I HAVE BEEN ASKED TO BRING IT TO THE ATTENTION OF ALL PIGEON FANCIERS USING THE CHURCH CAR PARK AT JONESBORO.

YOU ARE LEAVING AN UNTIDY MESS BEHIND YOU. PLEASE CLEAN UP AFTER YOU LIBERATE OR YOU MAY LOOSE THE FACILITY.

REFERENCE RACING.

I HAVE NO FURTHER UPDATES TO ISSUE TO YOU TONIGHT.

WE ARE STILL VERY HOPEFUL THAT WE WILL GET THE GO AHEAD VERY SOON.

AS SOON AS ANY FURTHER INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE I WILL POST IT ON THE WEB SITE.

Fred Russell N.I.P.A. Secretary.

 

Latest information from the Northern Ireland Assembly on Wednesday 27^th May 2020 is that legislation is now in place to permit pigeon racing within Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Assembly is now in negotiations with the relevant departments in the Republic of Ireland.

At present we can only race within Northern Ireland until confirmation or otherwise is received from the department in the Republic of Ireland. We are hopeful of a decision in the near future.

The Northern Ireland Assembly have also submitted written requests to the Scottish and Welsh legislations to approve liberations of racing pigeons from Northern Ireland at this time.

Please be patient as negotiations take place.

The N.I.P.A. committee if approval is granted plan to have five inland races and review channel racing after the five races.

When any further information is available you will be informed immediately.

Fred Russell  Secretary.

The N.I.P.A. zoom committee meeting scheduled for Monday 25th May 2020 has been rescheduled for Tuesday 26th May 2020. Monday is a Bank Holiday and the Northern Ireland Assembly will not be meeting on that day.

The N. I. Assembly has to pass amended legislation to permit us to race pigeons. If this legislation goes through then the relevant departments in the N.I. Assembly and the relevant departments in the Republic of Ireland will contact each other and hopefully agree for racing to commence.

Racing cannot take place until all of this is agreed and signed off.

Please be patient and give all involved the space to carry out this very important work of obtaining permission.

AS SOON AS WE RECEIVE ANY FURTHER INFORMATION YOU WILL BE NOTIFIED IMMEDIATELY.

The N.I.P.A. committee have agreed that all club`s must purchase their own Personal Protection Equipment. (P.P.E.)

 A CONTACT FOR YOU IS MARTIN O`NEILL TELEPHONE NUMBER 078 726 37872

MARTIN CAN SUPPLY FACE MASKS FOR AROUND £4.OO PER PACKET, GLOVES @£5.OO PER PACKET and VISERS AROUND £2.00 EACH

YOU ARE ADVISED TO CONTACT HIM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

ALSO A PROTOCOL FOR RACE MARKING WILL HAVE TO BE DRAWN UP AND ADHERED TO.

 I AM ASKING CLUB`S TO EMAIL THEIR SUGGESTIONS AND CLUB`S MUST MAKE ARRANGEMENTS TO DISCUSS THEIR RACE MARKING PROCEDURES IN LINE WITH THE GOVERNMENT GUIDELINES.

I WILL TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY ON BEHALF OF ALL OUR MEMBERS TO THANK EVERYONE WHO HAS AND IS STILL ASSISTING US TO REACH OUR GOAL.

 I WILL PERSONALLY BE WRITING TO THEM ALL.

KEEP SAFE AND WELL

Regards

Fred

NP-Social-Distancing-Catalogue

The attached catalogue may be of interest to clubs.

Fred Russell N.I.P.A. secretary.

Training can now commence under the Amendment of the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020 made at 7.30 p.m. on 19th May 2020 and came into operation at 11.00 p.m. on 19th May 2020 
Specific regulation amendment-
regulation 5(2) (restrictions on movement), after paragraph (m), insert—

1. (o)  to take part in an outdoor activity;
2. (p)  to take part in an outdoor gathering, in accordance with regulation 6A.”. “Restrictions on outdoor gatherings 6A. During the emergency period, a person may participate in an outdoor gathering consisting of—(i) up to six people who are not members of the same household; or (ii) any number of members of the same household.”. 
   We Would ask all members to abide by social distancing measures as outlined by Government.
3. We are continuing to engage with the Northern and other jurisdictions through Mr J. Buckley M.L.A. and other representatives regarding potential future racing.

