The West of Scotland of Scotland Cat Club celebrated its 21^st Championship Show on 15 December, 2007.  Nowadays it is more common to celebrate 18^th birthdays, but when the show was eighteen years old, the present committee was fairly new to the show organisation business, and we thought we knew it all, as you do at 18.

However, in the years between 18 and 21, we’ve done a bit of growing up.  Three years ago, we celebrated, this year we partied!  Even better, in the intervening years, our entry has grown by over 100 cats, so we could really party in style.

We sent out the invitations early.  We started with printed invitations, in the form of full page advertisements in the catalogues of shows from June to September, and our committee members could be seen at shows in Scotland and the North of England wearing T-shirts printed with invitations to our 21^st birthday “do”. 

Everything had to be better than before.  Obviously, we would need a cake.  We organised one early so that it had plenty of time to “soak”.  We organised banners, decorations and special badges.  There were more treats and “specials” than ever before.  Most of all we wanted the best ever rosettes and we think we did it.  We chose lilac and silver, club colours, with special silver keys stamped on the tails.  We all sat down at a marathon committee session and went over every little detail.   Then double checked it all again. 

It was all worthwhile because everyone accepted our invitation, or so it seemed.  Stallholders, judges, stewards, sponsors, exhibitors.  No-one turned us down.  Old friends like Bella Penning and sponsors Royal Canin came along to bring the party to life.  And new friends came too – some of our judges had never been to our show before and we had a tremendous gate.  Best of all, our entry was up again.  The cats came to party too. 

Guests of Honour were

Best in Section Persian

Supreme UK I GR CH & PR Lindenlea Whoops Adaisy owned by Ms D Dembski              

Best in Section Semi-Longhair

Adsetlo Palmaine Bandanna owned by Mrs A Gardner

Best in Section British

GR CH Mewsos Rory Macgregor owned by Mrs A Wandby

Best in Section Foreign

Shoelina Grechaninov owned by Mrs J Fleming

Best in Section Burmese & Overall Best Pedigree in Show

Pulsars Lustre Lutin owned by Miss S Davidson

Best in Section Oriental

Shadowsquad Stardust owned by Miss Michelle Linton

Best in Section Siamese

GR CH Johpas Red Ruudi owned by Mr & Mrs J & A G Mullen

Best in Section Household Pet

Chester a Blue SH owned by Mrs F McLellan

The Royal Canin “Scottish Challenge” was won by Harley owned by Mrs M Anderson

One of our first time stallholders to come North of the Border said to us that they just had to come because we were now the biggest cat show in Scotland and the North of England.  “It’s the Supreme of the North, isn’t it?”, they said.  “Not yet,” we had to say.  But there’s always next year. 

We might need a bit of a hand with that one – so we hope to see you there!

Report by Margaret Mather West of Scotland Cat Club

*** Here are a few pictures from the 2007 show ***