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In the
Swing of Spring Cat Show
On Sat 29th October 2011 ACT Cat Alliance (ANCats
ACT Region) hosted our 15th All Breeds
Championship show.
Held at the Canberra Deakin
Football Club exhibitors arrived to see a room
filled with colour. The theme of this event was
“In the Swing of Spring” and the ACT members
went all out to make this a bright and cheery
day.
Unfortunately Floriade had
just finished but spring in the capital is a
great time of year.
With brightly coloured table
coverings, flowers everywhere the room was
dressed to impress.
While everyone needs
congratulating on their efforts special thanks
must go to new member Natalie Patrick who not
only organised the wonderful venue, but also
created about 150 flowers for the tables and a
wonderful slideshow which ran on the big screen
all day.
The day started out a bit
slow but rapidly improved. It was well supported
(with around 60 exhibits) by our interstate
colleagues, some of who made a weekend of it.
As well as our normal four
rings we had two specialty rings
Siamese/Oriental and specialty Kitten. Thankyou
to Allison McConnell from Victoria for judging
these.
All together we had 5
interstate judges even though NSW is only about
a 10 minute drive away. Jane vanDyk and Allison
from Victoria, Christa Reinhardt from SA and
Bambi Edwards and Hazel Rossiter from NSW.
A very exciting part of the
day was the appearance of Carla Bignasca or as
we know her here in Canberra “Biggzy” from Mix
106.3 radio to judge our best decorated display.
Biggzy arrived about midday with her husband Mat
and went around looking, admiring and talking to
our members about their cats. After about an
hour and a half she made her decision and the
trophy went to Liz Holms. Biggzy had a tough
decision as all of the cages on display were
great. Exhibitors really got “into the swing” of
things.
Not only did we have some
wonderful cats on show, but we also had a number
of merchandise stands, it was almost like a mini
expo. Jeannette and Hazel Rossiter from OzPet,
one of our major sponsors were there as well as
Ron and Bev from Tumut who create Cat Scratching
Poles and a large variety of dog coats and cat
snuggle articles. Bev and Ron also donated one
of their scratchers to the raffle. Thankyou.
Other long time supporters of
ACT Cat Alliance are Jill and Jan Kurr from
Balcony Courtyard Living and Catnip Cat
enclosures. Not only did they have a display
they also helped decorate the room by providing
some of their very realistic looking artificial
shrubs.
We had a very brief visit
from an RSPCA (ACT) volunteer. Unfortunately she
couldn’t stay very long as, wouldn’t you know
it, the shelter out at Weston was having it’s
own open day. But we appreciated the effort.
Last but by no means least we
had a glittering array of cat accessories on
display.
With all the beautiful cats
and the displays and the merchandise there was
plenty to look at for almost 200 visitors. It
sure pays to advertise.
So again with support from
our major sponsors OzPet and Royal Canin, as
well as our smaller friends, I feel that a good
day was had by all.
Only thing now is how we top
it next year. Well, we have 10 months to think
about it.
I know I must have forgotten
to thank someone. But well done everyone.
Hopefully we can get more ACT cats involved next
year. Merry Christmas and stay safe over the
holidays.
Ann McKenna,
On behalf of ANCats ACT Region (ACT Cat
Alliance) |
