At the Friday morning session of the annual board meeting, each regional director reported on his or her region. Here's an expanded version of my report about North Central:
Members
As of August 13, the North Central region had 144 members. This is 3 fewer than exactly a year ago. We have seven new members this year, but because of attrition, our overall numbers are down about 2% from last year. Although it’s a decrease, it’s much better than the 20% decrease from 2008 to 2009.
- 14 are life members
- 101 are regular members
- 27 are family members
- 2 are junior members (including one new junior member)
These numbers are ACFA memberships. We also have a number of other people in the region who are active members of their local cat clubs but are not currently ACFA members and even more who exhibit at our shows but haven't yet joined ACFA. Let's encourage these cat lovers to become ACFA members and make their voices heard!
Expirations: The majority of the memberships in the region (91) expire at the end of 2010. About 37% of the region's members are taking advantage of the three-year reduced price deal. 28 expire in 2011, 8 in 2012, 2 in 2013. Lonnie Alitz has set an example for us all by extending her membership to the end of 2014. Way to go, Lonnie!
Clubs
13 North Central clubs have renewed their charters this year; this is the same number as last year. Two (Himalayan International and Genesis) have disbanded since the previous Annual and donated their remaining funds to ACFA. The Chippewa Valley Cat Club helped Central Wisconsin Cat Club put on a successful show in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and we are hoping they join ACFA as the region’s newest club.
Regional Finances
The region’s checking account has $59.54, but each time you send in the show surcharges to Central Office, our regional treasury grows, because we get 50 cents per cat plus half of any listing fees. The principal regional expenses are awards, ads in the POR, web site hosting and domain name registration.
Shows
The North Central region held 11 shows between August 2009 and July 2010. Central Wisconsin sponsored or co-sponsored three of the shows, so let’s all thank Don Finger for his tireless support of ACFA!
Awards
Last October, the Cat 'n' Around Cat Club hosted the North Central Regional Awards banquet and ceremony for 2009 in Des Moines. This July, the Madison Cat Club hosted this year's banquet and ceremony. Both were outstanding evenings of fun, camaraderie, good food, and recognition for achievements.
North Central cats were well represented in this year's Inter-American awards, as one would expect, since we’re the largest region, and we have a relatively large number of shows within driving distance, which makes it less expensive for exhibitors to get to more shows. But the numbers of IA wins by North Central members are higher than you’d get if the wins were evenly distributed among all ACFA members. The reason? There simply are a lot of excellent cats in our region, in each of the four categories:
- Cats: 11 of the top 20 IA, including #2, #3, and #4 IA
- Alters: 8 of the top 20 IA, including #1 IA
- Kittens: 13 of the top 20 IA, including #1, #3, #4, #5, and #6 IA
- HHPs: 5 of the top 20 IA, including #1 IA
In addition, several North Central cats claimed their Legacy of Achievement, which they earned by being in the top 10 regionally or top 50 IA during three show seasons:
Shirwood's Curly Sue, owned by Shirley Filipello
Catequil Wyatt Curlp, owned by Patti Day, Glen and Jo Newton, and Bev Speake
Surprise! Cousin It of Lyati, owned by Patti Day
Furthermore, Raphaella of Artshow, owned by Ray and Sandy Benter, claimed her Legacy of Excellence, which she earned by producing five ACFA Grand Champion offspring.
Finally, North Central region was well represented in the IA breed awards, including all of the breed winners for Anerican Wirehair, Balinese, Cymric, Selkirk Rex Shorthair, Somali, and Sphynx.
Congratulations to all of our regional and IA winners!
North Central ACFA members gave awards as well as receiving them at the Annual Awards Banquet.
The Little Lion Award honors cats who have made an impression with their
friendly purr-sonalities, as did Shirley Filipello's household pet, Little
Lion, who crossed the rainbow bridge in 2005. (If you'd like to read about
the criteria for the award, it's in the board directives and policies in the "ACFA Rules" section of the ACFA web site.) This year Shirley prepared awards for four cats, of which one was in our region:
Foxer's Fuzz Buster (October 31, 2006 - April 23, 2010), owned by
Lynn Fox, Jill Hoover, and Theresa and Al Buehler.
Jean Damoci
presented the Apatchee Award, honoring Apatchee, ACFA's first
household pet of the year (1980 and 1981), to Karen and Matt Overholser, owners of Clone Commander Cody, this year's ACFA household pet of the year.
Jean owned Apatchee and won numerous Morris awards (from Nine Lives,
featuring a statue of Morris the Cat and a food bowl). She has been passing
them on to ACFA's best household pet honorees each year. Jean was not able
to attend the awards ceremony, but the awards audience saw the next
best thing - a video of Jean describing the
award and offering it to Karen and Matt. If you'd like to see it, you can watch it on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0N7R4GvA5Y
As you may know, the Yellow Sock Award is a traveling trophy
to honor ACFA's best
household pet of the year; after the end of each show year, the name of the new
best household pet is added to the plaque, providing a historical record
that honors current and past award winners. However, there was no comparable
traveling trophy for the best alter, kitten or cat, until now!
Carl and Melanie Galka commissioned Alice Barrick (woodworking) and Gillian Huber
(engraved metal badges) to create three new trophies, each in the shape of a
large cat, with enough room to honor ten winners. They also provided smaller
cat-shaped wooden trophies for the annual winners to keep permanently.
For this year, each of the large trophies includes the name of the 2008-2009
winner and the name of the 2009-2010 winner:
Alters: Yeahimmy Baby Face Nelsen (2008-2009) and Catequil Wyatt Curlp
(2009-2010)
Kittens: Artshow Uffizi (2008-2009) and CDreams Jack Frost of Buctales
(2009-2010)
Cats: CDreams Wolfmaine (2008-2009) and Gator Maine Harry (2009-2010)
Thank you, Shirley, Jean, Carl and Melanie!
In addition to the cat-oriented awards presented at the IA ceremony, Joan Apel-Klarner was named as the
recipient of the 2010 Humanitarian Award. Congratulations to Joan!
Other Activities
www.acfanorthcentralregion.org
- The North Central web site (which Jo and I maintain, as unpaid volunteers) includes sections for regional news, judges, awards, shows, and photos.
- The web site's picture gallery needs recent pictures. If you have some pictures of ACFA activities in our region, please send them to me so I can post them on the web site and share them with others.
- Besides listing upcoming shows, the web site lists past shows back to 2004 for historical reference.
Volunteer Opportunities
- Thanks to North Central Region members who are already serving on ACFA committees!
- We are looking for a regional representative to the Junior ACFA Committee, which is headed by Kayla Irmscher, and for the Animal Support Committee, headed by Missi Cooper.
- We are also looking for a volunteer to represent the region on the Legislative Committee, which currently has no members; this committee keeps ACFA informed about legislation that might affect ACFA and its members.
- We have a profile of Cat 'n' Around on our web site, and I would like to have historical profiles of all the North Central clubs on the web site. Are you interested in writing one? If you're not confident of your writing skills, Jo and I can help you edit your rough draft.
