ADCA advises members they have chosen ABRI !

[jamshundred]

In their quest to keep up with and or try to best Legacy. .. . . . ADCA leadership has tended to make bad choices not in the best interests of the membership and for which they footed the bill.   ADCA members have been clamoring for the same services those using Legacy receive and ADCA has announced their new pedigree service provider, ARBI in Australia.   This has been the same pedigree services DCAI ( Dexter Cattle Australia) has used to maintain their pedigree records.    One has to wonder, if the shoulder so many members of ADCA leadership lean on has yet again led them down the primrose path?

Australia seems to be less glowingly enthusiastic about ABRI than ADCA involved persons who have expressed such enthusiasm and excitement on Facebook.     Read if for yourself.   The text is copied and posted, and a photo of the page is copied to provide authenticity.

THIS EDITION



This E-Bulletin has caught up on the Breed Show results and achievements for 2015 and includes

some information for those planning to show in 2016. Queensland Breed Show 2016 is the 25th

anniversary show so read up on the program and start planning.



Pestivirus testing has now been introduced for Victorian shows. Information on where to test

and a retrospective article on pestivirus has been included in this edition.



An article by Beryl Rutherford provides an interesting read about productivity and milking that

may be of interest to many of you working toward sustainable milk production.



Don't forget to email your news and articles through for the coming newsletter scheduled for

mid April.



DCAI SERVICES

What's happening with ABRI?

At the 2015 AGM, Council announced a project to investigate how we can get better value for

money from our service provider.

ABRI is our current service provider, and our contract with them is due to expire on 31 May

2016.

What's been happening since the AGM

The first step was to identify what alternatives we had. Council would like to thank Robyn Herring

and acknowledge her work in researching how other cattle associations provide Herdbook and

member services.

The most feasible options seem to be:

Stay with ABRI

Find another organisation like ABRI

ABRI has been advised that DCAI is looking at alternatives. ABRI has responded with an offer to

upgrade DCAI to the latest version of its Herdbook database, which it says will be much more

efficient, and cost effective, than the current system.



The next step was to document a 'Scope of Work' which sets out exactly what we want our

service provider to do for us, and what standards we expect. For example how long it will take

to process a registration / transfer.

Only one other organisation that provides Herdbook services has been identified - Livestock

and Business Services (LBC), based in Kiama.

The scope of work has been sent to both LBC and ABRI.

A Councillor has done a follow up visit with LBC to go over the scope of work in detail.



A Councillor has been talking with other Associations that use LBC, to get their feedback.

A Councillor has visited ABRI and seen the new database system in operation.

ABRI has been asked to respond to the scope of work by 11 th March.



What are the next steps?



Once we have a response to the scope of work from ABRI, Council will undertake an evaluation

looking at issues such as on-going and transition costs, efficiency, security of data, transition

timetable ete.



A decision will then be made if DCA I will stay with ABRI, or move to LB(, and a transitional
timetable developed.



Whether we ultimately stay with ABRI or move to an alternative there will need to be a transition

process with ABRI as well, as ABRI will have to transition our data to the new database.

The next update will outline Council's decision, and the transition timetable.



Members will be advised well in advance if there needs to be a period of time when Herdbook

transactions cannot be processed during the transition.



If you have any questions about this process, please contact any of the Councillors for more

information.



Regards,

Paula McPherson DCAI President

[jamshundred]

You all trying to ignore this . .. . . hoping it will go away.  Probably not.  Put a rubber band around the wallet and the checkbook.    Does anyone really think this will not end up costing them money?  Just the postage alone will probably make the teeth loosen.   A company with 75 employees has 75 employees to pay.  One of the reasons the ADCA registry wasn't privatized 10 years ago was the cost to it.   I think about twice of the registrar's stipend.   

[Deleted]

Not ignoring just dont care. I dont use the ADCA it doesn't affect me at all what ever they do.

[lakeportfarms]

Why are you trying to save them Judy? I've pointed out the member interface to the pedigree software that Australia and the other customers have, and it looks like they're going backwards. Unless they totally revamp the display it will not go over well, because like it or not most people are visually oriented, otherwise we'd still be using Compuserve and AOL (apologies to those few remaining AOL members).

[sharethelegacy]

LOL Hans!   I just like to point out to ADCA members how little say they have in their association and how little their opinions matter.  Since the revamping of the rules and new corporate filing removed all their rights established in the association prior to those filings,  the only rights ADCA members have now are those the leadership chooses to give the appearance of allowing them, but even then ADCA makes sure the outcome is what they want before they give the members a voice.

