Next Council meeting

[Mark Bowles]

I think Rods idea of a refurendum would be a good idea, sent out with the herd returns at the end of the year it would cost only someones time.
I agree the wording and content would need to be thought out well to get the best return of replies.The outcome i would suggest be along the lines of what Beryll was suggesting, only a few would go on to be "serious breeders", but what constitutes a serious breeder, someone with 100 plus cattle that has no breedig policy, or someone with 10 cattle that takes great care in their breeding.
Rod, why not send your website proposeles ( spelt wrong but you know what i mean) exactly as they are to council and let us all know the word for word outcome, that may prove interesting.
Mark

[Woodmagic]

A dedicated breeder, in my view, has nothing to do with large numbers. It is the one who takes great care in choosing a bull, not simply to multiply, but to work towards producing the ‘perfect animal’ that they have in their minds eye. Who also aspires to assist, as far as they are able, in improving the profile of the breed, and its particular niche in the cattle world.

[Rosemary K]

It is no good asking council to do anything until they put their house in order. At the council meeting after the AGM a member of council apparently lost his temper and verbally abused and threatened a new lady member! If this is the type of person we have had running our society no wonder we get through so many secretaries.The meeting then apparently broke up - this is why half of them came down the stairs in a huff. Most of the council members have very few or no Dexters so dont know what it is like at grass roots dealing with ever changing rules which they keep on making. Look at the mess we have had with the bull registrations. Why have people been running the society when they have no Dexters, are they just on an ego trip or is there some ulterior motive we dont know about?????
Lets hope the new team will be able to put the society to rights, we have to give them a chance as woodmagic says. I hope they will listen to the membership and take note of comments on this discussion board, great ideas, [740 hits this topic] and allow the breed to go forward.

[Sylvia]

My introduction to Dexters 5 years ago coincided with the breeder I bought from ( who was and is keen to promote Dexters in any and every way possible) being so offended by something that happened that the Dexter Council lost a willing worker. I don't know how many times this has happened in the last 5 years but it would seem that it is something which still needs attention.

[Chris Downward]

Being new to the Dexter Society I was very interested in the previous comments. My comments for what they are worth are based on 12 months membership and in comparrison to other breed societies and are as follows:
1. It seems that the main purpose of the society is the keeping of pedigree records and to a lesser extent in promoting the breed. My experience is that it has fullfilled these tasks--it re-registered my animals very efficiently and handled my initial enquiries into the breed very well. No problem here as far as I am concerned.
2. It produces various bits of literature--most are informative but the magazine is as dull as ditchwater. lovely cover and good presentation but contents are terrible---I suspect though that a lot of this is the fault of the membership in not producing any good copy. If the comments above are anything to go by a lot of the membership feel very divorced from the society and are thus not very inclined to write anything suitable. This area needs a major overhaul.
3. Who runs the society and for whom--as I understand it we are the members and the officers of the society serve us. The concept of even 5% of a meeting being kept from the membership is wrong--no matter what it is about, if it is about salary etc then so what, we the members are paying it, why shouldn't we be able to decide if something/somebody is worth the cost?
4. Meetings that require hrs/days of travelling to attend--this is ridiculous, we are not running an enormous organisation why can't this be done using conference calls, emails/video conferencing? Contencious issues need only be decided on at AGM's. This needs a radical overhaul--perhaps then more farming members would wish to be involved in the running of the society?
I hope as a very junior member this will be taken as constructive but it is obvious that something dramatic needs to be done in order to bring more members into the mainstream of the society.
Chris

[rodmet]

Hi Mark, I will send my proposals to Council as you suggest and report their answer on the site( it might go better if you were to send them!!). Perhaps the cyber pigs are being readied to fly a Council answer into your website hence avoiding the need for a separate channel of communication??

Hi Beryl, I do agree questionnaires can have a poor response and I am as big a culprit as anyone at binning them. But here we have a Society questionnaire - the first one at that and with an aim of seeking info,ideas,and wishes and using them to shape future policy. So I think it will grab people's interest and from then on it is up to the formulation of the questionnaire,its ease of use,its demand on time etc which will determine its success. As an incentive I will offer a prize draw of £50.

In itself a questionnaire is nothing unless there is a will and consensus to follow up on its conclusions. Also a questionnaire is only part of the input into a process of change. A process that is not about tinkering round the edges but about a full scale review and policy determination.

So the first question is,therefore, do we have a new Council that accepts that there is a groundswell for changes in our Society and are they prepared to fully enter into a process of bringing it about with no preconceptions, no sacred cows!! etc??


PS the Korean's have a saying "frog in the well" - he looks up and can only see a very limited panorama - I do hope our new Council are not going to be like that.

[Peter thornton]

A production engineer once said that his response to every drawing was the same.

Lighten and simplicate.

Breed societies should perhaps take note.