Please note at this time Thursday 21st May training from the Republic of Ireland has not been authorized. Approval is being sought and we will advise if permission is granted or not.

Training transporters can be used with social distancing measures in place.

Permission to commence racing has not been approved as yet. We will update when further information is available.

Please all take care, follow the guidance on social distancing and hygiene and act responsibly.

Fred Russell N.I.P.A. Secretary.

After tonight’s meeting of the committee which was attended by Mr J. Buckley M.L.A. who advised the N.I.P.A. of the present situation regarding the training of pigeons.

Training is still not permitted under the present legislation, this may change within the next 24/48 hours, and you will be notified immediately of any change

PLEASE DO NOT TRAIN YOUR PIGEONS AS YOU MAY JEOPARDISE OUR FUTURE NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY

Fred Russell SECRETARY N.I.P.A.

The N.I.P.A. held its second online committee meeting on Monday evening 11th May with a third meeting being scheduled for Monday 18th May or earlier if deemed necessary.

31 committee members logged into the meeting including our Chairman Ken Wilkinson we were all delighted to see him and he did take an active part in the meeting.

After last week`s enthusiasm , this week we are disappointed that no progress has been made.
We are hopeful over the next few days we may accomplish some movement on allowing us to train our pigeons and If this should happen  you will be notified immediately.
If training should be allowed in Northern Ireland it will be individual training not transporter training.

TODAY TUESDAY 12TH MAY  WE AWAIT  A STATEMENT FROM THE DEVOLVED  GOVERNMENT AT STORMONT.

IT IS UNLIKELY TO GIVE US THE PERMISSION WE ARE LOOKING FOR, HOWEVER THERE ARE LOTS OF CONTACTS BEING MADE  TO LOCAL MLA S` ON THIS SUBJECT AND HOPEFULLY WE WILL MAKE PROGRESS.

THE EXISTING RULES STILL APPLY YOU MUST NOT TRAIN PIGEONS IN NORTHERN IRELAND.
THERE ARE A NUMBER OF SELFISH FANCIERS STILL DELIBERATELY BREAKING THIS  INSTRUCTION AND ARE CONTINUING TO TRAIN THEIR PIGEONS NOT MANY BUT ENOUGH TO BE CONCERNED THE VAST MAJORITY OF YOU ARE ABIDING BY THEM  AND FOR THAT WE THANK YOU.
FOR THOSE WHO STILL CHOOSE TO IGNORE THIS INSTRUCTION ALL YOU ARE DOING IS MAKING OUR EFFORTS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT TO GET YOU THE  PERMISSION WE ALL WANT.
YOU MAY ULTIMATELY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR NO PERMISSION TO BE GRANTED TO TRAIN OR RACE YOUR PIGEONS THE CHOICE IS YOURS.

IF WE RECEIVE ANY POSITIVE INFORMATION WE WILL NOTIFY YOU IMMEDIATLEY.
IF YOU WISH TO LOOK AT THE R.P.R.A. SITE AND READ THE INFORMATION REGARDING TRAINING IN ENGLAND PLEASE DO SO BUT REMEMBER THIS DOES NOT COVER NORTHERN IRELAND.

HENCE I WILL NOT POST IT ON THE N.I.P.A. SITE I DO NOT WISH TO  CREATE CONFUSION.

I SINCERELY HOPE THERE WILL BE SOME GOOD POSITIVE NEWS IN THE NOT TO DISTANT FUTURE.

STAY SAFE AND KEEP WELL.

REGARDS Fred.

Following tonight’s statement by the Prime Minster and the statements from the devolved Governments, the President, Vice Presidents and CEO will be meeting (Online) tonight (Sunday) to discuss the content and provide an update in relation to training and racing as soon as possible. In the meantime please continue to adhere to the current restrictions regarding training and racing Further discussions are also planned with the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Pigeon racing on Monday. The CEO has also made contact with the Welsh Government and will be attempting to contact other devolved Governments asap Thank you.

Ian Evans RPRA CEO

RPRA Race Entry Pools and Prizes – Race Security

This has been our training road map, and well done to everyone. This is a quick recap of what you have done so far. All the training materials are available on http://pigeon.org.uk

Week 1 – Completed a race using the manual option.

