The season is finished.
Let the celebrations begin!
Congratulations to all the National Winners
in Championship, in Kittens and in Premiership!
You ran a good campaign . . . a successful campaign . . . and now you get to reap the rewards. Campaigners are now making preparations for the grand celebrations at their Annual. Every winner is busy writing their cat's biography for the Almanac or Trend articles and sending photos to their national, regional and breed websites. Award booklets, slide shows and PowerPoint presentations are being prepared — all the "spoils" that are the winners' just desserts.
Many of the national winners are old hands at preparing for all the festivities associated with earning one of the top spots. They are the elite of the Cat Fancy, and include breeders and cats we all can take pride in and admire.
To The First-TimersEach year there are a few newcomers who join the special "club" of National Winners. It is their first national win. Their accomplishment is indeed remarkable as the first campaign is a huge learning experience, and like many things, doing it for the first time is the hardest.
To Those Who Didn't Quite Make It
Amidst all the celebration for the winners, let's take a few moments to honor those owners and cats who were a major part of the show scene of this season, but who didn't quite make their national goal. They are the owners who showed the cats that were in the top 25 for most of the year, only to drop out in the last month of the season. Or they are the owners of the cats that climbed towards that last national winner spot only to end up a few points short.
These cats are no less in quality then those in the top 25. A national win is only partially a reflection of a cat's quality. Earning points is also affected by where you live, how much money you have to spend, your competition, your experience, your strategy, your profile and often more than a pinch of LUCK!
So let's not lose sight of those special people and their cats who didn't make it into the top 25 . . .
Kudos to the exhibitors who didn't quite make their NW,
but who had the courage to enter a competition.
We Also Would Like To Say Bravo To:
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Exhibitors who live far from the shows and had to travel at great effort, time and expense just to grand their cats.
- Everyone who brought a cat out after having to re-grow coat, or whose cat had to recover from an illness or injury to re-enter the show ring.
- Anyone who granded a cat over the age of 7 years. Love those senior citizens!
- People with minority breeds or minority colors who often seem to have to grand their cats one point at a time.
- The "average" exhibitor who does their best, without fanfare or expectation.
- Everyone who reached out a helping hand to someone else in the fancy.
You are the grassroots and the true heartbeat of the Cat Fancy
