event, was the seventh such occasion for me in the 41 years that I
have been a member of the OMJ panel, and as far as I am concerned it was the best by far
with regard to size and layout of the hall etc.
Italian
breeders have decided not to support the change to card cages, so the circa 26000 birds
present were all exhibited in metal cages with a drawer at the bottom for cleaning. I was
amazed and delighted to see that every bird had their cage cleaned out after judging
finished on Wednesday, so as to give a better presentation to visitors when the show
opened on Friday.
Judging
by the points system has many plus and negative points, for me the most important negative
is the inability of the judge to award more than what he knows is a lower score than is
fair, so as to accommodate the rule of the best in class only being allowed to be awarded
94 points, 2nd-93 points and 3rd- 92 points. The maximum therefore that can be awarded to
all other birds is 91”.
Kevin McCallum, COM-UK OMJ judge and frilled canary breeder, has been coming
to the world show since 1982 and said that the origin of the frilled canary is in Europe
so it will be difficult to compete with the best. He is constantly improving the variety
with imports from Belgium from world champion breeders and his aim is to exhibit in the
future.
Ron
Pearce, a well known international budgerigar judge, has been coming to the world show
over the past 20 years as a visitor and finds it a wonderful window of European &
beyond bird keeping. The friendship that you make at these shows will live with you
forever.
Our
congratulations are extended to all exhibitors from the UK for participating at this
unique event and those who attended this event are already planning their trip to next
year’s World Show in Autotron Rosmalen, Holland from 22nd to 25th January so my
appeal is for more exhibitors and more birds for next year’s event please. |
COM-UK officials at the U.K. stand:
Richard Lumley (President), Gary Mann (Conveyor) & Ghalib Al-Nasser (Secretary)
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Photo Album
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