NOTICE BOARD  -  MAY 2014
Report by Ghalib Al-Nasser

The WBO held its 20^th Annual Meeting in Forli, Italy on 11^th October 2013 by invitation from the Italian Club AMICI, to coincide with its Annual National Show. The WBO also staged the very first WBO World Championship Show at this event. Delegates from thirteen countries and five continents attended making the meeting a truly international event. The WBO has held meetings all over Europe, and also both in the American and Australian Continents. It is hoped that future meetings will be held in Asia and Africa, to enable the organisation to visit all five continents. Delegates who attended the meeting represented Australia, Belgium, Eire, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and U.S.A.

Delegates at the WBO Meeting

The WBO Chairman, Gerd Bleicher, thanked the host society Club AMICI for the invitation, the second in Italy, and for the generous gifts they received and the fine table name tags with individual country’s flags. The Chairman also extended a special welcome to the meeting for those who had travelled from far away.

The WBO Secretary, Ghalib Al-Nasser, also thanked the host society and informed the meeting that Argentina, Brazil and Canada (Eastern group) had rejoined after an absence of some time, bringing the current strength to 43 affiliated societies from 32 countries spread over the 6 continents.

The Gould Award

The WBO created The Gould Award in 2011; a prestigious award for Meritorious Services to the World of Budgerigars in any field, with the winners receiving a special Gould Medal as well as a Certificate to commemorate the win. Winners have been Jo Mannes, Germany in 2012 and Warren Wilson, Australia in 2013.

In 2014, five societies sent nominations for this award for two candidates - Australia (ANBC), Germany (DSV), United Kingdom (B.S.) & U.S.A. (BAA) - Ghalib Al-Nasser, England and Reinhard Molkentin, South Africa

The Gould Award Committee agreed on the principal of voting and reserves for existing committee members should one of them be nominated. The winner was Ghalib Al-Nasser, with the award given as acknowledgement of the work undertaken as WBO Secretary/Treasurer since 1997 and for promoting the specialist and rare varieties around the world in articles and lectures. The WBO extends warm congratulations to Ghalib for achieving this honour and also to the other worthy candidate.

Nominations for this award close on 31^st December each year and need to be sent to the Secretary with biographical notes of the candidate not exceeding 200 words.

WBO World Championship Show

WBO Executive Committee (Roger Carr, Gerd Bleicher, Ghalib Al-Nasser and Carlos Ramôa)
with the Portuguese flag for the winner of Best in Show
with the judges Jim Fletcher, Jo Mannes & Dewayne Weldon

Having laid the guidelines in 2011, the WBO staged their first ever World Championship Show in Forli, Italy to coincide with Club AMICI National Show. The show was titled the, “Alessandro Bernabei Memorial Show” in memory of Alessandro who was Club AMICI WBO delegate for many years and who passed away in 2012.

Jo Mannes (Germany), Jim Fletcher (Australia) and Dewayne Weldon (USA) judged the entry of 580 exhibition budgerigars from 31 exhibitors from England, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Portugal. There were also 320 exhibits in the Budgerigar of Colour category with 16 exhibitors coming from Italy and Portugal. With 6 countries participating in this event it was truly an International show.

Major Winners

The award for Best in Show and Best Any Age went to Rui Teixeira from Portugal with a Dark Green hen. The Best Young Bird in Show went to Tibor Gyerkó from Hungary with a Skyblue cock. Best Opposite Sex Any Age & Best Opposite Sex in Show went to Alberto Castagnetti from Italy with a Spangle Grey Green cock while Best Young Bird Opposite Sex went to Roberto Doni from Italy with a Spangle Skyblue hen.

The Judges with Tibor Gyerko

The Judges with Roberto Doni & Alberto Castagnelli

Long Flights/Long Tails

In recent years some important subjects have been tabled at WBO meetings for discussion, such as flecking and feather problems. Last year the focus was on long flights and long tails and their increased appearance on the show bench, mainly in Europe, United Kingdom and South Africa.

Budgerigars with long flighted problems first appeared in the 1950’s in England and were very severely penalised by the Budgerigar Society as they were disqualified from the show bench. During the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s it was not a problem but now they are appearing on the show bench once again and the WBO felt that this problem needed to be highlighted to all fanciers around the world.

A lengthy debate took place emphasising the fact that the current problem is more of birds with long tails rather than the old problem of the 1950’s of birds with long flights.

It was agreed that budgerigars should be in proportion and balanced and if the bird has a long tail that touches the floor of the show cage but its head does not touch the ceiling of the show cage then the bird is not in proportion and should be disqualified as per the WBO Guidelines to Judges & Exhibitors.

It was also agreed to change the terminology to Long Flighted/Long Tail and to educate the fancy around the world by issuing photos of these types of birds that possess the long tail characteristics and to further discuss this topic at the next meeting.

Budgerigars of Colour

The Italian Club AMICI sent a letter requesting that the Budgerigar of Colour be recognised by the WBO and adopted within the WBO criteria. Budgerigars of Colour are quite popular in many countries in Europe and from 4 years ago, classes are provided by all COM International and World Shows as part of the mandatory classification and they have been exhibited in many countries over many years. There is an official Scale of Points, Pictorial Ideal and Standard of Perfection for the Budgerigar of Colour.

