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]