The SWNCC Committee is elected annually at the AGM, traditionally held on the first Saturday of October. All committee members are paid-up club members of at least twelve months standing. The committee meets four times a year, with minutes circulated to members via the Forest Gazette.
Officers
Mrs Margaret Ashton — Chairman
Penmorrow, Cornwall
Margaret has owned and bred Norwegian Forest Cats since 1979, and has served the club in one capacity or another since 1983. She took the chair in 2018 after sixteen years as Secretary. Her cattery, Penmorrow, is the longest-running Norwegian Forest Cat prefix in the South West and has bred twenty-seven UK Champions.
Mr Peter Hendry — Secretary
Tremaine, Cornwall
Peter has been club Secretary since 2018 and a member since 2004. He runs Tremaine with his wife Annabel from a smallholding outside Bodmin. Peter handles all correspondence, the membership database, and is the first point of contact for new and prospective members.
Mrs Helen Sowerby — Treasurer
Wyvern, Somerset
A chartered accountant by profession, Helen has kept the club’s books since 2015. Wyvern is a small home-based cattery that has produced a handful of champion blacks and black-and-whites over the last decade. Helen also sits on the Norwegian Forest Cat Breed Council finance subcommittee.
Mrs Rebecca Trelawney — Show Secretary
Hollybrook, Devon
Rebecca organises the Annual Show at Westpoint and manages the schedule, class lists, judges’ hospitality and trophy inventory. She has been a GCCF exhibitor since 1998 and a club member since 2007.
Mr Geoffrey Marsh — Membership Secretary
Brynmawr, Wiltshire
Geoffrey handles new-member applications, renewals, and the distribution of the Forest Gazette. He breeds under the Brynmawr prefix from a converted dairy in north Wiltshire and has served on committee for eleven years.
Ordinary committee members
Mrs Susan Winterbourne — Newsletter Editor
Foxcombe, Dorset
Susan edits and lays out the Forest Gazette quarterly. A retired schoolteacher, she joined the committee in 2016 and has overseen the Gazette’s move from print-only to a hybrid print-and-digital format.
Mr David Carew-Pole — Welfare Officer
Kernow Forest, Cornwall
David is the club’s Welfare Officer and the contact point for any concerns about the wellbeing of a Norwegian Forest Cat within the SWNCC community. He also runs the annual informal retirement-home scheme for older cats returning from breeding programmes.
Mr James Holroyd — Committee Member
Tamar, Devon
James has bred at Tamar since 2003 and sits on committee as a senior breeder representative. He also judges at Preliminary level for the Norwegian Forest Cat at GCCF shows.
Mrs Katherine Blackwell — Committee Member
Aelfric, Gloucestershire
Katherine represents the club’s members in the north of our region and liaises with the GCCF education committee on behalf of SWNCC.
Miss Alice Pennington — Junior Member Representative
Alice, twenty-two, joined the committee in 2024 as our first Junior Representative. She is a veterinary nursing student in Exeter and the owner of our current Best in Show cat, Gr Ch Penmorrow Skogmus of Pennington.
Committee elections: nominations for the 2026–27 committee close on Friday 12 September 2026. Members in good standing may propose any paid-up member for any officer or ordinary-member role. Nominations should be sent to the Secretary on the club’s standard nomination form (enclosed with the autumn Forest Gazette).