It�s been 5 months since we put the last issue of this magazine on line. Neither John or I get any money for this effort, it is a labour of love. We feel that we should try our best to put something out every month, but it is not that simple. Between personall lives our racing pigeon hobby and a few health problems time just slips by and before I realized it five months, almost half a year has slipped by.

Last October the Canadian Racing Pigeon Union had its election of officers. The election coincides with the annual convention which is held every year on our Canadian Thanksgiving Day weekend, ussually the middle of October. The C.U. has about 1600 members across the country that are eligible to vote. Our secretary Mrs. Dorothy Deveau sends to each member a numbered ballot that can be marked appropriately and returned to the C.U. office. These are counted at the annual meeting held at the convention and the new officers are put in place.

This year I and several other members put our names forward for consideration by the membership as elected officers of our national organization. We all hoped there would be some interest shown by the membership and that they would cast ballots for those they wished to serve as executive officers. There were a total of one hundred and twenty four (124) ballots cast. Yes!!!!! You read that right!!!!!! Out of 1600 members eligible to vote only 124 bothered to do so. That is only 7.75% of the total membership. Shame! Shame! Shame!

Personally I advertised my phone number and email address so that any of the members could contact me and discuss what I stood for, or the changes they wished to see. Only two bothered to phone (thank you to both of them) and only one questioned me by email ( sorry I didn�t get back to you sooner, but I was in hospital and did eventually answer you).

Every time pigeon racers get together the discussion inevitably gets around to what is wrong with the sport and what our national organization should do to correct the problems. How do you expect change? If the general membership does not shout from the roof tops we want change and this is what we want, you will never get it.

There is no blame to those who have served as executive members in the past. They ran and served to the best of their ability and I personally thank each of them for their past service. They put in many hours and sacrificed much of their personall time to our sport. Most of them are working men and have families. Do not blame them for what is wrong with our sport. It is you the members and your apathy that are to blame for the ills of our sport.

For example. There are approximately 125 clubs in Canada. If each club went out this year and had one new member start in our sport and made sure they did not lose any of their present members, we would grow by 7.75%. If we did that over a five year period we could have 500 to 600 new members. That�s by each club only getting one new member each year.

We have to do some serious soul searching. We are losing members faster than we can replace them. Why??? What�s the atmosphere like at your club. Does everyone get along or is it everyone for themselves. Win at all costs and the hell with what happens at the club and who quits, as long as I win. Give us a break!

Are you in it for the money? Or are you in it because you love pigeon racing ? If you�re in it for the money you�ll be waiting a long time. Even in Europe with large numbers of flyers a very, very, small percentage actually can make a living out of this hobby. If you�re in it for the love of racing pigeons, then lets try to get along with each other, if you don�t, soon you might be racing yourself.

This coming October I will again run for office on the CU executive. Actions speak louder than words. This hobby is to important to me and all of you to just sit back and let it disapear. I know there will be several other excellent candidates running. If you think you have something to contribute to the sport consider running for office yourself.

Look over the list of candidates contact them, listen to them, and chose the ones that most closely reflect your views, but most imortant of all, vote!

Nick