Some causes of Salmonella

Fairwell to our Administrator

by Chris Oberholzer

Chris joined the Society in 1984 as a member of Wesrand Budgerigar Klub WBK). During his membership of WBK he served as club secretary and also as club chairman.

In 1988 Chris joined the Witwatersrand Budgerigar Society (WBS) which later amalgamated with Johannesburg Budgerigar Club to form Premier Budgerigar Club. (PBC). In 2014 he resigned from PBC and joined Gauteng Budgie Club (GBC).

Chris successfully passed his judges test during 1990 and was placed on the BSSA Judges' Panel. In 2013 he applied to be placed on the BSSA Panel of retired judges and this was approved.

At the 1993 AGM of the Governing Body of the BSSA, Chris was elected as National Show Secretary, the office of which he held until 1997 when he was appointed as Administrator of the Society. While he held these offices, he introduced the following:

Because of the adopted system of judging across the colours in 1995, he introduced the system of staging each of the different colours in groups together at the National Championship Show of that year which was held at Eslin Park. This system had been used ever since.

With the assistance of people like the late Fred Sherman, Ian Bleasdale and John Dunlop, he designed and introduced the current set of judges forms.

In 2000 Chris started with the design of a Show Manager software program and obtained the services of a programmer by the name of Clive Munro to write the program. This program was implemented during the 2002 show season when all Championship Shows were successfully run on it until and including the 2005 Area Championship Shows.

After rationalization of show status in 2004 when it was decided to do away with the Beginner status and amendments to the points system, Chris started redesigning the Show Manager program, again with the assistance of Clive Munro and the end product was successfully implemented at the 2005 National Championship Show.

In 2009 a proposal to amend the Show Schedule was received from KABC which required further amendments to the Show Manager program. Chris did the necessary but when he tried to make contact with Clive Munro to change the program, he ended up against a stone wall. He tried to phone and email Clive on many occasions but all in vain - there was no response from Clive. It was as if Clive disappeared from the face of the earth. Various other programmers were approached to change the program but none seemed to be interested with the result that the amendments to the show schedule, until the present, could not be affected.

During 2014, shortly after his 82nd birthday, Chris' health started to deteriorate. He was diagnosed with having a cancerous tumour on his left kidney. He realised that this was the end of the road for him as Administrator and with regret he had to resign the office. On 24 September 2014 the kidney was successfully removed and Chris is currently recuperating from the surgery at home.