After much debate it was agreed to send a proposal to all WBO affiliated societies requesting their agreement for the WBO to adopt the Budgerigar of Colour within the WBO criteria and the final decision to be approved at the next WBO meeting.

Judges Criteria

At the 2011 WBO meeting it was agreed to create a Judges Criteria and to help the smaller and newer countries/societies that do not have a proper Judges Training Scheme, thereby assisting their members to become judges in their own countries.  The following criteria were adopted by the WBO:

-            5 years breeder of budgerigars

-            Test approved by WBO

-            Test through management of WBO or an appointed person from WBO

-            5 years judge in national organisation before applying to the WBO Judges Panel

Since this scheme commenced, two fanciers have taken the judging test laid down by the WBO and under WBO supervision, consisting of practical, written and colour identification tests.

We are pleased to announce that Ahmad Raza Sahi from Pakistan passed in December 2012 and Björn Johansson from Sweden passed in October 2013. Their societies will be able to ask the WBO to add them on the WBO International Judges Panel after completing 5 years as judges in their own countries.

Future Meetings

The next WBO meeting will be held on Friday 7^th November 2014 in Istanbul, Turkey, to coincide with the national society TKKKF National mixed variety show. The TKKKF will also be hosting the 2^nd WBO World Championship Show at this time.

The HQ hotel will be Hotel Armada (www.armadahotel.com.tr) (info@armadahotel.com.tr), booking reference number WBO 2014. Special prices with breakfast are:

Room for 3 people - 100 Euro; Room for 2 people - 90 Euro; Room for 1 Person - 70 Euro.

The WBO is in a good position as future meetings until 2018 are already planned with United Kingdom in 2015 (5^th – 7^th June in Stoke-on-Trent to coincide with the B.S. Convention), Portugal in 2016, Hungary in 2017 and South Africa in 2018.

Ring Specification, Colour Code and Sequence

The current ring specification for the budgerigar and colour sequence as adopted by both the WBO and the Confederation Ornithologique Mondiale (COM) is listed below:

To avoid any misunderstanding, member societies are strongly reminded that when ordering rings from any ring manufacturer, to specify the exact WBO ring colour and the Pantone Code as well as the ring specification.

Membership

The WBO currently is in a healthy position with 43 affiliated societies over 6 continents in 32 countries. They are:

•            Asia: Japan, Pakistan, Philippines

•            Australasia: Australia, New Zealand

•            Africa: South Africa

•           Europe: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Eire, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovensko, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom

•            North America: Canada, United States of America

•            South America: Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela

International Judges Panel

A list of current judges who are on the WBO International Judges Panel is on the website and full addresses of each judge may be obtained from the Secretary. The conditions relating to admittance to the WBO Judges Panel are as follows:

a.          to be a current champion breeder and exhibitor of Budgerigars in their own country. Where a country/society has only “one” Status of Exhibitor, a breeder and exhibitor of long standing will be acceptable subject to “b” & “c” below.

b.          be a fully qualified judge for a minimum of 5 years in their own country or in the country/society in which they qualified.

c.          apply in writing to their National Society (or the society in which they qualified) to be placed on the list. The National Society will then be responsible for checking their qualifications and, if eligible, for passing names, addresses and telephone numbers to the WBO Secretary for inclusion on the list.

The WBO recommend that member countries consider inviting judges from overseas who are members of the WBO International Judges Panel, as approved by the WBO, to judge at shows that are under their jurisdiction. A full WBO International Judges List is available from the Secretary on request.

WBO Badge

At the 2010 meeting, the WBO approved its own designed badge depicting the WBO logo of the Ideal Budgerigar superimposed on the world map. The cost to purchase this badge, from the secretary, is 3.00 GB pounds each, plus postage.

WBO Rosettes

Each member country/society receives four WBO rosettes each year, as part of their affiliation, for Best Any Age, Best Any Age Opposite Sex, Best Young Bird & Best Young Bird Opposite Sex in Show to be awarded to four different birds at their national show. Names of winners and photos of the winning birds are then included on each year’s Rosette Winners file. Please visit the website for current and previous winners.

WBO Executive Committee (E.C.)

An Executive Committee was created in 2004 to run the affairs of the WBO between Council meetings. The E.C. for 2014 consists of Chairman Gerd Bleicher (Germany), Secretary Ghalib Al-Nasser (U.K.), Vice-Chairman Carlos Ramôa (Portugal) and Immediate Past Chairman Roger Carr (U.K.).

WBO Publicity and the Website

The WBO website is updated on a regular basis with many files of interest such as research articles, Pictorial Ideal, Colour Standards, Scale of Points, details of member organisations, ring specification etc. Photos of past WBO rosette winners around the World are also included on the website (click on each photo to enlarge it).

For further comments on any of the above items please contact the Secretary, Ghalib Al-Nasser ghalib.alnasser@gmail.com