We are pleased to report the Russian Blue Breeders Association's 23^rd Championship show took place for the fourth year at the Guildhall, Abingdon on Saturday 4^th October 2008. Marlene Buckeridge was our able Show Manager once again with assistance from Dot Thomson, myself and many others, but we all lend a hand to make our day successful.

Sadly our numbers were down a little on last year which is a pity for a minority breed club but we are a happy little family and even if the sun didn't shine very much it certainly didn't dampen our enthusiasm for our beautiful cats! We are pleased to say we had a Russian White and a Russian Black in competition, something that has not happened for some long time. We had a reasonable gate and our stalls did well. We also had Snowshoe cats in competition and British Shorthairs and a Blue Spotted Bengal on exhibition so there was quite a variety of cats in the hall. We even had some international visitors from Holland , Germany and Belgium to help us with our successful and friendly show. Our Show Buddy scheme was in full swing again and we had several new exhibitors, which is, after all the future for any club.

Clare Bandy, Martine Mapes and Sue Young ran the rosette table efficiently, as usual. Other valuable members of the team included Judith Noble, Sarah Williams-Elliss, Kate Kaye, Rosemary Solman, Pat Uphill and numerous others. I must mention Keith Thomson, Dot & Bob Thomson's grandson, Keith did a fantastic job helping everyone and anyone. Also Peter Robinson and Chris Stimpson worked tirelessly for our raffle once again.

I wore the club's grey cat suit again to hand out leaflets in Abingdon town centre to drum up support for the show which I hope helped with numbers. Dogs in the area certainly seemed to be quite impressed, some may even have wanted to join us!

Amanda Roberts