Friday 18 March 2011

New Classes for Breed Clubs

In order to resolve issues that have been raised concerning the possible loss of entries at Breed Shows and prevent too much migration to All Breed shows and the new Olympian Class Award which was approved by Council at the last meeting, the board have come up with a proposal which could be implemented with very minimal change for breed shows to put on, it could also be incorporated to give a new class heading for titled pets at all shows.


The suggestion was that this would be called a Purple Ribbon Class for the Pedigree Section and Green ribbon for the Pet Section to tie in with their current colours.

The criteria would be that the award would be an Imperial Certificate which would be called either Purple Ribbon Imperial Award or Green Ribbon Imperial Award dependent upon the category.

Purple Ribbon Category (Pedigree Section)

Eligibility full Imperial Title holder, Male & Female combined= Purple Ribbon Imperial Certificate & Reserve
One Class for Entires
One Class for Neuters

Green Ribbon Category (Pet Section, all shows)
Eligibility full Imperial Title holder to include both Pedigree Pets & Non-Pedigree (Male & Female) = Green Ribbon Imperial Certificate & Reserve.

One Class.

The award would not count towards any additional status, but all entries would still be considered for Best of Breed or Best of Group as applicable and the winner would be automatically considered for Best in Show as long as the Certificate was awarded.

This would then enable all highly titled cats to continue to be shown in an appropriate class without impacting on other classes whilst still allowing them to be shown in other appropriate classes in competition. This could with very minor adjustment be put into effect at the beginning of the show season.

It is appreciated that this could be difficult for some show mangers to implement quickly and if they wished they could continue with the new class status which comes into effect on the 1st June .

The rationale behind only having one class in each category is an attempt to ensure that these classes are competitive as far as is practicably possible.

It is important to be aware that this will be a prestigious class and the award of the certificates concerned should reflect this.

Monday 7 March 2011

New Class Structure for GCCF Shows.

The New Olympian Classes
Certificate Classes replace Opens
Assessment exhibits will be placed

The policy to remove Open Classes and replace them with a tier of Certificate Classes was approved at Council on March 2nd on the proposal of the Maine Coon Cat Club. There was some initial hesitation over whether to introduce a new Olympian Class for cats who already had an Imperial title, but as Show Managers realised shows would be less attractive to exhibitors with high flyers if these cats had nothing to aim for, by the end of the afternoon there was a demand to vote on the introduction of the Olympian title, and it was approved in the format that had already been published with the agenda. Exhibitors will see a third change as the new show year kicks off on June 1st as cats in Assessment Classes will be placed, as well as exhibits getting a Merit Certificate (if worthy). The first prize winner will be eligible to be considered for Best In Show, as long as the Merit wasn't withheld.

June 1st may seem a way off as we're still having frosts and dark evenings, but schedules for the summer shows will be published very shortly and, of course, they will include the changes. There's a notice on the official GCCF website about which Certificate Class to put your cat in. http://www.gccfcats.org/notices.html#classes Look at this along with your schedule as you fill in your entry form.

Because these are major changes, the most dramatic for GCCF shows in a long time, it's anticipated there could well be the occasional issue. When did the introduction of anything new not have a glitch or two? What's important is EC want to be aware if a problem occurs so it can be resolved as soon as possible. Whether you're doing Show Management, judging, exhibiting or just think of something let us know. I'm the contact: jen.lacey@btinternet.com but I'll be fielding things through to EC not doing a solo act.

Enjoy the new show format! From response to date it's what a lot of you have been wanting for a long time. Comment invited.