Drawing a line

‘The tumult and the shouting dies,
The captains and the kings depart…’
Rudyard Kipling, “Recessional”

Mr Kipling was a very astute man; not only did he make exceedingly good cakes, he wrote great poetry too, and none perhaps more apt to call to mind just now than the opening lines to the second verse of his seminal poem ”Recessional” which details the eventual decline of empire, the end of conflicts and the passage of time moving on.

I was reminded of these very words as the GCCF delegates began to file out of the Large Hall of the Friends Meeting House in London just over a week ago; the majority had voted in favour of OUR CATS continuing as the Official Journal of the GCCF. Pretender to the title, Seaview Publishing, publishers of ‘Fancy That’ had been beaten into a single-figure third place, behind Parkview Publishing who had entered the fray relatively late in the day.

It had been a long and hard fought campaign, which had its genesis well over a year previously when there was an apparent clash of personalities.(although we are still unsure of the motivation behind the move to fix something that wasn’t broken.) Anyone can reach a conclusion and then concoct the ‘evidence’ and data to support it; an ‘ad hoc’ Working Party was convened - largely in secret we subsequently discovered – and they concluded that not only did OUR CATS apparently not listen to the vast swathe of alleged complaints made against it, it disrespected Governing Council at every turn, it promoted other feline registries and as if all that wasn’t enough, it was apparently on the verge of financial collapse. Consequently, on the advice of this Working Party, the Executive Committee voted to remove the official journal status from OUR CATS and award the ‘contract’ to Seaview Publishing, who would publish a glossy monthly publication called ‘Fancy That’.

Thankfully, the grass roots fanciers didn’t like this; they smelled a rat and urged their delegates to GCCF Council to kick up a stink, which they did. I won’t go into all the bizarre twists and turns here, which included the delegates themselves being berated for “squandering” the GCCF’s money in insisting that the democratic process was followed. Eventually, the long-awaited vote was granted and the vote was taken.

So here we are, nine months, and several thousands of pounds of GCCF members’ money later and OUR CATS has been vindicated. Undoubtedly there will be the aftermath, questions have been asked, individuals have been found wanting. What happens next is a matter for the Cat Fancy itself.

OUR CATS didn’t emerge unscathed from all of this; we lost a great deal of revenue in subscriptions and advertising contracts not being renewed – all of this caused as a direct result of the Executive’s decision. Yet, the publishers of OUR CATS did not threaten to sue, but rather stuck at the task in hand and continued to produce a professional and independent title in the face of great adversity. A number of loyal readers have stuck with us, others have returned to the fold, so to speak, and now OUR CATS faces a new future, from August this year, with a new publisher, Axis Cook Media Ltd, as was made clear at the presentations last week. We’ll be maintaining continuity – in their wisdom the new publishers have asked me to remain as Editor and I hope to be joined by existing reporters and other members of the OC Editorial team. We will also be planning plenty of new initiatives, new features, more news, more show reports and, of course, publishing judges reports as quickly as we can after they’ve been received.
In short, ‘We Got Plans’!

However, we are under no illusions as to the size of the task ahead of us. As Editor, I am extremely mindful of the fact that whilst 81 delegates voted in favour of OUR CATS continuing, 51 delegates did not. We can all learn from this experience. If no-one learns from the lessons, then the whole exercise will have been pointless.

Naturally, I was delighted when we heard the vote that day. I addressed the meeting and thanked all of those who had voted for us and supported us throughout the past, difficult nine months. But I also added, and repeat again here a very pertinent point: For those of you who did NOT vote for us, let me assure you that OUR CATS is also YOUR publication, it is the official journal of YOUR Fancy. So please, if you don’t like what we’re doing, if you have a complaint, or if you have ideas for making the paper better, don’t mutter crossly about it on Internet Chat Boards or at shows – TELL US. We want to know. As Editor I want to hear from you – my phone number and e-mail address appear in every issue and I am often seen at cat shows (as was Vince Hogan before me...). My door is open.

Remember - I’m a cat fancier too, I want our wonderful Fancy – our GCCF Fancy – to succeed, to be inclusive to all, to be the showcase for all the breeds of those wonderful animals that we all love – cats. Our Cats. And through OUR CATS we can all succeed together.

This will be the last time I’ll devote my Editorial to all the unpleasantness that’s happened. Now is the time to look ahead, to make things better and to draw a line under all that’s gone before.
Here’s the line:

Now let’s move on - Together.

Nick Mays, Editor