Policy Statement
New Club Charters
The current Board of Directors of the Canadian Racing Pigeon Union does not support the formation of new racing pigeon clubs within the territorial jurisdictions of current CU Affiliated clubs, particularly when the new club membership will be drawn from the membership of existing clubs.
This policy statement does not come without careful thought and is based on a number of considerations, namely the current CU BOD believes that negative internal politics are a serious problem within the ranks of the CRPU membership and that these negative politics are causing existing members to leave the hobby and discouraging new members from joining the hobby.
The current CU BOD does not believe that splinting clubs lessens the negative politics, they in fact believe that this activity actual leads to a heightening of the problems that generated the negative politics.
The current CU BOD believes that a better way to deal with problems within clubs is for the membership to remain intact and work through the problems and finding solutions to the problems within the club, not by forming new clubs and leaving the problems unresolved.
The current CU BOD believes that forming two smaller clubs from the membership of an existing club, not only fails to resolve the underlying issues, but creates significantly more work for all involved, including but not limited to:
- Two bank accounts and all the associated work of a club treasurer
- Two sets of minutes
- Two teams for entry of birds on shipping night
- Two teams of members to wait for the combine truck and load the birds;
- Two race secretaries to calculate the races;
- Half the social interaction at club gatherings/meeting;
- Two club houses to maintain including associated costs; and
- In fact a total duplication of effort in every regard.
This in turn costs the hobby members. Volunteers to perform these tasks are very difficult to recruit. When there is no one else to take a turn, these volunteers eventually become resentful and stop enjoying the hobby. This results in a cumulative burnout and the eventual loss to the hobby of our best and brightest workers.
It becomes difficult to maintain enough members to compete week in and week out. A member may have an important family function or other activity on any given weekend. The member realizes that the other few members are counting on them to make up enough shippers and birds. The member feels guilty about missing a race, or guilty about missing the family function. Since no member joined the hobby to feel guilty, they simply quit the sport.
Nothing in this policy statement is intended to suggest members should not develop innovative new approaches to the hobby, or try new things. The Hamilton Central Racing Pigeon Club is a great example of this. For many years half the members flew a west course and half the members flew a north course, but all under the umbrella of one large club.
New club applications will continue to be received and reviewed by the CRPU. When legitimate reasons exist for the formation of a new club, in consideration of the above noted observations, a new club CU charter shall be granted. When the new club application serves no clear purpose and will only contribute to the issues noted above, no new charter will be approved.
Issued and approved by the CRPU Board of Directors.
23 MAR 2010