Open PTO to local poultry clubs?

windwalkingwolf · Post by **windwalkingwolf** » Tue Feb 16, 2016 8:36 pm

I agree with all points. What I'm wondering is the reasoning for the "no" votes. Makes me think I'm missing something :chicken peck2:

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Tue Feb 16, 2016 10:31 pm

Speaking from experience, the club internet presence is probably great idea, who's time hasn't come yet.
I set up and ran a website for a local poultry club for 5 years, and in the end the poor thing died from complete lack of interest.
Unless the club has a secretary who is actually willing to make the connection and keep it up, it's going to be hard slog.
On the other hand things might have changed in last few years and I would be very happy to see that. :)

baronrenfrew · Post by **baronrenfrew** » Wed Feb 17, 2016 6:20 am

I guess the bottom line is: how much time and effort do we put into a club or website when the focus is really the birds or the farm. Unless you are in to make money (that's called a business, and some of us are in the business of chickens which is not a bad thing) most of us are independent PITAs and don't want to spend our spare time running a website (which takes more time and effort than I thought it did).

You can take the people who come to this site and put them into groups the first four are here often: 1.retired (and looking for something to do); 2. Self employed and work from home (and want a diversion from work to clear their head such as myself); 3. Seasonal workers (and are here on their off season including farmers and gardeners); 4. Geeks or overly technical and smart people who are into birds and who seek a platform to show the world how smart they are (I am a bit guilty here and with all this talk of poultry genetics I know I'm not alone)
the next group is here on occasion 5. folks with an immediate short term need such as to sell or buy something or an animal health problem to deal with. Once that need is filled they might not drop in again for a year or more. Given the seasonal nature of poultry this is likely the largest group of folks. I am certainly one who migrated from group 5 to group 2.

And I suspect that those who voted "no" to the proposal to reach out to clubs are concerned with a few things such as attracting people who wish to takeover or crowd out the voices of the folks who are here and would change the "atmosphere" of this site. I am happy to be a "big fish in a small pond" of regulars here and I am equally happy to be joined by more fish.
The best thing in my mind is that we don't have to worry much about this site turning into an unwelcome place due to the moderators we have and the good job they do.

Post by **poultry_admin** » Wed Feb 17, 2016 7:34 am

OC and Baronrenfrew,
couldn't have put it into words any better myself. And thanks for the compliments, but they go right back at all of you! We moderators had 2-4 posts that we were involved with so far, out of well over 7500! And I used the word "involved" lightly because they were not "hey, you are out of line here" involvements. They were wrong location of posts and the like. You guys are setting a great tone!

To Baron's groups, I would like to add two additional groups as our target audience in this exercise.
1) youngsters (4H) in specific. Who need help with their hobby and a lot of good information (which we have here and offer freely). Who can't and don't want to wait until the next meeting a month from now.
2) People who live in the boonies who can't imagine driving an hour on some evening to see other people who have the same hobby, just to drive back again. But they will show up for the shows and trade days....
For both of these an online forum is a great addition to the club (not replacement!). And as mentioned before, if everyone of these clubs creates their own forum, I guess it's going to be a pretty lonely place. If they have 30 members each, they would have approx. 2 frequent posters if I were to apply our statistics. For someone who maintains the forum, that is worst case. Time spent, to get it going, but not enough traction to make it worth while. Without it the webpage becomes static and people go there to pick up the new dates of the next show only.

We admins have discussed the approach for the 4H kids, but decided we approach you guys with the clubs first, at least we have a strategy there. We have no good idea how 4H works, is structured, what needs they have, and how we can support them, .... So I guess I officially ask everyone for some input and discussion how we can help 4H.

And please guys, keep in mind that we are discussing an offer to the clubs. Some clubs will see it like us, some won't. Both is fine, as long as they knew they had an option.

So, I know of the two I mentioned earlier, Sarnia and now the group in Oxford, Rideay. But that is the extend of my list. Anyone else have anything?

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Wed Feb 17, 2016 9:56 am

Perhaps one way to approach this is to start with Feather Fancier, in some ways PTO is an online version of the paper.
If the feather Fancier had an internet presence, you would just do a courtesy publishing of each others websites ?
Perhaps taking a "small display ad" in Feather Fancier may be one way to introduce PTO to the various Clubs ?

Post by **Home Grown Poultry** » Wed Feb 17, 2016 10:10 am

thanks for the input guys! great info and thank you very much!

OC I really like your idea of putting an add in the FF in order to reach out!

Post by **poultry_admin** » Sat Feb 20, 2016 7:49 pm

I would like to officially welcome the Sarnia Poultry, Pigeon & Pet Stock Association as the first club joining forces.
You can find details about them in the directory (meeting times, locations, ...)
Clubs have a purple diamond shape on the map, so they are easy to identify. When we have more online, it should be fairly easy to find the closest club to you.

Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)