2009 Newsletter Editorial

Dear Friends,

What! Another year has rushed by! I must be getting old. I remember when I was much younger, Christmas meant holidays, 3 long, long weeks camping at the beach. Those lazy summer days of entertaining ones self seemed to last for such a long time. Back then there was no portable music, no cameras and phones, no computers and games, no responsibilities, just the sea, sand, books and ones own thoughts.

Jump ahead a few years to now, (just a few), we started this year with the Global Financial Crisis, and lots of doom and gloom in the financial world. As usual I headed to the USA to the Atlanta Poultry Expo, via Chicago and New York. Lots more doom and gloom. America is very frozen of course, at that time of the year, and arrived back in Australia to the heat and bushfires. They missed us at home by half a kilometre, and about the same in Narre Warren. Thanks to all those who called and were concerned. But we were fortunate, this is the second time we have had them go around us. Others were not so lucky.

Business was planned to be slow, due to the GFC, so we proceeded to develop some new projects, we thought we would have time to implement. But somehow, the word slow missed you, our customers, and the business went ballistic. It has never been so busy as this year. Then in the middle of the year we ran into problems with production of the Bellsouth 100. We not only changed the manufacturer of our electronics, but also a batch of 1000 thermostats arrived which would not operate at all due to some change in the microchip from the manufacturer. Right about now a splinter in my right middle finger put me in hospital for a week, being pumped full of antibiotics to stop the infection, and pain killers to stop the pain. I think I was high for the whole week. The threatened amputation of the finger did not occur. (imagine that a Finger missing a finger, without a finger in every pie, yet more jokes). But once back at the office, there was mad panic to retool and get production running. We had no B100 incubators for some months. I thank all those who waited while the new stock was produced. Then Autoelex, the manufacturers of R-Com Digital incubators offers a discount package to bolster sales in what had been for them a tough international market, with manufacturers deals on all sorts of products flooding our shores. After all, Aussie was the only economy in the Western world not in recession. So a sale of the Rcom Range at 30% off , kept us running, at the same time, I was running the usual Royal show circuit, visiting most of the Royal Shows.

Needless to say the new projects are still new projects half completed, and we here are hanging out for the holidays. I have decided not to visit the Atlanta Poultry Expo in January, both Jenny and I are just plain tired, and in need of the sand, sea, books, and our own thoughts.

Then to cap it off last week, the most welcome rain came with such vengeance, so that the factory was flooded. Another mad panic to keep the water out of the library, in the end the only real damage was a lot of wet nuts and bolts as the rain ran into the tool and bolt store, and a collection of Poultry newspapers from 1940 onwards that was damaged.

This made me think a lot this week of the fragility of a lot of what we value. It seems a busy year has been bookended by nature, fires at one end, floods at the other, and a trip to hospital in the middle. The Good Book says " Don't store up treasures on earth where fires can burn it up, or floods can wash it away, or thieves can steal it, or doctors cut it off. Instead look to treasures in heaven" ( my modern translation). And I think again of Christmas, the celebration of events long ago, of the promised baby Jesus, who when he grew up, told of the treasures of heaven, and who challenged the priorities of the people of his day. I am still challenged by His words today, to say no to things which are of little value, to spend time on that which has long term significance.

Thanks for your custom through the year, for your kind patience when we have needed it, for your concern for us when we were under threat. May the holiday season allow you to spend some time in your equivalent of the sand, sea, books, and your own thoughts.

 Our  best wishes to you and yours,

 Jim and Jenny Finger. 2009