1. Downloaded the program and logged in.
2. Synchronising your database so that all members details are downloaded from the RPRA database.
3. Downloaded distances from the RPRA cloud.
4. Posted the race to the cloud and checked it on the RPRA Results website.

Federation secretaries completed the above for their clubs and have downloaded their club’s results into the Federation account and then uploaded the federation result to the results cloud.

Week 2 – Channel or long distance several days event.

• Hours of Darkness. This exercise looked at hour you can run a race over several days. It also reminded organisation to think what they will do if a pigeon arrives outside their Hours of Darkness. Is your organisation aware of how northern or southern members can gain an advantage through the setting of HOD? The exercise repeated the skills and understanding of week 1.

Week 3 – Design your own race and ETS data option as well as manual.

• Design your own race from start and add ETS data to your result. The ETS data is easy to extract into a batch file. Mark the birds for a race, let them out for exercise, time them in, print out the times and then extract the data into a batch file. Process the batch file. Result done. No typing to do for ETS! Publish the result to the web. Check the result.
  • Fed secretary – Download the result into the fed account. Publish to the cloud

You can repeat wks 1-3 for repetition and Viv can zap all test results before the season starts. You can then design your amended race programmes.

Week 4.  Race Entry Pools and Prizes

You need to develop the understanding and skills in Wk1-3 above before attempting adding pools and prizes and processing a result.

The software is designed to run

1. Individual clubs
2. Federation with attached individual clubs DVF, Dewsbury Fed, NCF,
3. Specialist clubs with sections and attached clock and marking stations. E.g. MNFC NEPC NRCC

Version 1.4 allows the Federation and club structure to have independent prizes and pools. A club can set its own pools and prizes and process them. Upload their results as normal. The federation downloads the results and then can process federation prizes and pools.

Previous version had no issues with individual clubs or specialist clubs. Several examples will be posted this weekend of the different results with prizes and pools.

Set up Race Entry Fees

Select Race Setup – Select Race Event.

Add the amount for the Race Fee E.g 3.75 You can add a marking fee of ‘Result Fee’  e.g. 3 and an admin fee or clock station fee etc. You have three options to play with to gather funds. If you leave blank they calculate 0.

Pool Structure setup – Before the season starts.

The program uses the same function for all organisations. You can have % 1inX Noms confined to age sex if required. Program is designed to run national organisations. Individual clubs use the same function probably a few less pool options.

Please note if you are using open and section pools, Open pools uses Capital letters ABCDE and Section pools use abcde these need to match printed race entry sheets you cannot swap these letters around. The program will default back to this form.

Rational Open larger area bigger letter. Section smaller area = lower case!

Example of a smaller club in membership using 5 pools with percentage

Race Entry – Postal Entries Online entries or Friday night entries.

1.  Select your Race event in Race setup and set the entry fee of your race E.g. £3.75 you can add marking fee and admin fee if necessary. Your race is now setup for accepting income.

• Select Race Setup – Race Entry
• Select the race you are adding race entries to.
• From the drop-down menu select the fancier. Add how many birds these are entered by the fancier.
• Add pools to the line numbers by typing the appropriate letters set up in your pool structure.
• Select Calculate Entry fee check with fanciers payment, amend if necessary and press save. If you make a mistake amend and press save. The last saving is the one that it is set.
• Proceed to the next fancier until all entries are in.
• Online entries go straight into the program. This require appropriate coding and setup.

AFTER THE RACE HAS BEEN FLOWN

Setting Race Prizes

This uses the same function if you are a club, fed or national.

Select Race Event Select category and then add the prize money you want paying out. You can have as many positions as required. If you use less than the default number just leave them blank.

This can be set prior to the race been flown or after the race has been flown by the organisation. Enter the amounts and press save. If you need to alter simply amend and press save.

MATCHING RACE RESULTS TO POOLS

Once your clubs have uploaded the race to the RPRA cloud and you have downloaded and published the full provisional result you can match the results to the pools. You need your Form B Race entry sheet for a large organisation prepare by having them in numeric order.

No Pools

Select the fancier from your Form B race entry. If the fancier has no pools just press save and move on to the next fancier.

With Pools

If you get a fancier which has entered pools, EG ABCDE ABCDE shown in left box then you need to check which position the bird was on your race entry.

