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The World Show January 2023 by Ghalib Al-Nasser, COM-UK President I left home in the early hours of Thursday morning on a cold January day to catch my flight to Naples, Italy to attend the 70th World Show organised by the Italian Federation (FOI) on behalf of the legislative World organisation Confederation Ornithologique Mondiale (COM) which was formed in 1952. I must say that I was full of apprehension because of the fact that on this occasion we, COM-UK, had no team participating because of the DEFRA restrictions that were imposed after Brexit. The only person from the U.K. that I was sure to meet with was our secretary Simon Tammam on Saturday. I knew that one of our judges, Gary Mann, was invited to judge the show but he was not staying till the opening time. The show hall and the HQ hotel were on the same complex which made life so much easier to get from one place to another.
At Stansted airport I met with Matt Chudley, a canary breeder from Northamptonshire with his partner as we were on the same flight so that dampened the apprehension slightly. After arriving to the HQ hotel early afternoon, I decided to go out on a city tour using the “hop-on hop-off red bus” and that was enjoyable but it was raining. Then came the evening and meeting with my friends Carlos and Ana Ramôa, President of COM, and many other COM officials and friends the apprehension soon disappeared. Much to my surprise I also met that evening with Jeremy Faria from Toronto, Canada; who I knew as he invited me to judge his National show a few years ago. He was with his wife and another couple Gary D’Ornellas.
COM structure has two executive committees each consisting of seven members; the COM Board of Directors and the judges’ committee called the Ordre Mondial Des Juges OMJ. Each committee has its own president, vice president, secretary and members of the board. The affiliated countries are divided into two groups A & B depending on the size of their show team at the World Show and the number of OMJ judges that they have. Our country is sadly in the B group as our show team is always less than 300 and we only have 9 OMJ qualified judges which Simon & I are.
On Friday morning I found my way to the show hall and met with many European budgerigar friends, Italian and Israeli friends and other nationalities who I knew from attending previous world shows. I also met with my friends from High Wycombe CBS namely Keith Atkinson, Saviour Camilleri, Ralf Munday & Graham Bradbrook.
My target that morning was to see the London Canary Fancy for the first time at the world show after they were fully recognised by COM as a breed a month earlier in Belgium. After searching I found them and there were 8 birds only, with a team (stam) by the Dutch fancier Piet Renders who won the gold medal with a team of Schimmel (buff) and two individual classes. The class of intensive (yellow) was won by Eduardo Sáenz from Spain who won the gold medal followed by Piet Renders with a silver. The second class of Schimmel (buff) there was one bird only and the gold medal went to Eduardo Sáenz again. My intended target was completed.
The show attracted a total entry of 21,618 from 2,724 exhibitors representing 22 countries. This year’s show had 101 judges invited from 16 countries from Europe and around the world and we had the pleasure of supplying one of our COM-UK judges, Gary Mann, to judge the show. The show operates on the 2-year owner bred breeder classes with one status of exhibitor for most varieties but for the canary section it is only 1-year rung birds that can be shown. There were 4,567 medals won with 1,964 gold, 1,501 silver and 1,102 bronze medals.
Every year there will be some elections to both executive committees at the congress (Annual General Meetings) and this year was no exception. The only position that was contested was that of the Section E (Posture Canaries) and the post was won by 27 votes to 1 by Jorge Quintas (Portugal) who was also elected the OMJ Secretary. A nice presentation was made to Jean-Pierre Rotzetter (Switzerland) who retired from his responsibilities on the I-Section (budgerigars) after 24 years’ service. His place was taken by Pierre Channoy (France).
I was very pleased to be presented with my gold (15 years) OMJ judge’s badge while Gary Mann received his silver (10 years) OMJ judge’s badge. Richard Lumley received his long awaited 10 years conveyor badge as well.
Saturday evening was the Gala Dinner and the flag & medal presentation 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 me only attending to go up on the stage to sing God Save the King while our national anthem was playing. It is always so wonderful to be part of the family of nations sitting together and enjoying each other’s company. My Israeli friends looked after me well that evening.
One needs to pay tribute to the conveyors from those countries benching birds as they take 2 weeks of their holiday time to drive their countries’ teams to the show venue and then spend every day stewarding and feeding and watering a section of the show birds that are allocated to them and do all the necessary stewarding jobs. It is a thankless task but they do it for the love of the hobby and we need to acknowledge our gratitude to them for carrying out this task on our behalf.
Simon Tammam and myself manned our stand throughout the weekend and was the centre point of gathering for the few British fanciers who attended the show. The big question is will we be able to participate with a show team next year if DEFRA restrictions have eased up by then? Next year’s show will be held in Spain in Talavera De La Reina which is a short distance west of Madrid. The show will be open to the public from 26th to 28th January 2024 so make a date in your diary to attend. For more information and photos about the show visit www.comuk.co.uk |
