Welcome to the last newsletter of 2007. It is amazing how the time flies by and suddenly Christmas is upon us. I will not be bending your ear with a lot of my ?ranting?s? for this newsletter. There is so much other good information you do not need to hear much from me. There is a good message from our President Murray Gore that should make you all think a bit. Also read Don Richardson?s report on the CHA Board meeting in Calgary. A lot of exciting things are happening that you need to know about.
WEBSITE NOW ON LINE
We are pleased to tell you that our website is now on line. Look for it at www.bchereford.com . Anyone who has a website and would wish to link to the BC Hereford site can do so at no charge. Our site is linked to the Canadian Hereford Association and the Canadian Hereford Digest sites.
I did not list any upcoming events as we have them on the website.
Also included is a Junior section and the survey that is included with this letter is there as well. Please take the time to fill out and return to Morgan Godfrey, BCJHA President.
There is a classified section that you can put any animals for sale on as well at no charge, except for pictures. If you wish to be linked or may have any questions or concerns let us know at keithmiller@telus.net
THOMPSON VALLEY BREEDERS
Joan O?Brien, Club Secretary, reports that a meeting was held November 18 and over 30 people attended. A few changes were made for next year and a few new members joined. Directors for 2007 are Maureen Ziemer, Joan O?Brien, Vicky Fairburn, Dena Finlay, Keith Bostock, Geoff O?Brien, Simon Shaw, Rick Hyam, and Neil Turner. President is Dena Finlay, Vice President Maureen Ziemer, Secretary/Treasurer is Joan O?Brien. Maureen Ziemer is the BCHA Board representative for 2007 and 2008.
Dena and Albert Finlay will be hosting a Field Day and BBQ on Saturday July 28, staring at 2 PM with supper at approximately 5 PM. It will be held at their new farm at 1952 Rashdale Road, Armstrong, BC. They will be supplying the meat and refreshments and everyone is asked to bring potluck salads and desserts. They are planning on some fun with judging classes etc and anyone with ideas should let Dena know. There will also be space for anyone wishing to display some animals. Please let Dena know at (250)546-6223 if you want some space to display or have any ideas to make an event like this better. Dena?s email is finlay4-hereford@telus.net
WEST COAST HEREFORD
CLUB AGM
The West Coast Hereford Club held their annual meeting on December 3. One of the items for discussion was the moving of the Evergreen Show & Sale to a fall date. A date in September seemed preferable but a lot would depend on whether or not the Yellowhead Club had a sale in 2007 or not. The date will be announced as soon as final arrangements are made.
A Field Day is also in the planning stages and there was an idea put forward to host the Heifer Challenge at someone?s farm and avoid what many see as a hassle at AgriFair. A July date was proposed for this event and a Bull Calf Jackpot will also be included in the day.
A meeting between the new Manager at the Abbotsford AgriFair and the members of the WCHC will be held soon so that some of the problems can be ironed out. That date has not been set as yet and a phone committee will be letting club members know when that will happen.
Murray Gore remains President and Secretary/Treasurer is Harvey & Suzie Krause. On the Board are Daryl Kirton, Henry Braun,Greg Peter, Vic Redekop, Ross Springford, and Everett Godfrey.
Anyone with ideas for fun and club promotion should contact Murray Gore at (604)951-2306 or Harvey Krause at (604)856-6940. Murray?s email is mgore1@telus.net
YELLOWHEAD HEREFORD CLUB
Congratulations to Don & Leslie Richardson, Tlell, BC on receiving the 2006 People?s Choice Ambassador Award at Farm Fair International in Edmonton in early November. This award recognizes exhibitors who show exceptional effort in promoting their breed, their business and FarmFair International. Exhibitors are evaluated on their ability to market and promote their livestock and the appeal and effectiveness of their stall display. The Peoples Choice is voted on by all Beef, Llama, Alpaca and Goat exhibitors at the fair.
Don & Leslie showed seven head in the open show and took second place ribbons in both a yearling heifer and heifer class as well as a 4th and 6th placing in classes of 10 and 12 head. By the time the week was over they had sold their yearling bull to a commercial operator from Neilburg. Kenny Richardson purchased the high selling cow, carrying a Nacho Man calf, at the Canadian National Hereford Sale from K-Cow Ranch at Elk Point, Alberta.
