Hello again
We have a Council Meeting next week, so I don't really want to comment too much on comments.
I certainly appreciate the comments and am taking on board all that has been said. I feel that the passions aroused can do nothing but good for the breed. Just as long as we all consider others views.
If nothing else the Bulletin issue looks as though it will provide the Council with lots of new blood come election time.
One comment concerning the Bulletin - have those vociferous members gone along to their local support groups and checked out other opinions ? The question of a change in Bulletin format plus an Annual Journal was put to my local group or stay as we are. The result even surprised me, 22 in favour of trying something new against 2 asking to stay as we are.
Keeping up the Momentum
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Duncan MacIntyre
- Posts: 2372
- Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2004 12:38 am
- Location: Isle of Bute, Scotland, UK
If it is not broke don't fix it. Neither the Bulletin nor the Council are in my opinion so burst that they cannot be fixed. The Bulletin is perhaps the simpler case. We have a few vociferous members wishing to ditch it, but a vociferous majority in favour of retaining it. The alternative is a so called year book an example of which I have in front of me now, from the Highland cattle society. Much bigger number of members, 4000 plus bulls registered and 7000 females per year, much higher percentage of members earning their living from the cattle. The year book is to a certain extent impressive on first sight. But over 30% of the 150 pages are seriously professional adverts for herds. That costs money. Will Dexter breeders fork out? I think not. At least not to that extent. A large proportion of the pages are show results. Some who find the Dexter Bulletin boring would die a death trying even to read it all let alone find it interesting. A few pages are reports from regional groups. A few more, but a tiny proportion of the publication, are serious articles on the breed. Some pages are lists of owners and herd, does not even tell us why they are being listed. A few more are regulations.
Lets keep our bulletin as it is,
Lets all try to find something worth contributing.
The Council has come in for a lot of criticism, but we have just at the tail end of last year elected a new one. There are a number of new members, and there has been a lot of criticism of the old members, not all of it public and not all of it on this site. There are signs that members are listening. So I feel we should give it all a chance to settle down, and we should be thinking of who we would like to see elected to council this year. After all one third of council is replaced each year. If we were to cause a revolution and replace 100% of council in a year where would we be? But we can replace it all a bit at a time and ensure that those remaining for their second or third year carry forward some of what was good of the old style, but bring their own new ideas. That is how it is supposed to work, but the members must put forward new candidates every year.
Duncan
Lets keep our bulletin as it is,
Lets all try to find something worth contributing.
The Council has come in for a lot of criticism, but we have just at the tail end of last year elected a new one. There are a number of new members, and there has been a lot of criticism of the old members, not all of it public and not all of it on this site. There are signs that members are listening. So I feel we should give it all a chance to settle down, and we should be thinking of who we would like to see elected to council this year. After all one third of council is replaced each year. If we were to cause a revolution and replace 100% of council in a year where would we be? But we can replace it all a bit at a time and ensure that those remaining for their second or third year carry forward some of what was good of the old style, but bring their own new ideas. That is how it is supposed to work, but the members must put forward new candidates every year.
Duncan
Duncan MacIntyre
Burnside Dexters 00316
Burnside
Ascog
Isle of Bute
Burnside Dexters 00316
Burnside
Ascog
Isle of Bute
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Duncan MacIntyre
- Posts: 2372
- Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2004 12:38 am
- Location: Isle of Bute, Scotland, UK
If it is not broke don't fix it. Neither the Bulletin nor the Council are in my opinion so burst that they cannot be fixed. The Bulletin is perhaps the simpler case. We have a few vociferous members wishing to ditch it, but a vociferous majority in favour of retaining it. The alternative is a so called year book an example of which I have in front of me now, from the Highland cattle society. Much bigger number of members, 4000 plus bulls registered and 7000 females per year, much higher percentage of members earning their living from the cattle. The year book is to a certain extent impressive on first sight. But over 30% of the 150 pages are seriously professional adverts for herds. That costs money. Will Dexter breeders fork out? I think not. At least not to that extent. A large proportion of the pages are show results. Some who find the Dexter Bulletin boring would die a death trying even to read it all let alone find it interesting. A few pages are reports from regional groups. A few more, but a tiny proportion of the publication, are serious articles on the breed. Some pages are lists of owners and herd, does not even tell us why they are being listed. A few more are regulations.
Lets keep our bulletin as it is,
Lets all try to find something worth contributing.
The Council has come in for a lot of criticism, but we have just at the tail end of last year elected a new one. There are a number of new members, and there has been a lot of criticism of the old members, not all of it public and not all of it on this site. There are signs that members are listening. So I feel we should give it all a chance to settle down, and we should be thinking of who we would like to see elected to council this year. After all one third of council is replaced each year. If we were to cause a revolution and replace 100% of council in a year where would we be? But we can replace it all a bit at a time and ensure that those remaining for their second or third year carry forward some of what was good of the old style, but bring their own new ideas. That is how it is supposed to work, but the members must put forward new candidates every year.
