Membership - Reminder
Subs for your club membership were due on 1st January 2017. After 1st February 2017 those who have not paid their subs will be removed from the list of financial members.
- Full Membership
Single $15.00 / Double $25.00 / Triple $35.00
- Associate Membership
Single $15.00 / Double $25.00 / Junior $5.00
- Family Membership
Mixed membership (full for adults, associate for juniors) $25
Please make cheques payable to ‘Palmerston North Cat Club Inc’.
The club account number for online payment is 02-0630-0172405-000. It is important to include a reference when making your payment (your surname at the very least) and to follow it up with an email to the club secretary.
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Privacy - Reminder
As a club affiliated with the NZCF we may send our membership list to the EC Secretary so that she can confirm the people renewing or applying for prefixes are financial members of an affiliated club. It is important that our club members are aware that this is part of renewing their membership with the Palmerston North Cat Club Inc.
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Fund-raising – Cash Raffle
Congratulations to the winners in the fund-raising raffle:
- $300 ticket 21 - R White
- $150 Ticket 230 - C Ramsay
- $50 tickets 176 - Jon Snow
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Christmas / End-of-Year Get-together
A very enjoyable time was had by those who attended the end-of-year get-together at the Hokowhitu Café and Bar (Manawatu Golf Club). The venue was an excellent choice and the food was fabulous. Thanks you to the committee and especially to Miria Busby for organising this. Thanks also to the Holden family for supplying the Christmas crackers again – what is a Christmas ‘do’ without silly paper hats?
[I was the photographer for the event but apparently need more training as I failed to produce anything remotely worthy of the newsletter. -- Jane]
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The Stay-At-Homes
- Prefers to Stay-At-Home: The Grantley’s Puss Puss
Puss Puss was gifted to Faith by Colleen White. Colleen had a nifty second sense of things. She said she thought she may have the perfect cat to be Faith’s companion. The name was even chosen especially, as Faith has language delays; it’s a word Faith can say.
We visited Colleen and Rob at home to meet Puss Puss. She must have had Colleen’s inner knowing also, as she made a bee-line for Faith.
We decided to give showing a go. Puss Puss has a sternum fault, and because of this was shown in the Shorthair Companion Cat Section. Puss Puss was shown under Colleen’s gorgeous name What's New Pussycat. She attended three shows. Faith was so proud of her.
Puss Puss decided showing wasn't for her. It became apparent that, indeed, she did not consider herself to be a cat. Not only that, it was an insult being caged with ‘cats.’ She announced her consternation at her last show, by hissing at each outing with a judge. So much so that one judge asked her “Who peed in her cornflakes that morning?”
We decided to listen to Puss Puss. Not long after, she was a permanent non-showing resident at home. Exactly where she likes to be. She has the most important job of all that isn't shows or travelling - it's being Faith’s best friend. Puss Puss is sweet and cuddly. She takes advantage of the long hairs extra-long winter coats. Why grow your own, when there are so many to take advantage of?
Puss Puss has made occasional visits to school for Show ’n’ Tell. That suits her, being a princess and centre of attention. Sometimes shows are not everything, it's about being a companion and special friend. That can be the greatest gift of all.
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Committee Meeting – 15th December 2016
The December committee meeting was cancelled.
- Next Meeting: Thursday, 19 January 2017
-- Time: 7.30pm
-- Location: Not Now James, Ruahine Street, Palmerston North
Member Profile
[I have promises for more profiles to come but as none of them are on-hand you will have to make do with me. It would be great if all club-members participated in this so expect an email from me at some stage. -- Jane]
- Jane Webster – A Biography in Cats
I grew up in a one-cat-at-a-time urban Palmerston North household; over the years I lived at home there were only three cats; Tinker, Tinker, and Amy. Both Tinkers were male black and white domestic shorthairs and Amy and her successor (who arrived after I left home) were remarkably similar tortie tabby and tabby domestic shorthairs.
I went off to join the air force and eventually, when I joined my (now) husband’s household it came equipped with kids and a ginger domestic shorthair called Jamie. The children grew up and left home before we needed a replacement for Jamie and that time we were determined to have a cat that would NOT be as contrasting a colour as ginger Jamie had been to our air force uniforms. The cat we chose was a grey and white domestic longhair and the grey was pretty much invisible on the blue uniforms (success!) but it turned out that white underside shed more than enough for a dozen cats (failure). Because we couldn’t agree on a name she never got one, something that seemed to upset the vets she visited over her 17-year life far more than it bothered either her or us.
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| The unnamed cat |
And after those 17 years, and now settled in our retirement home back in Palmerston North, there came the time when we needed to find the next cat. The internet had arrived in our lives – and Trade Me. I was window shopping for cats which needed homes and found the Most Beautiful Cat Ever who clearly wasn’t desperate for a home as he had a pretty steep price tag on him! But home he came in 2006 – our first pedigree cat, an adult Ragdoll boy we called Gino.
After we lost Gino his half-brother Sam came to live with us - a bit of a shock as he was the first kitten in the household in nearly 30 years of having cats. Sam’s pedigree (showing the outcross line behind him) kick-started my interest in cat history and the Ragdoll breed, which eventually led me to join the NZCF in 2010 and the Palmerston North Cat Club in 2011. I served on the club committee for four years and also during that time volunteered to reformat the NZCF's governance documents as the work was similar to my air force role as a technical writer.
In 2010 an additional adult Ragdoll boy, Mocha, joined the household and with that I achieved a long-held ambition to upgrade us from a one-cat to a two-cat household. Neither of the boys are show cats but I hope to have a show cat some stage in the future ... a tortie or red, perhaps, now the blue uniforms are a thing of the distant past.
In 2015 I stood for, and was elected to, the NZCF Executive Council which makes me busier than I would like but I still do find time to work at meeting the expectations my cats have of me - as their companion.
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History Notes – 1964
The breeder of this Siamese kitten on the cover of this 1964 November-December issue of Animal World of New Zealand (SPCA) is not credited but the photographer was Anthony Aldridge.
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