Cage & Aviary Future Publication on our First Show:
The West Midland Gloster Association (WMGA) finally got its wish to stage its first All Gloster (AG) exhibition after the disappointment of having to abort the December 2017 event due to extreme snow condition. WMGA members took the decision to move the event to the earlier date of the 18th November to avoid a potential recurrence of snow conditions and were rewarded with good weather that enabled all exhibitors to attend.
Show Secretary John Cronin had a little concern as to whether WMGA would be able to match the 2017 level of 422 exhibits from 33 exhibitors, especially as three of the previous years entrants had already advised that they would be attending another AG event taking place on the same day.
Early and constant promotion of the event across the Gloster Fancy through personal contact, C & A publications, WMGA web site & Facebook page plus direct mail shots eventually reduced those concerns with the early arrival of the first entry from Matthew Fitter a first time novice exhibitor from Chemsley Wood Birmingham, proving to be the precursor to a steady receipt of entries that eventually went beyond all expectations to top out with the last entry from champion Alan Hayward of Telford Shropshire making it a magnificent 484 entries from 36 exhibitors; members ill health and holidays commitments would have taken entries over the 500 mark.
Gloster enthusiasts came from all points of the UK, Humberside in the north east, Kent south east, Hastings and an early 3am ferry was the order of the day for overseas (well loosely) visitors Pete Bull and Alan Middlemiss from the I.O.W.
The unexpected increase in entries provided WMGA with a slight problem - insufficient staging capacity – which was resolved by a quick call to Stratford on Avon CBS, who were providing the shows admin support, to utilise their staging which duly arrived at the venue ready for members to erect at 05:00hrs on Sunday morning.
After initial hic-ups at booking in when efforts to ensure that all first time novice exhibitors entries were in correct classes, and those that were not were reclassified…it turned out that all were not caught as Phil Durrell, one of the Durrell judging partnership remarked “Should these consorts really be in the corona class” a few pink smiling faces corrected the problem and judging commenced on time.
With almost 500 birds on display and 4 hours allocated to judging prior to doors opening to the public, and an extensive list of 46 special awards, which, apart from the standard Gloster awards, included Best Champion and Novice awards for both coronas and consorts in each colour category and 2nd best overall champion & novice coronas and consorts, the Judges Brian and Phil Durrell were kept on their toes with the strong, quality competition and rose to the occasion, ably assisted by WMGA member stewards, ensuring that their duties were completed not many minutes behind the scheduled opening time.
Every exhibitor received a personalised certificate of entry to the Inaugural WMGA show.
Exhibitors entered the show hall with their own levels of expectation to find that John Cronin’s good fortune continued with his third consecutive Best Gloster award along with the Best Champion Corona, Best Variegated Buff and Best Champion Variegated Buff Corona awards Unflighted Variegated Buff Corona Cock, which was closely followed into the second best champion corona slot by Goddard and Rands Unflighted Three Parts Dark (TPD) Corona Hen. The strong G & R team took the Best Opposite Head, Best TPD, Best Champion TPD, Best Champion TPD Consort with their excellent Unflighted Consort Cock. They were shaded out of a clean sweep of the TPD awards when Alan Middlemiss made the trip from the I.O.W worthwhile taking the Best Champion TPD Corona award with a neat well presented Flighted corona hen.
George Nicol brought a strong team out of Lincolnshire to push the competition and being successful with his Flighted Buff Consort Cock judged to be 2nd Best Champion Consort, his Yellow corona awarded Best Champion Yellow corona and cleaning up the White awards with an outstanding Flighted corona as Best White and Champion White Corona, closely follow by his Unflighted Consort, George completed his successes with Best Champion Variegated Buff Consort and Best Grizzle.
The Cinnamon and Yellow awards went to exhibitors from the South of the country, with Best Yellow being judged to be a superb Yellow Consort Cock benched by Phil & Debbie Dawtrey. The Cinnamon awards were split between Keith Baker taking Best Champion Cinnamon, Best Champion Cinnamon Corona and Pete Bull continuing his successes on moving up to champion status by taking Best Cinnamon Consort.
