Fox catches mouse & talknite report.

This was our first one and went very well,a good sized crowd packed out the bar in the Lamb to hear about what the big cats in Sussex get up to from the 4 local researchers.People contributed their own sightings and experiences of big cats and we raised £29(made up to £30)from the raffle to be shared equally between St.Peter & St.James hospice,Chailey and the NSPCC.Everyone said they enjoyed themselves and the jovial atmosphere was jollied along by the excellent ale from the landlord of the Lamb,Alec,a special thanks to him for hosting the event.Thanks also to Merrily Harpur and her publishers Roving press for donating our only raffle prize,her book "Roaring Dorset",this was won by a chap who had travelled 2 hours by train from Tunbridge Wells and will be very much appreciated by him,thanks to everyone else who bought tickets.A big thanks also to Rupert Taylor of Sussex express.co.uk (newspaper)and all the shopowners who displayed leaflets.
My fellow researchers have my deepest respect for putting on sterling displays and imparting their knowledge,i think we spanned collectively nigh on 60 years active big cat experience the 4 of us plus the others that were there, the pawprint collections other people have put my own miserable ones to shame,theirs were excellent and i have never seen so many pawprint plastercasts in one place and they were all individuals i noticed.Apologies to those who had trouble getting a place to sit and were so far back they couldn,t hear that well,this was my fault on the seating plan but i really didn,t expect that we would get so many people showing up and seeing as i know most of those that did i suppose i should of known better!After all one of the reasons we put this event on was for people to share their experiences and share them they did.I have managed to fill in the exact gaps i,ve been after so far as the Offham(pronounced oafhem as i was corrected!)cat is concerned and this all tied in very neatly with what i spoke about.This will be blogged in due course on the big cats in Sussex blog but i thought Lewesians deserved to hear it first seeing as it,s the local cat.......