Parrot Nation

Steve Malowski with the Keas

You know, the more I think about this “Summit” jazz, the better I like it. I’m not looking at it as a particularly fun event because I have a feeling that people might be a little tense. There is a lot at stake here: Such as the future of the field of Aviculture.

While I would love to participate, I wouldn’t even begin to presume to doing so unless we needed a person representing: overworked bird people who barely have enough time to fix a meal for themselves because they’re too damned busy cleaning a cage and getting the damned dried mango off of the wall before they have to leave for work.

 Who I want to see there and what I would like them to discuss are just my opinion. Other people have made comments and added some really great ideas. But I’m sure that the people chosen to represent their field will do a bang-up job because they already will be armed with more information than I could possibly dig up.

I don’t know the facts and figures and I don’t have the data. Sometimes when I speak to people in the field, I’m amazed at the amount of information they have access to. I mean, some of it is really fascinating. And it’s incredible what you could do with this data. And there would be a few other problems with me participating. I’m not really an expert at anything. I am first and foremost, a writer and a blogger. I haven’t been in the field long enough to know the history of the field like other people. And besides, I’d probably do it better justice writing about it.

There are many people who are familiar with the issues and would know how to do this and be able to pinpoint what needs to be accomplished. I’m confident that with a group effort, we could cover a lot of ground in a short time.

Do I know a few things? Yup. But that was a result of literally thousands of hours of reading and participating in seminars and listening to the people who are experts.

If it wasn’t for Steve Malowski, I wouldn’t know how to band a penguin. I know that’s an odd, “for instance…” but I like the fact that I know how to do that. I’m not real sure knowing how to band a penguin is the most applicable piece of information in the day-to-day. I mean, it’s not like knowing how to do an oil change, but hey, what the hell…

This subject has been brought up frequently lately: What is our future? Where do we go from here? And what’s going to happen to the field? I think if we came to terms with some of the issues and began to at least try to work together, we might be able to improve the situation.

Now I may be naïve, but I am not so unsophisticated as to believe that “It’s all about the birds.” You know that we’ve had that discussion here before. That’s like believing that major airlines are all about providing you with safe, reliable transportation, friendly service, on time arrivals and never losing your bag. I know better because I’ve worked in the industry for almost 25 years and you know better because not one of you has ever not had a bag lost, a late arrival or a crabby agent.

But unless we work some of this out, we’re pulling in opposite directions which only adds to the problem. While not knowing if this has ever been attempted before, and not knowing Thing 1 or even Thing 2 about event planning, I’m just throwing it out there and see if there is any interest.

So there you have it. My first post was a general posting about the whole deal. And this is simply a follow up  with a few more scratches on a somewhat empty white board. I have stated that I don’t have all of the answers and haven’t thought the entire thing out because, while I am aware of some of the issues at hand, I don’t know all of them. I wish I even knew how to frame this event up. And as I said, God knows I have no experience with event planning.

But I am confident that it is indeed possible to at least get some of the issues out on the table and come up with some workable solutions.

At least I hope so.