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This novel fund raising event was staged by the Tas Branch of The ALF on 21^st Dec 2000. The concept of racing the pigeons against the Bass Strait catamaran was proposed in Nov 1999 by the late Marguerite Moore. Marguerite was an enthusiastic member of the committee until her sudden unexpected death from her chronic lung disorder on 28^th June 2000. The project co-ordinator was John Bruce & the committee included Jim Markos, Sylvia Smedley, Mark Cage, Brenda Moore-Murphy (sister of Marguerite Moore), Brenton Murphy & Geoffrey Matthews (secretary, Tasmanian Homing Pigeon Federation).

The event was staged with the assistance of:

1. TT-Line Co, which runs the DevilCat ferry service across Bass Strait, with thanks to Simone Ferrier (Corporate Communications Manager) & Peter Simmons (General Manager).

2. Tasmanian Homing Pigeon Federation, with thanks to Geoffrey Matthews.

The event logo and promotional material were designed by Eddie Mallinson (graphic artist, AT&M). The colourful logo with a cartoon cat & pigeon captured the interest of most people who saw it. The logo included the ALF name & leaves. Polo shirts & caps with embroidered logos were produced by Bob Baker (Sim Crawcour).

We are grateful for the support from our major sponsors (Southern Cross & Aurora), our gold sponsors (Purity & Roelf Vos Supermarkets, Lions Club, Country Club Casino, Wrest Point & BOC Gases), our silver sponsors (Fee & Me Licensed Restaurant, Starwood & Central Auxiliary of LGH) & our 9 bronze sponsors.

We achieved a lot of promotion before the race with a Southern Cross TV commercial, colour posters, supermarket flyers, print media articles & a newspaper colouring-in competition. Winners of the Colouring-in competition (The Examiner, Dec 2000) were: Kamilia Palu (age 10), Kaiden James Best (age 5) & Thomas Ervin (age 5).