In this example, my first bird timed was my first pigeon on Form B.  Therefore I placed 1  in the EntryNumber box. My second bird clocked was the 4^th bird on Form B so I placed 4 in the Entry number.

When matching is complete, press save.

Repeat until all fanciers have been processed.

If a fancier doesn’t have their clock read the right-hand box wont display any birds clocked. Move on to the next fancier.

Processing Prizes and Pools

Press Process Pool Entries. Let the computer do the calculations. When this is complete, go back to your provisional result and press display results and all your prize money is displayed. Press Publish to the web and the result is on the RPRA Results site.

You can save the result as Word, PDF or Excel and add the result to your own website. You can print out hard copies as normal if required.

There is an Excel report which gathers all the necessary information for your report header pool summaries etc. This saves a lot of time generating the header of a result ready for displays in the fancy press. This is available on request as the Excel document is tailored to your organisations requirement. We can email a copy once you have a full result for you to see the different tables. The MNFC uses this file to generate its header. Previously this manual task was very time-consuming gathering information from a variety of different reports.

Next week we can look at Race Security, an immensely powerful function behind the software.

Good luck and stay safe.

Peter

Royal Pigeon Racing Association – Virtual Pigeon Race using the RPRA Results software

New update version 1.1.1.3  Link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1dBxRdPLWurwX6VgEPc7or4HlTMTiV5lj

Dear Secretary,

Whilst we are on lockdown waiting patiently for our season to start, we have designed a virtual pigeon race using the new RPRA software. It’s FREE entry for all clubs using the FREE RPRA software.  It’s just a bit of fun and an opportunity to get to grips with the software. Ian has organised prizes for the each participating organisation and one for the overall winner of the first RPRA virtual race. These prizes will be posted to the winning members.

The Virtual Race

What we like you to do is produce a made-up race for your club and post it to the RPRA results website. This will consist of using the manual option and creating a result with 1 bird timed for each member of your club. Once the result is produced post it to the result website. Make-up times, ring numbers perhaps use W rings as they don’t exist!  colour sex etc. We will only be using the members name/RPRA number to identify the winners. A fully worked example can be observed from the Derwent Valley Federation DVF- Open http://www.wm28vps.co.uk/RaceResult

Ian Evans will be selecting a random velocity for each week’s race. Ian will email the random velocity once the race is closed. The winning member in your club will be the fancier with the closest velocity to Ian’s random ‘lottery’ velocity. A full list of winners will be published.

Hope this creates some interest and enables you to develop your competence with the new RPRA results program. Members can check if they have won by visiting the website http://rpraresults.org or http://www.wm28vps.co.uk/RaceResults We will send an email of all the club winners for you to check. The prizes will be posted direct to the winning fanciers.

Entering the Virtual Race

• Name the race RPRA Virtual Race 1 (Race date doesn’t matter but select 18^th April)
• Produce a result for your club and upload it to the cloud. You must do this by Saturday 18^th April 2020 8pm
• If you wish to generate new data or use the same data to process a second virtual race let us know as we can put on RPRA Virtual Race 2 by Saturday 25^th April 2020 RPRA Virtual Race 3? Some clubs may have missed the first races and new organisations may wish to come onboard with the software.

Install new update: version 1.1.1.1 https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zdYbTgrmc9wjoxMphvw4DLKGBASivNa2

The update has a few new features which will enable you to manage the RPRA more efficiently and reduce your workload as a secretary.

1. Membership. The update enables you to manage your membership adding new members using their RPRA numbers. If you delete a member the person will be removed from your club. This facility will keep your club automatically up to date with the RPRA database. You will not have to send the membership registration form in each year. Just keep your membership database up to date.

• Distances 24/7. In members setup, select off the distances you require. You will notice that the download speed has increased with this update. All members distances have been uploaded. Should you find a member’s distances missing when you download it is probably due to them not having a latitude and longitude registered with RPRA. Please contact Derren distances@rpra.org to resolve any distances issues.

• Race Points – Race Programme. You can generate your full race programme and upload it to the RPRA database. Changes during the season can be managed in the software.

Please Note: We can zap all virtual races once the season starts.

Stay safe, Kind regards,

Peter Humphries