The Yellowhead Club AGM will be held in April and although no date has been officially set it is generally the evening before the Vanderhoof Bull Sale, which is set for April 14 this year.
The Williams Lake Bull Sale will be held April 20 with the show on the 19th. Deadline for entries is January 19, 2007 for Williams Lake and a January 15 entry deadline for Vanderhoof.
ODDS AND ENDS
Results for the Fort Fraser Test Centre can be found on the Richardson Ranch website and that is linked to the BC Hereford site. I do not have any results as yet from Keremeos and we will have to find a way to get them on the website as well.
Janice Tapp , Secretary/Treasurer of the Yellowhead Club had a good idea in her last newsletter. She suggested a club membership for a friend, relative or customer as a Christmas gift.
You will likely have received your December newsletter from the CHA office. It will include your membership renewal and other information. Remember that the BC Hereford Association gets $50 from every membership you send in, so it does not all stay in Calgary. Some comes back to BC so we can do some promoting of Hereford cattle. The Promotion Committee has been wrestling with what we should be doing in the line of promotions. The joint Breeder/ BC Association advertising promotion dollars has been spent, so where do we go from here. Do we do it again or take another approach? Let us know if you have an idea. Call Murray Gore at the number listed at the end of this newsletter or email him with you an idea.
The Canadian Junior Hereford Association, with the help of CHA has developed a promotional DVD for all 4-H clubs across Canada. Each year we are asked to do something for those 4-H members who show Hereford or Hereford Influence calves across Canada. In 2007 they will be offered a free CJHA membership as well as having their 2007 activation fee paid. The BCHA Board has passed a motion that we will pay the activation fee for any already active Junior members in 2007 as this National promotion does not include any Junior members who were already active paid up members. We will have to be notified by the Junior member that they will wish us to pay this fee for the 2007 year.
The tattoo letter for 2007 is "T" . Calves are to be tattooed before six months of age.
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
By Murray Gore
Thank you to all the Hereford Breeders who took the time out of their busy schedules to make this year's Hereford Influence calf sales a success. We have gone through a couple of tough years in the beef business, and now is the time for breeders to be aggressive in going out and making things happen. We can't expect customers to come to us, we have to get out and sell our product. Those who take the time to mix with potential customers, are rewarded with good sales, this has been a proven fact year after year.
Congratulations to Copper Creek Ranch, on their 2nd Annual Production Sale where they sold cattle to breeders from across Canada, as well as Australia and the United States. Doug and Tanya Simons have done a good job putting the herd together, and the Stevenson's sure know how to put on a great event, as always the food was exceptional.
I would like to thank all the BC breeders who took cattle out to our local fairs and out of the province. It is important that we have Herefords in front of the public as much as possible.
At Canada's National Hereford Show held at the Edmonton Farm Fair this year our BC breeders had some of the best cattle in the barn. Copper Creek won the Reserve National Champion Bull with a calf they bred, and South Alder Farms had the Reserve National Champion Female with a calf they bought at the National Sale the day before.
I think we will see some breeders from other parts of Canada looking to tour through some BC herds next summer looking for new genetics because of the quality of the cattle that BC breeders have taken out and shown.
There is a large commercial bull market in BC, but the other breeds have been out working us so we haven't had the success they have had. It is my sense that BC breeders have recognized this fact and now are trying to correct it. That is why we are seeing more Hereford breeders out promoting their program, as well as visiting past customers. We have the product so let's get out and promote it!!!
If we all work hard as a team 2007 will be the year that Herefords start gaining back the market share. We have to do things a little different and maybe going back to some of the things that worked for us in the past. I would like to see more Hereford events around the province next year put on by the regional clubs, and hope that breeders take the time to support events not only with their local club, but take the time to travel and support breeders outside of their area. We have an awful lot of good events that take place around the province, and have a lot of members that work hard to promote Herefords, now let's all get out and support them.
Things may have been tough for the beef business the last few years, but this is the time of year to reflect back and be thankful of all the good things that are happening. There is an awful lot of enthusiasm amongst Hereford breeders the last few months, and I think it is contagious. Which will mean there will be an awful lot of fun and exciting things to be part of in 2007 such as field days, new shows, and new classes at some of the fairs next summer. All of these events have been planned by Hereford Breeders, they will all require a lot of hard work but that has never slowed Hereford Breeders down.
I would like to wish every one a Merry Christmas, and all the best in the New Year. I look forward to working with you all in making 2007 a success.
