To Our Customers:
Well here we are again, in what would have been our 42nd year, and we will loose another season. Being seasonal to open will take 5 weeks to prepare, and cost around $35,000.00, reactivating the insurance will add another $10,000.00. When we open it can’t be with seating restrictions since having 140 people in 550 seats per screening will not pay the bills or recover the re-opening costs. We would have had to open no later than July 1, since 75% of our revenues come from the period from July 1st to Aug. 15th. and looking at the Provinces re-opening plan, indoor Theatres will probably open with restrictions sometime in August. Most of the movies we needed to make money have been moved and the ones remaining will be streamed as well as being in Theatres which simply won’t work for Theatres.
More importantly most customers won’t be going to the movies until they are fully vaccinated (my second shot at 74 isn’t until July 21st ), and this is over, and it is far from over. It won’t be truly over until it is over all around the world, and no variants have compromised the vaccines. Last week thousands of cases of Black Fungus were reported in India in recovering Covid-19 patients with a mortality rate of 50%. The latest edition of Scientific American screams THE NEXT DEADLY PLAGUE, THE GROWING WOLDWIDE THREAT OF FUNGAL DISEASE. US Theatres I have talked to say they are running shows with 5 people in the auditorium. I don’t think anyone knows when things will get back to normal, and our fearless leaders are winging it. So I have no idea when we can once again See You At The Movies!
The Theatre has received some help from both the Federal & Provincial Governments but I am probably going to have to look at something in addition to help get us thru, when I figure it out there will be a posting on the web-site and Facebook. I was supposed to have a list of posters we were contemplating selling up by Christmas. The list hasn’t been sent yet, because some other Theatres are suggesting we take 500 posters, photograph them and put them on a web-site they recommended and auction them off as a fund raiser. I have decided to release the list of over 2,000 posters to everyone who has contacted us in early June, I will ask recipients to make us an offer on any posters they may be interested in and email us back withing 30 days. At that time the posters will be gone thru once and notifications will be sent out. Purchasers will have the option of picking them up, or having them mailed out. If we do this right we should be able to re-open next year, but we have to open the first weekend in May 2022 under normal conditions, or that is the end of the line.
CAT TALES
I was really humbled by the number of people who last year made donations to our resident 42+ cats, it was appreciated. E-transfers can be sent to keithstata@nexicom.net Cheques can be mailed to Keith Stata, Box 85, Kinmount, ON K0M 2A0. Donations of food and money can also be left in the drop box on the driveway. I would note the cats consume Purina Friske’s 156G cans of wet food, Purina dry food, & Veterinary Grade Urinary SO. They also go thru a Hell of a lot of Temptations!
The cats here are a mix of feral cats, stray and abandoned cats that would have been put down had we not intervened, and given them a forever home. There are 11 houses, they consume 9,500 cans of Friskies a year, and it takes 40 hours a week to look after them. Over the years some cats have been adopted out if a suitable home could be found before they were here more than a month. I am contemplating that maybe people making donations if they are prepared to make an appointment could visit the cats during July & August, a decision will be made later on this.
Since I feel we really need a bit of levity right now, I thought I would recount some events of the past 2 years. In the fall of 2019 I finally finished a pen for the Crew, it certainly has cut back on litter box use! I lost Milo that fall, he turned up in the middle of a storm on the Aug. 1st weekend some 12 years ago, everyone had gone and one soaked cat was sitting in the lobby, looking quite frightened, he never left. Scruffy our resident HIV cat had to have one eye removed. (We are getting to the levity!)
Normally feral cat pens have roofs of wire, but when we built Left Behind Lane house and pen there wasn’t supposed to be any ferals, and the pen is over 40′ sq. so a roof is out. Things were good until I took in 4 feral kittens, and their mom and dad. The adults went to Tom Cat Alley, but the kids went to Left Behind Lane, between that addition and Kristoff a nightmare began. They started getting out. PLAN 1 run an overhang of wire down the 40 ft of both sea containers, Failure still getting out. PLAN 2 heighten and increase the front and back pharaohs curl, Failure still getting out. PLAN 3 install a 40 ft anti climb metal section on the front 40 ft. Failure still getting out. PLAN 4 install a 4ft. overhang across the front. Failure still getting out. PLAN 5, install an Australian roller on the window to prevent jumping. Failure still getting out! PLAN 6 install a 20 ft. catchers mitt on the east side to prevent jumping. Failure still getting out! Right about then the frost heaved the gate and they just went underneath. Found, Splash, Oreo, and Kristoff were climbing up the plywood wall, around the 1 ft roof overhang, getting on the roof and jumping 12 feet to the sea container!! Solution, put Kristoff and Splash in the side apartment and built a pen inside the pen with a roof. Success! Trapped Oreo in the little house on Tomcat Alley, sectioned off a small roofed pen. Success!
In the winter of 2019 Sir Poisy was our free roaming tom, however another cat that appeared to be female turned up in the heated feeder, trying to keep warm. It later became apparent she was on camera shots 4 years before where we dump the popcorn for the racoons and bear. Missy & Poisy don’t do traps, so when 12 racoons decided to move in under the Theatre because the heated cat feeder was just too much of a good thing, (Got rid of them by sticking an electric leaf blower down an air vent over where they were sleeping and turning it on, haven’t seen them since!) I hatched the PERFECT PLAN. Two small apartments two small pens where they hung around, separate and safe. Hmmm well Missy walked right in and I closed the door. Poisy had doubts. Moved the feeder over and connected it to the other apartment. Mid December late one cold night closed the door, sure enough he was inside, so was his girlfriend! Scruffy was losing his other eye and decided to move Missy into his old apartment and build him a new one for a blind cat. Took down the crate, Missy went into hiding for 2 weeks apparently she doesn’t do crates! Built a little cottage with bed and an electromagnetic trip, Missy doesn’t do cottages! Built a 40 ft. bridge connecting to the house I wanted her in. Went for a stroll but wouldn’t go in. She did however decide to go visit Bam Bam and beat him up. Sent Squeek 3 out to protect him, which only led to the 2 of them running for their lives. Put a gate on her bridge. Saw Waddles, the feral female, bigger than 2 barns, at 1 in the morning cut the pens and put a sonotube between Poisy’s pen and the bridge. He went for a stroll and now lives in Scruffy’s house. That night Waddles popped 5 kittens. I was in the middle of finishing Scruffy’s new digs in the power shed, had to stop and add an addition to Waddle’s house since it was designed for 1 cat not 6 and I needed a way to get the kittens out when they were weaned. The house featured a track and sliding gate at the entry activated from the outside. The other night they were all asleep and mom was in the pen. They are now in a crate in the house. Not sure if they can be socialized, mom has taught them Keith is evil so swat, spit and attack! Not sure what else could possibly go wrong! At least they haven’t come down with Covid 19! If we ever get to re-open all the back exit paths will need to be changed as we now have a sub-division in the middle of them!