This Year has proven to be one of the most challenging years for me personally within the SAGPS. The agenda's of individuals can so often stifle the achievement of the targeted goals within the SAGPS.
These are a few or part of the bigger frustrations that are real on a daily basis, that need to be accepted and planned around going forward, without loosing the momentum of the club as it grows into the next decade.
- The obsession with long coated breeds in SA leaves very little room for the promotion of the short & rough coated breeds, to the point where purely bred Abyssinians are no longer present on the show bench.
- The launch of the new breed standard introducing many more of the international breeds to our breed standard, with only been able to train up two of the existing judges as all breed judges, giving room for the Skinny breed to be able to make its way on the show bench in 2015 as planned.
- Internal politics, laced with unclear own agendas, meaning buffering or hampering the movement forward due to human self issues or physical situations.
- The split that occurred a year ago, is only now taking its real toll as one realises that as long as people refuse to accept each other and the differences, the actual breeds of Guinea Pigs in South Africa will suffer.
- Part of this "toll" is the price that we pay for severing the genetic pool of the breeds in South Africa into two, and the ruling of this due to name changing on registered pigs, not to allow these registered name changed pigs to be bred with under SAGPS registration due to pedigree integrity.
- The constant pulling of new members between the two groups, we appear to have so many rules, as far as registration goes, with good intention of keeping pedigree data pure, how do new members understand this, or even fully grasp the intention behind this notion.
These are a few or part of the bigger frustrations that are real on a daily basis, that need to be accepted and planned around going forward, without loosing the momentum of the club as it grows into the next decade.