Dear Friends,

I must begin this newsletter with an apology. It has become our practice to send many thousands of collectible Christmas cards to all of you as a way of saying "Thank You" for your support and custom during the year. This year I am not able to show our appreciation in that way. It is not that we are any less thankful for your custom and for the many friends who have supported us. It is not for lack of finances in this troubled time, though that is a concern for all of us I am sure. No, its because I simply forgot to get started until it was too late. Sorry is usually followed by excuses to explain away the fault, and I guess this one is no different.

So what is the excuse?
It has been a dynamic year, a very full year, a year of challenge, of success and some failures.
The National poultry Show in Canberra was a great highlight, it grows bigger and better each time,and I suggest any of you with a long term view should pencil the 4th National Poultry Show into your calender for 2012.

This was followed soon after by the World's Poultry Congress in Brisbane, a fantastic opportunity to see the World poultry industry and science industry all here in Australia. For the first time since 1962, the pure breeders of poultry were represented at this Congress by the World's Poultry Science Association Stud Breeders and Exhibitors sub committee. This gave us access to a great list of the top scientists and policy makers from round the world. It also opened to us a unique opportunity to glimpse the thinking of these people and their ideas on the future of pure breeds. The ideas they communicated were mindblowing.'
We didn't know that in 2007 there was a UN World Genetics Conference in Interlaken in Switzerland where the future of the food species of the world was debated. It was revealed that of the approx 6000 genetically distinct groups of poultry in the world, what we call breeds, at least 3/4 of them are endangered or status unknown. The Interlaken Declaration on the Conservation of Genetic Stocks could be sumarised by three statements.

1/ Each country of the world has a sovereign right to the genetic stocks within its borders.

2/ Each country has an obligation to document what genetic are within its borders.

3/ Each country has an obligation to evaluate and preserve the genetic materials so discovered.

WOW! So what are our Governments, Federal, State, and Local doing about this? Do they know? And what are we doing about it. And what is the best way to establish and preserve the genetics for th future? And what should we do?

The congress resulted in a Pure Breeds Declaration about the future of the pure breeds of Australia and the right way to go about their preservation. ( the Declaration is shown below) And it was a triumph to see the declaration turn into action on several fronts that I will list later.

Then came the aftermath, after several months of virtually full time work for the Congress, my legs gave out and I was reminded of my limitations. But the work did not stop and the projects which piled up while I was working for the WPC needed to be finished. A major project of specialist incubators for CSL, one of the large vaccine manufacturers took much longer than expected, much new incubation equipment from R Com arrived along with a new Aussie modification to the Bird Pavillion which have made it into an excellent 108 egg incubator topped the major works.

Then came the mistakes. First was a disaster in the development of a new turner for the Bellsouth 100. After 20 years the price of the B100 Swiss motor and gearbox became so expensive we were forced to redesign the system. And the electronics group who had done our design work for more than 25 years messed up the development so badly we had to sack them, which meant the whole season was without our Bellsouth 100 Autoturn.
So we let some of you down in no availability, and no spares.

Then to cap it all, I simply forgot to prepare the mailing for you until it was too late. A reminder I guess of how easy it is to be preoccupied and to miss that which we think is important.

Its always busy at this time of the year, and regardless of all our successes, its our failures that tend to remind us of what is important.
Will you allow me to use my failure, to be a reminder to all of you, to be careful to see what is important?

May this Christmas be a time when you also reflect on the things which are truly important.

My best wishes to you and yours,

Jim Finger.

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