Canterbury All Breeds Cat Club History

On Saturday, July 7th 1962, in the Christchurch Star Public Notices an advertisement appeared which read:

This was the start of "Canterbury All Breeds Cat Club". This is a brief look back at the Club and the people who have served on the Committees during the past 25 years.

Inaugural Meeting July 1962.

Officers elected were:
PRESIDENT: Mr A. Scott
VICE PRESIDENTS: Mrs W. Tasker & Dr Mayer
SECRETARY & TREASURER: Mr B. Capstick
PATRONS: Miss M. Howard MP & Mr F.J.C. Dann
COMMITTEE: Miss Blair, Miss Barnard, Mrs Forrest, Miss Harrington, Mrs McAllister, Mr Benjes, Mrs Kinghorn, Mr Sangster, Mrs Gibb and Mr Collins.

As a guide, the rules of the Foxton Cat Club were used. Membership to the Club 5/- Mr Mitchell of the Woolston Poultry Club said his club pens would be available to the Cat Club for 30/- per 100 pens. Miss Mabel Howard complimented Mrs Tasker for her work in forming the Club. Mr W.L.C. Purdie, Veterinary Surgeon, gave a talk with helpful facts on choice of queens and rearing healthy kittens, and so ended the first meeting.

Points of interest for the first year of the Club were:

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21st August - Mr Heslop agreed to be the Club's Auditor.
6th October - Cat Display held in Poultry Club Rooms, Selwyn Street, over 200 people attended and it was shown on TV that night.
26th Nov - The Club's first Christmas Party.
15th Jan - 63 Delegates appointed to Governing Council were Messrs Scott and Sangster.
12th Feb - The Club became an Incorporated Society. There were 300 copies of the Show Schedule printed for the first show. Show Manager was Mr Sangster, assisted by Mrs C. Kerr.25th March Catalogues 2/-.
20th April - The show was combined with Poultry, Pigeons and Bantams, held at Fanciers Hall, corner of Selwyn and Harman Streets. 113 entries. Judges, Mr C. Aberdeen (Regd), and Mrs E. Cleaver (Domestics), both from Dunedin.
6th June - Serious consideration was given to a suggestion from the Otago Cat Fanciers Club that there be formed a separate South Island Governing Council. It was unanimously agreed that as yet CABCC is too new to form any opinion on the matter and is not interested in the proposition at this date.

Comments about those beginnings.

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Those details above come from a booklet, printed 1987 for CABCC’s 25th Silver Anniversary. Edited by Dianne Whittle from the Club’ s Minute Book, at the Editor’s choice. Notable is a continued requirement for the AGM to be notified in a local newspaper. One of the first Patrons was the redoubtable Mabel Howard, a prominent cat lover. Andy Scott was President many times and became President of The Fancy in 1966.
Other members, Wilma Tasker, Olga Blair, Joan Harrington [now Graham] served for many years. Mrs Myonie Kinghorn was the Club Treasurer for many years. Some early members dropped out when a cat show was arranged. Typed Contents and Printed Cover of this booklet, have been kept. and could be reproduced.

Editors Note

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This is a tribute to the people who over the past 25 years of CABCC have taken enough interest to sit on the Committee. Without these people there would not be a Club, so maybe this year you might consider either coming onto the Committee or attending General Meetings - so we can hear your points of view, or things that interest you about cats and shows. My special thanks to Hilda Buys for having to type my terrible scrawl, and to the past committee people, whose decisions I have put together.

A message from the National President

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I would like to congratulate the Canterbury All Breeds Cat Club, on behalf of myself and the National Executive, on its Silver Anniversary. On what I am certain will be a most successful and memorable Chef National Cat Show; as have been the four previous National Shows organised and hosted by this Club.

While not the oldest All Breeds Club in New Zealand, the Canterbury Club has been very active and progressive during its twenty five years of life. 1 am not aware of any club who has hosted more National Shows. It was certainly one of the first to hold open and Ring shows. It has always been helpful to other clubs, and has initiated new ideas such as a manual for organisation of shows, and new formats for judges books.

To me its most remarkable achievement has been that during its existence no fewer than three other clubs have been formed in Christchurch. Two of these are breeders clubs, the Short Hair Cat Breeders Association and the Longhair Cat Breeders Association (SI), and the third is a specialist club, the New Zealand Burmese Cat Club.

Many of the people who founded these clubs started their cat fancier careers as members of Canterbury All Breeds Cat Club, and some of the credit for arousing interest and stimulating the personnel who formed these clubs must go to the All Breeds Club. The association between the Clubs has always been amicable and mutually helpful. This has done much to further the objects of the New Zealand Cat Fancy and to assist cat fanciers.

I wish the Club a future equally as bright, successful, and notable as has been its past.
Patricia M. Hogan, National President NZ Cat Fancy

Club President’S Foreword [1987 - Mr Chris Adams]

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Thank you for supporting us by buying this booklet. I hope that you will appreciate it as a souvenir of our twenty-fifth anniversary. The CABCC’s inaugural meeting was held on 16 July 1962 and our first cat show was combined with poultry, pigeons and bantams. I wonder if any exhibits escaped? There were 113 feline entries, and catalogues cost two shillings each.

Some of those involved with the Club in its early years are no longer with us, and already our main source of the historian’s raw material, i.e. those members whose personal memories would lend laughter, colour and inspiration to our tale, is sadly depleted. Our Club’s population is only migratory, like any club’s. We are a focal point for people with similar interests, and there is always a steady stream of new members coming and old ones going, so that without noticing it, the membership can change completely in a relatively short time.

We are reaching this point, and so it is important that we try to record our beginnings. It is also time for us to take stock of ourselves, to remind ourselves of where we came from and where we should be going. Perhaps it is time we changed direction? Are our objectives outmoded? We always need to have a sense of purpose and maintain our sense of continuity. This is very difficult with a constantly changing membership. It would be totally impossible without the dedication of a few who are prepared to serve much longer than the average span.

Our shows are larger now, everything seems more expensive, but I expect that we share the same problems our predecessors did in mounting shows. The main difficulty is, and always has been, that any show places an enormous burden on a very small group of people. I suspect that if there is any overall difference between today and those early years, it is not really the size of the shows, or the costs involved in running a club like ours, nor even the composition of the membership, although it seems that a greater proportion of our membership were domestic cat owners in those first few years.

I think the real difference between then and now is that our society has changed in twenty-five years. We are busier today; there are more demands on our time; more of us work during the day; we are less willing to become involved in outside activities; we are more likely to be content to sit back and let others "run the show".

This booklet is a tribute to those who are still willing to be involved. Even though they have many other demands on their time, they manage to devote endless hours of preparation to help ensure that each show is a resounding success, and that the Club continues to flourish.
I trust that every time you parade yourselves before our cats and kittens, you will appreciate the 'preparation involved, and if you should be inspired to serve on our Committee, please do not hesitate to come forward.

Just bear in mind also that in another twenty-five years perhaps one of your children may be trying to rewrite or reconstruct the history of this Club and produce a souvenir booklet! What help will you be able to give? What old photographs, clippings, ribbons and catalogues will you be able to offer? -Remember that today’s rubbish is tomorrow’s treasure - if you have items of interest please collect them for us.

Finally I would like to thank those members involved in the Production of this booklet - Arthur Rowlands original idea, Dianne Whittle compiling the material and Hilda Buys for typing it.