CHA Directors Report
by Don Richardson
The CHA fall board meeting took place in Calgary on October 24, 25 and 26. The Executive Committee, consisting of Byron Templeton, CHA President, Victor Oulton, CHA Vice Pres, Garth Charlton, Marketing Committee chair, Walley Pugh, Show Committee chair and Don Richardson, Herd Breed Improvement chair met first early on October 24 to discuss the state of our Hereford industry with the General Manager.
Specifically, we looked for an opinion from the GM as to how he views our position as Hereford breeders in the Canadian Beef industry after one year at the helm of the CHA. This was a "gut check" to be sure and was based both on Gordon Stephenson's personal observations as well as the results of the Ipsos Reid member survey and the KPMG Risk assessment project. From this background the framework for a Marketing plan for 2007/ 08 was recommended to the Marketing committee to bring back to the board.
Candid discussion was held on the "Value of a Pedigree" and how as an association we can add value to the pedigree through data base management. Some interesting discussions were held around the cutting edge science related to the Genome projects which may soon be able to predict estimated progeny differences based on DNA markers and how this could affect a pedigrees value.
The concept of holding a Western National Show at Farmfair, an Eastern National Show at the Royal and the Canadian National Show at Agribition every year was introduced and referred to the show committee for recommendations. Other items of discussion at the executive meeting included the development of Educational programs for members, implications to Beef Alliance which holds our current contract with our IT provider as we move to ABRI for this service, development of an updated Genetic Defect reporting system, human resources at the CHA office, Bonanza sponsorships and Title transfers when the owners name is changed by a change in marital status.
Steve Upham chaired a Pedigree committee meeting on the Tuesday afternoon which is always an in camera meeting. This committee is made up of the current CHA President, Vice President and the Pedigree committee chair who is elected by the board members at the beginning of each year.
A HBI Workshop was held Tuesday evening with the HBI Committee made up of Don Richardson, HBI Chairman; Chad Nicholas, Scott Leason and Randy Radau, the three national directors on the HBI committee; Chuck Fiss and Andy Schuepbach, members at large on the HBI committee and Sean McGrath, technical advisor for the HBI committee.
Other guests in attendance included the following breeders; Bryan Latimer, Grant Hirsche, Jamie O'Shea, Don Gilford, Alvin Pawlitza, Bryan Trueman, Bryon Templeton, Garth Charlton, Wally Pugh, Victor Oulton, Steve Upham, and Dan Gullet. Staff members of the CHA present included the GM Gordon Stephenson, Val Wells, who is responsible for much of the THE program in the office and Lyle Roberts of the National Market Development program. Special guest was John Iversen, Executive board member of Holstein Canada.
Mr. Iversen gave a very informative presentation on the Young Sire program of Holstein Canada, the Holstein classification system, how they handles EPD's, their publication of data on young vs proven sires and he also stated that their Holstein shows are strictly based on phenotype and no EPDs are used when judging their cattle.
The North American Cattle Evaluation was discussed and input sought as to how well the system was working for our breeders here in Canada. It was unanimously agreed that when we next meet with our US counterparts re NACE that we will put forward the Canadian position that we are strongly in favor of "turning on" the module in the ABRI software which will properly place foreign sires into ourEPD system based on their records in the country of origin as well as ties to our data base rather that putting them in at zero, which is the case today.
Plenty of discussion centered around our EPD averages which are not zero and how the uneducated often compare EPD's across breeds and wrongly assume that our +3 BW EPD (which is our breed average) is the same as another breeds +3 which may actually be 3 pounds above their breed average. Discussion about whether our baseline should be changed for marketing purposes was extensive. If we moved to have our BW, MCE and CE EPDs always zero for breed average it may make our numbers appear more appealing from a marketing standpoint but it would undoubtedly create tremendous confusion and would likely jeopardize our integrity. Members agreed that we do have a birth weight issue in our breed and it makes more sense to make the effort to bring our BW EPD down by breeding for lighter BW cattle than by doing it quickly by just changing numbers for easier marketing. The consensus was that we should educate our members and our customers and that we should all become more proficient in our use of the accuracies of EPDs.
Wednesday saw the HBI, Marketing and Show committee meetings. These committees now have provincial representation on them. Daryl Kirton on the Show committee, Ross Springford on the Marketing committee and Don Richardson at the HBI ensured that a BC opinion was expressed in each committee. Many topics were discussed but all recommendations were sent to the board meeting the following day for adoption.
