The Budgerigar Society of Pakistan Faces the Challenge of Organizing Their First Show
Written By Naveed Ijaz, Edited by Terry A Tuxford
In Pakistan, for the past ten years, English Exhibition Budgerigar Shows have been organised by Cage Birds Society (CBS). Most budgerigar fanciers in the country were not convinced that the procedures were adequate and wanted to improve them.
Therefore, a group of fanciers decided to have form The Budgerigar Society of Pakistan (BSP) to organise shows that operated to International Standards.
Joint Meeting
Most budgerigar fanciers in Pakistan are also members of CBS and it was felt important to avoid any conflict, especially as the cage bird hobby is in its infancy and is being pioneered by CBS.
After initial approaches to Mr. Zafar Iqbal (current President for CBS and BSP) a joint Management meeting was organised under his chairmanship and after a long debate between Mr. Hamid Shah, Mr. Rana Khalid, Mr. Hannad Shakir and Ex-President of CBS Mr. Amir Malik, approval was finally attained from CBS to allow BSP to stage a Budgerigar National Show.
This would allow CBS to concentrate on Cockatiel Shows, however, both societies agreed that they would work together to organise these shows jointly as this will help to improve the overall quality of shows and bird keeping in Pakistan.
Show Sponsorship
To date, no shows in Pakistan had obtained commercial sponsorship and so the considerable burden of cost fell to the organisers.
So with an idea of modern salesmanship; I have worked in Sales and Marketing for the past 10 years and have an MBA, we started working on the options.
Having identified potential sponsors Mr. Zafar Iqbal and I paid them a visit to try and persuade then to give their support.
Following detailed discussions, the Avari Hotel (a part of Hilton Hotel Chain), approved our sponsorship request and although we did have other options open to us we preferred the Avari Hotel as they have professional experience of organising such events.
Avari Hotel also approved a very value for money price for budgie lovers when staying at any of their hotels in Pakistan. Please contact me for further information.
Show Manager and Show Rules
One of the problems we faced was to overcome a view that most of the awards at a show were won by the management team. Because of this it was important that a Show Manager was appointed who was well liked and had a good reputation. Mr. Mobassir Sattar was the candidate and following some persuasion he accepted the position.
BSP are a member of the World Budgerigar Organisation (WBO) and they provided copies of show rules which could be used following local requirements changes. A draft of these has been produced and the Show Manager is pulling them into shape. Once complete they will be available for download at http://www.BudgerigarSocietyofPakistan.Org.
Judges
Having qualified judges to judge shows is a dream of BSP but as this hobby is immature in Pakistan there are no qualified judges and we have not yet got the in depth knowledge or experience to adjudicate for ourselves.
Consequently, we would like to request that if any qualified judge is planning to visit Pakistan who would like to participate and judge our show please contact me.
At the moment the date is flexible but we would anticipate it to be between September 15th and October 10th on a Sunday.
We can offer domestic transport in Pakistan to Lahore plus two nights stay.
My contact details are:
Naveed Ijaz
General Secretary
Budgerigar Society of Pakistan
44-Ferozpur Road, Lahore, Pakistan
Mobile: +92-321-4422502
