Promoting shows!
I HAVE been bringing my ‘Mr Puss Feline Emporium’ stand to cat shows for nearly three years now. It is a mobile shop which I take out to all kinds of events - cat shows, craft fairs, agricultural shows, etc. I started my business in a small way, buying stock with my credit cards, and I have thoroughly enjoyed getting out and about meeting people, and indulging in my passion for cats.
I thought my main customers would be visitors to the cat shows, but I have since learned that the people who bring their cats are happy to purchase their fancy goods and giftware from me. As time has gone on, I am now able to identify which of my customers are exhibitors and which are visitors, and this is an important point for me. Because of the wide range of stock I carry everyone is a potential customer, unlike some of the more specialised stall holders who only sell scratching posts, litter, food, etc, to cat owners.
It is vitally important to me that the events I attend are well advertised to the general public. I make a point of asking people at random how they found out about it. Some have seen it advertised in the local press, but some have only come across it because they happened to be in the leisure centre. It seems there are big differences amongst the show organisers in their policy of advertising, some are very good at it and some do no advertising at all. For me to make a 400 mile round trip, cost of fuel and rent, and work a 17 hour day, it has to be cost effective. Imagine a show with no trade stands at all.
This letter is not aimed at anyone personally as I know how clubs work, I have run enough of them in the past myself, decisions have to be made jointly. Can I just ask that someone thinks of putting a sign up outside the venue and an advert in the paper, it all helps.
Miss Ilona Richards
“Poor neuters!”
SOME five years ago (OUR CATS, Issue 953) you published a letter from me in which I made a plea to Show Managers to make some provision in their schedules for female neuters in Miscellaneous Classes.
With the arrival of the new Imperial Classes for Grand Champions and Grand Premiers, I have the opportunity to show a female neuter once again and, on the basis of the four all-breed show schedules I have had so far in the current GCCF year, things have not improved at all. Possibly things are better for them in other parts of the country - I live in the North West.
I still cannot see why these classes - Breeders/ Non-Breeders, Junior/Senior, Radius/Visitor, Limit, etc, etc - should often be offered split into male and female for Adults, and even Kittens as well in one case, but never for Neuters. If there were even a class for AC Female Neuter it would be something, but none of these four shows have even that.
In the Semi Longhair section it is very difficult to find any classes for a titled girl where she is not sure to be up against the giant males! And it would be nice, since cats become Senior at only two years old, to have a Veteran class for cats over seven years old, as a matter of course rather than at some shows only.
Janet Osborn, Lingcomb Birmans
