OUT IN FRONT – AU CLUBS LEADING THE WAY

By Deone Roberts, AU Sport Development

When it is fair season, it is a great time to get in front of thousands of people, to share the racing homing pigeon sport. With enough volunteers from the club membership, it is little effort to set up, man a display booth for just a few hours and split up the labor of taking the display down at the end of the fair.

The Amarillo Racing Pigeon Club found a great opportunity to promote at the Tri State Fair. In recent years, fair visitors have represented 36 states, several foreign countries and 36 Panhandle counties. Leo Koenig took charge of coordinating this year’s effort. He obtained literature and a display from the American Racing Pigeon Union and made arrangements with fair representatives to add a little “something extra” in the way of a bird release as the starting signal for the parade. At the front of the parade, two television cameras zeroed in on the birds and Leo. The parade announcer described the release with a script provided by Leo, as he let the birds out to fly home. Organizers were so impressed with the added attraction of release birds that they asked Leo to return to release every year at the parade.

Nearly thirty people signed up to receive more information about racing. Those names were sent to the AU office and packets were sent out to each of them. Leo will head up efforts to follow up with the folks. Some took Leo’s phone number in order to make a future appointment to look at his loft.

A county or state fair is just one way to promote the sport. If it suits the members and there are enough volunteers to handle manning the display, it is a good way to meet a variety of people to not only share information on how they might race, but also to show them the difference between pedigreed and feral pigeons.

The club also took the lead in changing local regulations to exclude pigeons from the classification of barnyard fowl. John Landry took advantage of helpful brochures, available through the AU, for that purpose. It is not unusual for cities to adopt the model ordinance that is presented in one of the books, as written, with little change. The booklet saves city attorneys time in creating appropriate language to allow the racing hobby, making it easier for the city to act quickly to adopt or amend ordinances.

Receiving assistance from AU on ordinance issues is more easily facilitated if the members have already taken the time to register their lofts. Because of that opportunity, Leo has also worked on getting all the area lofts registered with the AU. With information on file and readily at hand at the AU office, assistance is rapid.

The Amarillo RPC has gained around 20 members in a year thanks to Leo and other club members taking the time to make more people aware of the sport and create a pleasing appearance to the community. Hats off to Leo, John, Jack Parker, John Somerville, John Atlas, Dennis Falk, Larry Lawrence and Jim Watson for their hard work and organization.

Good work guys!