As many people will now know, either through the well worn cat grapevine, overworked internet groups, or through their clubs’ attendance at the Council Meeting, the bid by the OUR CATS team of Robert Illingworth and Nick Mays was successful, and by a large majority.

This means that given a fair wind, OUR CATS as an entity will continue... same EDITOR, same printer, same distributors, same professional approach within the world of cats, but under a new management structure and ownership. This is a structure that was fully endorsed by the current publishers of OUR CATS prior to the meeting and communicated in advance, through all the right channels, to GCCF HQ.

In practical terms it will mean that all subscriptions up until July 31st will be administered from the same Manchester office; however, we would ask all readers to note that because of the way we had been forced to operate (on a three monthly basis) we can only take subscriptions in the same way.... up to and including the issue of July 25th.

After that time, the subscriptions will be handled from a new office, and all subscribers will be sent a new reminder in July.

At that point you will be able to renew for a full year.

Further announcements will follow, of course, but for now, it’s all systems go on show reports, advertisements, and subscriptions which are now beginning to return as the mist of the last nine months clears. Judges are requested to email into the usual email address, emails are now much better for us than handwritten reports of course.

The OUR CATS stand will be out and about, and so far we are booked into MANCHESTER Cat Show, of course... our local one, and SUFFOLK AND NORFOLK later in May... the new team will be on show later in July.

OUR CATS thanks everyone for their massive support over this very stressful and difficult time; there have been casualties and clearly now a prospective change of ownership, but throughout we have always maintained the interests of the readers and exhibitors at the core of what we have done.

This respect has been repaid, and there is a lesson to be learned here by those in power. The people have spoken.

As Nick has said in his leader, it’s time for everyone to work together now, not only to have a great paper for the Fancy, but for the Fancy to repair the damage caused by this largely unnecessary, distracting and disruptive struggle.

Vince Hogan - Managing Director OUR CATS