Darn!  Missed the Seattle show this past Saturday.  Spent all day replacing
the innards of a loudly leaking toilet and also replacing the NiCad battery
sets in our Ferrets NorthWest cordless phones.  (Do you realize how
bewildering it is to get two different sets of NiCad batteries for two
different cordless phones?  There are hundreds of them - and all different.)
 
Didn't know one must charge the new battery sets for 10 hours before using
the phones, so today didn't answer any phone calls.  Sorry to everybody who
may have called who got our answering machine with its recorded message
about being up to one's elbows in rascally ferrets and "come back here you
little rascal and give me back my socks!"
 
I would like to know, approximately, how many people attended, and of those,
how many were just showing their ferrets, how many lookie-sees, and how many
vendors?  Hopefully the organizer(s) (LOS of Pennsylvania) might give a
listing of who won the various award ribbons and who the judges were.
 
Did anyone video tape the show, as did I last year?  If so, who?  I'd very
much like to contact that person and make a copy of the tape for our
archival records.  I know that the show was likely enjoyed by most everybody
in attendance and that the monies received are not as important as the
experiences of both the joyous ribbon winners and those disappointed who got
no ribbons, but did the show make a profit for the League of Superferrets
(LOS) of Pennsylvania?
 
I have always been fearful of organizing a show.  The expenses are awsome,
compared to running a Ferret Frolic/Olympics games out of doors in a public
park where no admission fees are charged, as they were at this show in
Seattle.  I would venture to guess that the monies put up front to run a
show are substantial and that recovering these expenses might not be
realized fully.
 
If the League of Superferrets org is a not-for-profit organization, and I
don't know if it is, (didn't say so in the fliers that I distributed for
them) do any profits from such a show go back to Pennsylvania or do they
stay here in the Seattle area to finance local welfare work for distressed
ferrets in the shelters, Humane Society, and/or the animal control agencies?
 
If LOS is non-profit, does the Pennsylvania org or the local org submit the
federal income tax froms?  As is known, all such submitted NFP org forms are
available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act.  Or is the
show run for the profit of the organizers and workers who put it together.
As far as I know, no one person was paid to work at the show, except maybe
the judges; and I don't know if that was actually the case or not.  I was
told that airline fare was paid by LOS to bring judges out here from the
East.
 
I volunteered to go to judges school that had been scheduled here the two
Saturdays prior to the show, but was not "granted" that opportunity.  I was
told that the schools were cancelled because of unusual, last minute,
commitments by the lady show organizer who was also the school instructor.
Is the LOS group here is entirely female?  The only guy who I know was in
it, Lance, left some years ago in a "fury."
 
Hopefully no one will object too strenously to my airing these kinds of
questions in public, although I suspect that some will.  I may stand accused
of sexist discrimination in that the show appears to have been entirely
female-run by ladies of the names Sharon, Charleen, Deb, Nancy, and
Catherine.  Wouldv'e I been the only "dirty old man" among all these pretty
young ladies (sigh)?
 
In summary, I feel bad that I wasn't able to attend the show, even as a
senior citizen visitor.  but make no mistake about it, those who did all the
work and those who financed this show certainly deserve the thanks of the
ferret community here in Seattle, and I, speaking for no one other than
myself, but hopefully for the Seattle ferret community, wish to thank them
all for their contributions and hard work.
 
Hey!  Take no umbrage that non-profit orgs should make no profits; they
should by all means.  What's intended here, however, is that any profits
made, if any, should go back into the org as a whole and not into just one
person's pocket, not that it did!.  Conversely, in an org dedicated to
profit, then any profits are distrubuted as dictated by the organizer(s)
and it's nobody's damn business where the money goes!  Right?
 
Hopefully, in a few days or weeks, we'll all see a report put out by the
League of Superferrets.  If I can be of help in this undertaking, just let
me know.
 
Edward Lipinski, Der Frettchenlustbarkeitsfuerher wer vor Freude
jauchztet:  Frettchen Vergnuegen! [G.] The ferret frolics leader who
joyousyly shouts:  Ferret Joy!
[Posted in FML issue 2262]