Chairman's Report
Uploaded February 2007

As you know Christine Coe and I are representing the Berkshire breed on the newly formed BPA Committees. Chris is on the Pork Committee chaired by Bryan Card and I am on the Technical committee chaired by Alan Rose and the Pedigree Committee, which I also Chair.

At the time of writing the Pork Committee is at the Good Food Show promoting Pedigree Pork, and the Technical committee have already held a meeting in London with representatives of DEFRA .
The Pedigree Committee met last month to elect judges and nominate judges for the Royal Show in 2008.1 am glad to say John Johnston has joined the Berkshire judges list, Charles Bull has been added to the all Traditional Breeds list and Sharon Barnfield to the All Breeds list. (For details of Judges for all BPA breeds see their website www.britishpigs.org)

Other matters coming under the remit of this committee include Show & Sale, Workshops, Summer and Winter Primestock Shows, Breed Standards, Bloodline Surveys, AI and more. As this is a very large committee with 21 members, much of the work coming under its auspices will probably be undertaken by smaller working groups.

The Primestock show at Stafford took place on 19tn November and thanks to John Herbert and Christine Vaughan this year sees the introduction of live classes. I do hope some Berkshires will be there to compete and that next year will see an over all increase in live pigs numbers.

Smithfield, at the Bath and West Showground for the first time, took place on 1st and 2nd of December. The BPA provided a demonstration with 11 pairs of pigs from all its breeds except Hampshire and Pietrain. This had been organized by Martin Snell and the Berkshires are being provided by Hannah Rose, daughter of Alan. Nick Hunkin undertook his inimitable commentary.

The AI Project which collects semen for long term storage for the RBST, and is run by Robert Overend at Deerpark in Northern Ireland, is looking for another intake of boars for sometime early next year. In the Berkshire breed the lines needed are Peter Lad, Ambassador, Orlando and Lassetter. If you have a boar of any of these lines, born from May 06 onwards that you think might be suitable please let Jo Wykes-Sneyd or me know. Please include pedigree details and date of birth. Any possible boars will have to be tested on farm of origin (we will let you have details of test required) before being approved by Steve Loveless on Robert Overend's behalf, and moved to Steve's premises in Dorset for quarantine and training.

As you will see from elsewhere in this newsletter we are anxious to make a start on a Bloodline survey of our breed as it is some time since this was done. We need to know the state of all the lines in the breed and we need to assist the BPA in getting its computer information fully up to date with all dead pigs removed from the programme. Hopefully a number of you are doing this on line already.

A new breed leaflet is under way and we are updating our old leaflets in the meantime with a piece on Berkshire meat written by Sue Fildes, which will be used to cover up the out of date address page. Hopefully we will have the new ones available in time for the AGM next year and meanwhile if you need any of the others to be going on with please let Sharon know.

It was great to see so many Berkshires at Newbury in September, with well-supported classes as well as a record turn out of 17 in the Champion of Champions on Sunday. Congratulations to Christine Dunlop on winning the Breed Chamionship. Please see Sue Filde's report for more details.

Having been lucky enough to qualify for the Champion of Champions at the Great Yorkshire I was so pleased there was still time to enter the open boar class Newbury. My old boy, Moorsholm Peter Lad lltn* bred by George Hutchinson and Brian Eeles, who will be 7 in January, greatly enjoyed his outing under the watchful eye of Jenny Brett. We were, I think, very fortunate to win a handsome trophy with so many good boars competing including a particularly splendid Oxford Sandy & Black boar from Nick Hunkin.

The Sunday of the Champion of Champions Final was a very warm day and Chris Pen rice had a very thorough look at all 17 pigs. There were many really good Berkshires and I am not surprised that the class took a long time. Once again "Peter", very ably shown by Steve Loveless, seemed to take it in his stride and not get too overheated. However it was a great surprise and thrill to hear that he had won, and to receive the Jo Clarke Memorial Trophy from her daughter Sarah Martin. Jo was an extremely successful and dedicated breeder of Berkshires and a close friend to many of us until her untimely death from cancer. We are all very grateful to Sarah who drove up & back from Cornwall on the day in order to present the Trophy. It was also so good to see Hilary Bruce and the PG Wodehouse Society who generously sponsor our Championship and actively promote our splendid breed.

For those of you who haven't yet shown at Newbury on the 3rd weekend in September, do put it in your calendar for next year. I don't think pig exhibitors anywhere are better looked after than at Newbury by Mick Crockford and his team. Next year they will be offering a Veteran's class for Any Registered Pig born before 1st September 2002. Pigs do not necessarily need to be still breeding but must be in the Herd book. There will be a Trophy and cash prize money so if you have something older but still beautiful in your herd do please bring him or her.

Finally I would like to wish all Berkshire Club members a very good Christmas and a happy and successful 2007. I look forward to seeing as many people as possible at the AGM next year. Once again Chris Coe and Kevin will be a our generous hosts, and have agreed to have the meeting a little later than usual as I am hoping to be judging in New Zealand in February. For more details on the AGM, please click here.

Viki Mills
Chairman

Tel:01363 82465 or 07843 301903
email victoria.mchugh@virgin.net