History of the ABC, continued
First Quarter - 2015
Whenever people from diverse backgrounds, education, beliefs, and practices join together, the opportunity for conflict can arise. As the ABC grew, so did the diversity of its members: from all walks of life, all levels of experience with Ameraucanas, and poultry in general, and from all over the country. While disagreements within the ABC were usually resolved amicably, there came a time when there seemed to be no room for compromise or resolution. Following the 2014 election such a dispute arose, with one defeated candidate for office becoming dissatisfied with the ABC. Some folks took sides in the dispute; some remained neutral. About 20 of our members chose to follow the disgruntled candidate to his new Ameraucana club, established in March 2015. The Ameraucana Breeders Club wishes the new club all the best.
While the disagreement played out; sometimes in the public eye, the Board and the members of the ABC were very busy. The website was completely redone, offering more history, more archives, more choices in breeder's directories, more online services (new online membership forms, etc), more visibility for upcoming meets, and results of meets past, and the process for acceptance of the self-blue Ameraucana was started, a new ABC Handbook was released; the list goes on. Here are just a few examples of the progress from the first quarter of 2015:
• New Ameraucana Breeders Club Website:
Starting in early 2015, a complete make-over of the ABC website began. Functionality was increased, with an online membership (for new members and renewals), a searchable and sortable online interactive breeders directory, an archives page with all of the bulletins (that we had available), going back to the very first one, a new page with online meet reports showing results going back to when the ABC points system began in 2012, and eventually, a new, and more user-friendly Ameraucana gallery.
• One of the early priorities for the new website was to remodel the gallery, or scrapbook as it was called then, to make it easier to see the pictures of Ameraucanas, from chick to mature bird. This became a phased project, with the first phase of restructuring the page so that all the images could be seen at a glance. If a website visitor chose to examine a picture more closely, they could just click on that picture and it would bring up a larger image in the middle. This proved to be huge success, but was, by no means, the end of the project.
• The second phase of the Gallery project was to add pictures of the non-standard varieties, so they could also be easily seen and compared. A third page to the gallery, Large Fowl AOV, was added in May 2015 and included images of lavender, mottled, and splash Ameraucana. This phase of the project is ongoing and the next step will be to add AOV pics of the bantams.
• The third, and still ongoing, phase of the gallery is a continuous update of the images displayed. To that end, a monthly Gallery Competition started in June 2017, with a new variety featured each month. Everyone with Ameraucanas was invited to send in their pictures and a team of three well-known poultry judges, Rip Stalvey, Walt Leonard, and Tom Roebuck, reviewed and chose the best images for the website. That monthly Gallery competition continued all the currently accepted varieties had been updated, and the in process variety, self-blue. You can see all the new images by visiting our current gallery at ameraucanabreedersclub.org/gallery.html.
• New Online Membership Form
The online membership form was introduced in early March, 2015 and the first new member signed up on March 8, 2015. Since its introduction, over 300 new members have joined the ABC through the convenience of the online membership form. Existing members have used it, too, for renewals with over 200 ABC members renewing their membership online – simply and quickly. Of course, we still accept mailed-in membership forms, too!
Ameraucana fanciers all over the world were starting to notice the "new" face of the Ameraucana Breeders Club: in just the first quarter of 2015, 46 new members joined the ABC!
Come join us for a celebration of the last 40 years at our 40th Anniversary ABC National Meet at the Dayton Fancy Feathers Show, Greenville, OH on October 6th-7th.
Better yet, join the ABC and get your name tossed in the hat for this year's New Member Drawing - your choice of either a 4 hole bantam show box or a 3 hole LF show box made by Vinson Workman.
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