Duncan
Lets keep our bulletin as it is,
Lets all try to find something worth contributing.
The Council has come in for a lot of criticism, but we have just at the tail end of last year elected a new one. There are a number of new members, and there has been a lot of criticism of the old members, not all of it public and not all of it on this site. There are signs that members are listening. So I feel we should give it all a chance to settle down, and we should be thinking of who we would like to see elected to council this year. After all one third of council is replaced each year. If we were to cause a revolution and replace 100% of council in a year where would we be? But we can replace it all a bit at a time and ensure that those remaining for their second or third year carry forward some of what was good of the old style, but bring their own new ideas. That is how it is supposed to work, but the members must put forward new candidates every year.
Duncan
Duncan MacIntyre
Burnside Dexters 00316
Burnside
Ascog
Isle of Bute
Burnside Dexters 00316
Burnside
Ascog
Isle of Bute
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Duncan MacIntyre
- Posts: 2372
- Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2004 12:38 am
- Location: Isle of Bute, Scotland, UK
If it is not broke don't fix it. Neither the Bulletin nor the Council are in my opinion so burst that they cannot be fixed. The Bulletin is perhaps the simpler case. We have a few vociferous members wishing to ditch it, but a vociferous majority in favour of retaining it. The alternative is a so called year book an example of which I have in front of me now, from the Highland cattle society. Much bigger number of members, 4000 plus bulls registered and 7000 females per year, much higher percentage of members earning their living from the cattle. The year book is to a certain extent impressive on first sight. But over 30% of the 150 pages are seriously professional adverts for herds. That costs money. Will Dexter breeders fork out? I think not. At least not to that extent. A large proportion of the pages are show results. Some who find the Dexter Bulletin boring would die a death trying even to read it all let alone find it interesting. A few pages are reports from regional groups. A few more, but a tiny proportion of the publication, are serious articles on the breed. Some pages are lists of owners and herd, does not even tell us why they are being listed. A few more are regulations.
Lets keep our bulletin as it is,
Lets all try to find something worth contributing.
The Council has come in for a lot of criticism, but we have just at the tail end of last year elected a new one. There are a number of new members, and there has been a lot of criticism of the old members, not all of it public and not all of it on this site. There are signs that members are listening. So I feel we should give it all a chance to settle down, and we should be thinking of who we would like to see elected to council this year. After all one third of council is replaced each year. If we were to cause a revolution and replace 100% of council in a year where would we be? But we can replace it all a bit at a time and ensure that those remaining for their second or third year carry forward some of what was good of the old style, but bring their own new ideas. That is how it is supposed to work, but the members must put forward new candidates every year.
Duncan
Lets keep our bulletin as it is,
Lets all try to find something worth contributing.
The Council has come in for a lot of criticism, but we have just at the tail end of last year elected a new one. There are a number of new members, and there has been a lot of criticism of the old members, not all of it public and not all of it on this site. There are signs that members are listening. So I feel we should give it all a chance to settle down, and we should be thinking of who we would like to see elected to council this year. After all one third of council is replaced each year. If we were to cause a revolution and replace 100% of council in a year where would we be? But we can replace it all a bit at a time and ensure that those remaining for their second or third year carry forward some of what was good of the old style, but bring their own new ideas. That is how it is supposed to work, but the members must put forward new candidates every year.
Duncan
Duncan MacIntyre
Burnside Dexters 00316
Burnside
Ascog
Isle of Bute
Burnside Dexters 00316
Burnside
Ascog
Isle of Bute
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Duncan MacIntyre
- Posts: 2372
- Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2004 12:38 am
- Location: Isle of Bute, Scotland, UK
Emphasis by repetition not intentional. I am just on line at home after a week of having access only whilst at work, and things not running too smoothly. My screen says "page cannot be displayed" whilst you poor souls are having to read my rant all over again. Sorry.
Duncan
Duncan
Duncan MacIntyre
Burnside Dexters 00316
Burnside
Ascog
Isle of Bute
Burnside Dexters 00316
Burnside
Ascog
Isle of Bute
Ted, firstly, I would ask how representative is the membership of your group, it certainly does not reflect the response shown on this message-board. I myself have not met one member who is not 100% in favour of retaining the Bulletin. I am always uneasy when we have a vote taken at the AGM, cited as the view of the membership.
The Bulletin provides an umbilical cord to the small member with one or two cows kept as a hobby, who may not be in a position to reach meetings. I have just heard the reaction of one such member, having just read of the Bulletin’s demise through the pages of the Bulletin itself ‘But that is all we get out of the membership’.
Duncan your message was good enough to bear repetition, although I admit some bewilderment at the third turn. At least it generated a laugh; if it’s any consolation I did the same thing on the BBC farming site not long ago, without even the excuse that it was the fault of the computer.