WMGA is one of a few All Gloster events promoting the “Light coloured” birds in a Clear to 25% Dark class and with 40 birds on display Tim Platt from Nantwich scooped the Best Light, Best Champion Light awards.
Novices were well represented by most of the UK leading novice exhibitors; Richard Summers showing in his first All Gloster mixed with Messrs Aidney, Cooper, Fitter, Hunter, McFarland, Mills, Onions, Willson and Wood to provide interesting and tough competition with many birds that would grace the higher champion status.
The Light classes for birds of Clear to 25% Dark colouring was dominated by Ray Mills taking the Best Novice Light award with an Unflighted Corona.
Gary Hunter continued his success with his stunning Cinnamon Corona taking Best Novice Corona, Best Novice Cinnamon Corona and Best Cinnamon in Show he cleaned up the Novice Cinnamon class taking Best Cinnamon Consort.
Keith Onions had a very successful meet with a well turned out team that managed to achieve 2nd Best Novice Corona, Best Novice TPD, Best Novice TPD Corona with a delightful Unflighted Corona Hen and his Flighted TPD Consort Cock took Best Novice Consort, Best Novice TPD Consort. As with George Nicol in the champions Keith dominated the Whites taking Best Novice White, Novice Corona and Consort as well as 2nd best Novice Consort with his Unflighted birds.
The contest between Kevin McFarland and Rob Wood for Best Novice Yellow divided the spoils with Wood’s Corona Cock taking Best Novice Yellow and Yellow Corona and McFarland’s Consort Hen coming away with the Yellow Consort award.
Having worked tirelessly to obtain sponsors for the event support finally came from John Aidney – Oriel Gems, The Birdcare Company, Aviform, Dave Rands and George Nicol donating a pair of birds for auction, and members donations for which the show secretary John Cronin sent his appreciation and thanks to everyone for ensuring that the event returned a modest surplus to provide a positive base for the 2019 event.
The consensus of exhibitors was that the WMGA was definitely a future fixture on their Gloster Exhibition Calendar. Indications are that the WMGA 2018 event finished just behind the IGBA and Humberside in status of both quantity and quality of birds on display.
The WMGA members thoughts and attention now turn towards starting organising the 2019 event in order to improve those elements that need attention and make it a must return / go to event for Gloster fanciers.
WMGA next meeting is on the 20th January 2019 at Fairfield Hall Bromsgrove 10:00hrs – 14:00hrs subjects a) 2018 Show Debrief. b) Establish 2019 Program of events c) AOB. New members are welcome to attend contact either Mark Guest-General Secretary on mguest37jc@gmail.com or R Mortimer– Treasurer on rem@adco.uk.com
2018 Open Show
JC (WMGA Show Secretary) having received the post on the 13th November for final entries into the WMGA First Show on the 18th November declared applications closed 🤗....but conceded that any forms dropping through his letterbox between the 14th and 16th would be added as a late entry 🤔....proving as always that we really are an accommodating bunch aren't we!
SO the scores on the doors....wait for it....We have exceeded expectations with a staggering final entry of 484 birds !! 😱👏😵
Never one to be satisfied Mr Cronin was scratching around wondering where an additional 16 birds could come from to round off to 500...conversations threw up exhibitors who had earlier made commitments to attend but were having to cancel at the last minute due to difficult personal circumstances, that would have thrown the entries well over the 500 mark.
A big thank you goes from the WMGA to all participants, Champs, Novices, new and old for supporting the first show, the forerunner of future events that, providing we continue to provide something appealing to exhibitors, could become an annual 500-600 bird event.
Planning for the 2019 Show will start in January to ensure we are first to market offering something "new and appealing", to encourage exhibitors to return and commit to the event.