Straits Times, LIFE! 11 August 2001, By CLARA CHOW THEY saved the family cat, so now flower shop owner Carol Tan and her son Melvin are organising a concert of classical choral music and art songs to help the Cat Welfare Society. Four months ago, the Tans' five-year-old cream, white and grey tabby, Blue Blue - so named for its squinty blue eyes - went missing for six days. After endless searching, Mrs Tan, who is in her mid-40s and owns a flower shop along Bukit Timah Road, called the Cat Welfare Society for help. It promptly sent two volunteers to the vicinity of her shop. They managed to locate Blue Blue in a drain nearby, and coaxed the frail and blood-covered feline out with some food. The cat's collar had lodged itself around her jaw, probably due to its attempts to pry it off with her hind legs, resulting in her being unable to eat or drink. She just crawled out and collapsed at my feet, so I scooped her up, and took her immediately to the vet, Mrs Tan recalled on Monday, cradling the now fat and healthy Blue Blue. What might have been a near pet tragedy developed into an idea to raise funds for the Cat Welfare Society. Its volunteers do not charge for rescue work, but they also emphasise the need for people to learn how to care for animals and prevent such emergencies. The non-profit, all-volunteer organisation was set up in October 1999 by a group of friends, including 37-year-old Lynn Yeo, now the society's treasurer. Fusing a cultural evening with cat love is son Melvin's fund-raising aim. It aims to improve the welfare of stray cats through public education and raising of awareness, rescue, adoption, and sterilisation. It also provides medical attention and care for stray cats and runs programmes to end animal abuse. The society now has 400 members and 1,200 subscribers on its e-mail appeal list. Membership costs a year, and the society needs ,000 a month to cover its operational costs for its sterilisation programmes. The society has no office and no full-time staff, and does not receive any funding. Melvin, a 22-year-old English literature undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh who is back on holiday, suggested to his mother that he and some friends put up a vocal and piano recital in aid of the society. So, come Aug 24 and 25, he and three others - Leslie Tay, 23, a National University of Singapore undergraduate, Julie Tan; a musician in her,early 30s and Stephanie Beckman, 19, a student - will be performing at the Young Musicians Society's SPH Auditorium. The repertoire will include selections from German Baroque composer George Handel, Polish Romantic composer Frederic Chopin and some light-hearted Andrew Lloyd Webber musical highlights. Melvin will also sing art songs, which are poems set to music. Proceeds from the show go entirely to the Cat Welfare Society. The Tan family hopes to raise at least ,000 from ticket sales. Currently, half the tickets have been sold. We hope that, through this concert, more people will become aware of the plight of stray cats in Singapore, of the work we do to help them, as well as to raise the necessary funds to continue this work. said Ms Yeo. Fittingly, the society's motto is taken from Mahatma Gandhi: The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. Added Melvin: So what better way to show this than to combine a cultural evening with the love of cats.