I was interested in the information about the Highland Book, it is catering for a totally different membership, and our bulletin at present manages to tread the very fine line of satisfying the necessity to provide a flagship to the world, and an interesting read for the majority of small members. We need to provide enough contributions to give Eileen the opportunity to keep it going, and Eileen has assured me she would be willing to do so, but she does need that backing.
The Bulletin provides an umbilical cord to the small member with one or two cows kept as a hobby, who may not be in a position to reach meetings. I have just heard the reaction of one such member, having just read of the Bulletin’s demise through the pages of the Bulletin itself ‘But that is all we get out of the membership’.
Duncan your message was good enough to bear repetition, although I admit some bewilderment at the third turn. At least it generated a laugh; if it’s any consolation I did the same thing on the BBC farming site not long ago, without even the excuse that it was the fault of the computer.
I was interested in the information about the Highland Book, it is catering for a totally different membership, and our bulletin at present manages to tread the very fine line of satisfying the necessity to provide a flagship to the world, and an interesting read for the majority of small members. We need to provide enough contributions to give Eileen the opportunity to keep it going, and Eileen has assured me she would be willing to do so, but she does need that backing.
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Broomcroft
- Posts: 3005
- Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2006 4:42 am
- Location: Shropshire, England
- Contact:
Hello
I'm not sure this is exactly on the subject, but we have a substantial herd of dexters for beef and apart from getting registrations, I have to say that the society does nothing for us (Sorry to be blunt, but that's how it is). They miss huge opportunities re beef promotion and looking at the website for example, beef doesn't even exist! or at least I can't find anything.
Other dexter beef producers I have spoken to feel much the same, which is a shame.
In my opinion, there are three reasons for the society, beef, beef and beef. I hope the new council makes big changes in our direction so that when Penny Hodgson wins a taste award for her beef, just as an example, it goes on the front cover instead of being hardly mentioned.
I'm not sure this is exactly on the subject, but we have a substantial herd of dexters for beef and apart from getting registrations, I have to say that the society does nothing for us (Sorry to be blunt, but that's how it is). They miss huge opportunities re beef promotion and looking at the website for example, beef doesn't even exist! or at least I can't find anything.
Other dexter beef producers I have spoken to feel much the same, which is a shame.
In my opinion, there are three reasons for the society, beef, beef and beef. I hope the new council makes big changes in our direction so that when Penny Hodgson wins a taste award for her beef, just as an example, it goes on the front cover instead of being hardly mentioned.
Clive
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groubearfarm
- Posts: 169
- Joined: Fri Oct 01, 2004 1:52 pm
- Location: Tiverton Devon
The web site is only as good as the information which is given, perhaps you could be more specific about suggestions on your ideas for including beef on the DCS site. We are always looking for new ideas to make it more intersting for members and would be pleased to consider any new ideas. Fiona
Fiona Miles
Groubear Dexters 31527
Groubear Farm
Cruwys Morchard
Devon
Groubear Dexters 31527
Groubear Farm
Cruwys Morchard
Devon
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Broomcroft
- Posts: 3005
- Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2006 4:42 am
- Location: Shropshire, England
- Contact:
Hello
With regards to my views that beef is not properly represented / promoted by the society, if I have raised some hackles, I apologise, that is not my intent. I am going to raise the issue in another way rather than do it online because it's not the right environment.
So over and out on this one.
Clive
With regards to my views that beef is not properly represented / promoted by the society, if I have raised some hackles, I apologise, that is not my intent. I am going to raise the issue in another way rather than do it online because it's not the right environment.
So over and out on this one.
Clive
Clive
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Kathy Millar
- Posts: 725
- Joined: Wed May 19, 2004 4:53 pm
- Location: Vancouver Island, BC, Canada
Clive
If you can't raise the issue of beef on this site, that is a pity, as there are quite a large number of us out there who do mainly breed for a better carcase, winning at shows is a bonus, but at the end of the day if you can't sell the beef for a reasonable price, then no one is going to keep large numbers of dexters, why not start another discussion under the heading beef?
If you can't raise the issue of beef on this site, that is a pity, as there are quite a large number of us out there who do mainly breed for a better carcase, winning at shows is a bonus, but at the end of the day if you can't sell the beef for a reasonable price, then no one is going to keep large numbers of dexters, why not start another discussion under the heading beef?
If getting your bulletin magazine printed has become too expensive, why not put it up on your Dexter Website, so that everyone can read it, without the need for postage.
In NZ, our Council members have to have most of their meetings by tele-conferencing, because the cost of air travel is just too expensive when you have to meet every few months. They do have a face-to-face meeting twice a year (I think), but one of those can be at the annual Dexter Conference and AGM. It helps to keep the Society's costs down.
In NZ, our Council members have to have most of their meetings by tele-conferencing, because the cost of air travel is just too expensive when you have to meet every few months. They do have a face-to-face meeting twice a year (I think), but one of those can be at the annual Dexter Conference and AGM. It helps to keep the Society's costs down.
Inger
NZ
NZ