The board meeting reviewed the General Managers Report which indicated that the office is currently 4 weeks behind in processing registrations and Gordon will be hiring another person in the near future to help with the extra work as well as make sure we have trained staff in place to take up the slack when staff is away for holidays or on sick leave.
Gordon also informed us that ABRI, who is contracted to bring us our new IT system, has requested a delay in installation as they work the bugs out of this new software program. It is actually to our advantage that we are to be the second association to move to the new software as many of the problems will have been ironed out prior to our change over. Coincidently, Mike Brooks, our previous IT provider ended his contract with the CHA at the end of October and we have hired a Calgary firm who also works with the Canadian Angus association to cover our IT needs in the interim. The same company has been instructed to review the CHA hardware and software systems which we currently run in the office and make recommendations re upgrades, repairs and replacements. This has been done and the report was very favorable and we can make many of the suggest upgrades with the Federal BSE money. As a result I feel we are finally on our way to a world class cutting edge computer system at the CHA.
The board received a report on the potential to design and operate a Hereford Verified Program at the CHA which would be a data based management program coordinated with the CCIA system. Our position is that we will continue, with caution, to investigate this data base management program.
From time to time, all breed associations experience problems with timely transfer of animals sold. The managers are recommending to their respective boards a standard penalty which was adopted by the CHA board. Transfer fees will remain at $10 when applied for within six months of the date of sale however a $20 fee will be charged if the application is between 6 and 9 months after the sale date and $40 will be charged to transfer an animal greater than 9 months after the date of sale.
Title transfer was discussed and an inequity was pointed out in our system. Prior to our meeting any cattle owned by a man getting married would remain in his name while any cattle owned by the new wife, who choose to take her husband's last name as a result of the marriage, was then charged a title transfer fee even if she still owned the cattle herself. The board adopted the new policy that when a member, who owns cattle, and then changes her name in marriage, the cost of the title transfers is absorbed by the Canadian Hereford Association, as long as there is no change in ownership. If the husband and wife each transfer titles of their cattle to a farm or partnership then this policy will not apply and a title transfer fee will apply.
The HBI committee recommended that a Gestation Length EPD be added to our current trait list and this was carried. Also coming from the HBI committee were several action items. The first was to see the development of a standard set of contemporary groups to be used by all THE members including a drop down menu for online users. Second action item was to take the issue of foreign bulls coming into NACE at zero and have the module at ABRI "turned on" so that these animals genetic worth are more fairly represented in our data base. Third the committee recommended that the CHA maintain it's policy of not accepting "taped" weights as research indicates they are not accurate enough to be useful.
The HBI committee will be meeting with representatives from USA, Argentina and Uruguay over the next few years as we work toward a Pan American Cattle Evaluation. The next meeting will be at Denver Stock Show in January.
The Marketing committee recommended adoption of the strategy to "Focus on marketing bulls into commercial cattle herds in Canada". This will be a very easy program to monitor for success as we have a good handle on transfers each year. In 2005 248 bulls were transferred by BC breeders and I expect you will see similar numbers for 2006. The goal will be for all breeders to strive to increase our market share so that we increase this by 15% in the next two years. BC directors will be asked to coordinate their efforts to support this initiative. If all provinces buy in then we can all focus our combined ads on the same effort. The goal is to unite everyone in the breed to work towards a common goal, of concentrating our marketing efforts on the sale of bulls to the commercial cattle industry.
A report was received on the success of the Hereford Business School held this fall and plans were presented to have the Marketing component delivered at Farm Fair, Agribition and the Ontario AGM. There are also plans to produce Webinars and DVD's on the Marketing, Cost of Production and Farm Business Plan modules.
The purebred risk assessment project was presented by Duncan Porteous the evening prior to the board meeting and it was decided by the board to develop a one sheet key point summary and action plan for the membership.
There was considerable discussion re meeting times and travel costs associated with meetings both to the CHA and to the directors which take time away from their businesses.
For 2007 it is recommended that the committee meetings will only be held once in the year during Hereford Week in Canada.
The date of the next CHA Board meeting will be Feb 21 and 22 in Calgary. If any members have issues you wish me to raise on your behalf please phone me at 250-557-4348 or email me at docdon@qcislands.net .
