Latest information from the Northern Ireland Assembly on Wednesday
27th 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Downloaded the program and logged in.
Synchronising your database so that
all members details are downloaded from the RPRA database.
Downloaded distances from the RPRA
cloud.
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
Individual clubs
Federation with attached individual clubs
DVF, Dewsbury Fed, NCF,
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.
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 4th 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.
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 18th
April)
Produce
a result for your club and upload it to the cloud. You must do this by Saturday
18th 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 25th
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.
The
update has a few new features which will enable you to manage the RPRA more
efficiently and reduce your workload as a secretary.
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.
I have attached this week’s training document which looks at prizes and pools. There is a new version to install 1.1.1.4
Was needed so that Feds and clubs could complete the race but have independent pooling and prize systems. The previous version did pools for specialist clubs sections etc and individual clubs.
I have attached the Virtual Race instructions if anyone needs to revisit task 1. It is best you work through the tasks rather than try and do pools and prizes straight away.
Feel free to do as many test races as you want. Viv can zap them before and when the season starts.
I’ll email the results with different pooling systems during the weekend and evaluate Monday.