The Pigeon Racing Association
The Danish Pigeon Racing Associations are the heart of pigeon racing in Denmark. With more than 120 local associations, divided into 18 sections spread across the country, they organize competitions and have their own rules. To manage all this, the association needs a member and competition system, which allows members to easily manage their data. Since 1990, IT-Kartellet has assisted the Danish Pigeon Racing Association with their IT development, which initially started with Visual Basic 6 – but later upgraded to a modern web solution.
Since the mid-90s, our consultant Jakob Bo Larsen has developed and maintained a small program suite for the Danish Pigeon Racing Associations. The programs were originally developed in Visual Basic 6 against an MS Access database. With the advent of new technologies, internet functionality and SMS service have also been made available via MySQL and PHP.
The Danish Pigeon Racing Associations oversee pigeon racing in Denmark. The members are spread over more than 120 local associations across the country. The associations are divided into 18 geographically distributed sections with their own competitions, statutes, and board. In addition, a nationwide secretariat handles contact with authorities, applications for permission for competitive flights, clarification of veterinary questions, accounting, control, and calculation of official results. Nationwide competitions are also planned and administered by the secretariat.
Programs for The Danish Pigeon Racing Associations
The primary programs in the program suite support functions at the three organizational levels: association, section, and secretariat:
- The association program is installed in each of the local associations. It allows local associations to organize local competitive flights, as well as registration for section and DDB flights in the association program. Result collection occurs in the association program by direct reading from the electronic systems used in each pigeon loft to register returning pigeons. The association program allows for the definition and calculation of local competitions, and collected data is communicated to the sections and the secretariat via emails and file transfers.
- The section program is used in the individual sections primarily to organize and manage regional competitions.
- Finally, the secretariat program is used in the national secretariat to manage DDB flights. These include national flights covering all associations in the country. In addition to competition planning, result calculation, and accounting in connection with games and prizes, the secretariat program also includes functions to support the general administration such as member registration and fee calculation.
Our software in practice
Our software is designed to assist at three organizational levels: local association, section, and national secretariat. In the local associations, our program helps plan local competitive flights and register pigeons for larger competitions. The results from these competitions are electronically collected and forwarded to sections and the secretariat via email and file transfers. The sections use the software to organize regional competitions, while the national secretariat manages the large national flights.
Our web-based system also helps update the results on websites and keep members informed. In addition to this, we also offer extra programs for member administration, exhibitions, and stock registration. Internal communication among members, local associations, and the federation is made easy through integrations with SMS modules and email templates.
How it works
Internet mediation occurs via a number of PHP programs installed on a Linux server in the secretariat. Data sent from the association program is automatically captured by intake programs written in PHP. These store the transferred data in a MySQL database and perform preliminary result calculations. Other PHP programs capture SMS messages sent from the electronic systems that register returning pigeons, or they allow for manual registration of return times. Data collected from various sources in the MySQL database forms the basis for websites that present temporary as well as final results.
In addition to the aforementioned primary programs, the program suite includes:
- A member program integrated with the association program, which can be acquired by the individual member for the administration of their own pigeons.
- An exhibition program.
- A stock catalog.
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Jakob is perhaps our sharpest knife in the drawer: Always cool, calm & collected, it is rare to see him stress or panic about problems. Why should he, he's gonna fix them anyhow!
Jakob Bo Larsen
Marathon man, teacher, CEO - perhaps it is easier to talk about the things, that Henrik can't do. One thing is for sure though: He is a 100% dedicated kartellist!
Henrik Thorn
A real Pioneer within IT: When Lasse started his career, the internet was just about happening and he probably invented most of it himself.