And my goodness, how they try to influence them with shoddy methods.  Some months ago, in order to appease those who think their Legacy registrations should be honored they printed a quote from me that dated to 2007.  Many of us around for more than time it takes our coffee to cool knew how exactly who inspired that brilliant idea.  ( oxymoron).    They had to go back 8 years to find something that met their agenda.  Why, in 2007 Legacy hadn't even taken the registry public, or started the testing services.  We were just focusing on getting breeders to preserve the dwindling preservation bloodlines.  ADCA was willing to try and fool their members with that blurb they printed because they knew the members wouldn't know better.  They played them for fools.   That is how little respect they have for their members.   

Did they print in their publications how they removed the name of an animal that was being advertised for semen because it had Legacy in the name?  Nope.  Didn't print a blurp about that.   Did they mention how they have removed references to the Legacy preservation effort from listings and refused to print anything about preserving the dwindling traditional blodlines.   Nope.   Didn't print any of those quotes. That might hurt the sales of some members of leadership who breed polled.  ( Which has been a vast majority of leadership for a decade now).  Did they print a white-washed article about the the dam of the non-purebred bull that has taken over the pedigrees in this breed.  Yep.  They printed that.    

ADCA members are supporting an association willing to obscure the truth, disseminate false impressions.    They do not realize that ADCA is after complete power in the breed.   They are manipulating people and situations behind the scenes in order to regain total control.  Only now, they have changed the rules so that IF they get total control again. . .. . . YOU, and American Dexter owner, will have NO say.   None.  You
will do as you are told.  The allusion of anything else. . . . is just that.

Here's that 2007 quote.  Read it again.  Read it with the same knowledge the ADCA board had when they published it to effect agenda.     In 2007 Legacy was a preservation effort with a private registry or preservation animals,  and available testing for those in the preservation project, and had established the first Dexter DNA database at UCD because preservation breeders were required to genotype their Dexters.  There was no testing services offered to the public, no registry pedigree website on the internet.   I should mention that at the same time ADCA had NO lab and no genotyping program at all.    ADCA thinks their members fools or they wouldn't publish something sole meant to distort reality.   



Judy
                                  

[jamshundred]

I started with Prodigy and Compuserve.  I was on the internet because the family researchers were using it effectively to share family data.  They had great genealogy forums on Compuserve.   Then AOL became the new kid on the block and the genealogy folks started switching to AOL.   

I use AOL because I have vast amounts of email stored on it, and I DO find I like the email format more than I do on Google, though now that Verizon has purchased AOL I cannot begin to imagine what is next in it's evolution.

Judy

[Donlin Stud]

Mmmmmmm not just the visual aspect of the database but lets talk about the number of times a week you cant access the site because it is down.............................

[Donlin Stud]

Its now official................

DCAI is moving its services and Dexter cattle database from ABRI to Livestock and Business Centre (LBC).

[lakeportfarms]

Oops...I wonder how much it costs to migrate the existing ADCA pedigree database to ABRI, and what the contract period is? In our newsletter they made a big deal out of how it is the one Australia uses. Not any longer. Obviously Australia wasn't happy with the service and pricing.

[wvdexters]

Hmmm. Not good

[cascade]

Australia was using the ancient old outdated version of the system and refused to update... have any of you critics seen the current system? We ADCA members elect people to perform DETAIL evaluations and make reasonable decisions on our behalf.

[lakeportfarms]

Yes Kirk, I've seen the current version on other breeds of cattle that they handle. It may have a lot of power to provide information on EPD's and other things, but that is all wasted on the Dexter breed because nobody records that information. The interface even on the newer versions looks straight out of the early 90's, and it is not user friendly at all.

[Donlin Stud]

Jun 9, 2016 0:35:28 GMT cascade said:

Australia was using the ancient old outdated version of the system and refused to update... have any of you critics seen the current system? We ADCA members elect people to perform DETAIL evaluations and make reasonable decisions on our behalf.

Cascade the upgrade to DCAI's database was considered and decided not to go ahead with it as it was at an exorbitant price - far outweighing the additional benefits it would offer Dexter owners / members.
Many a feature is just not used by Dexter owners here, or anywhere else for that matter. Remember its a heritage non-commercialised breed.

You forget that for many Australian Dexter owners, an internet connection is a luxury.
For some, its non-existent and that is putting aside the average age of owners who still grapple with just their email.

Recently ABRI offered the upgrade as an incentive to keep DCAI but it was too late.
The little service that was provided by ABRI was rude, abrupt and slow.
Many a phone call went unanswered.

ABRI has been a thorn in DCAI's side for many years, and with the continuing decline in annual memberships - ABRI is unaffordable.