Christmas Fair

Christmas Cat-astrophy?

Well, maybe not after you dear supporters have spread the word. I'm hearing that at least one fantastic feline will have found a home this weekend as a result of my blog this week - so thank you all for your continued support.

So, yesterday was our Christmas Fair, and despite the newspaper apparently printing the wrong address for the venue we still had a steady trickle of people attend. And yes, I do mean a trickle - it was really quite quiet but I had a great time sat next to the home produce stall eating my way through all the chocolate themed cakes and texting my mate in the kitchen to furnish me with brews - that was funny cos she got proper cross with me after a while, ha! I hasten to add I paid for all my cakes, in fact, I spent nearly £50 at the fair on crimbo pressies and the like and so I only have 3 people to get for now - 2 of which are, of course, the hardest ones to please.

But the fair was so lovely because it was totally stress free and we all had a right good natter and a fuss with our dogs that the girls brought along for the public to meet. Ben, our oldie who we thought had found a home but didn't, loved it so much. He was so happy being out of the kennels and was just a delightful giddy kipper. I had to show you the new picture we have of him - please spread the word, as he's an oldie but goodie and has so much life left in him.

Anyway, back to the fair, I am delighted to tell you that we raised £845 and after taking off costs of stock, adverts, hall hire etc a whopping £600 will go directly to the animals, which is just brilliant. And so a huge thank you to all the volunteers and supporters who came along on the day - you are all bloomin marvellous.

Kitty Calamity!

Feeling rather desperate this week as we've had no cats reserved for over a week now and we are in crisis. We have so many and nowhere for them to go and have had to close to admissions and cannot accept any from the inspectors or clinic. Things are really dire and miserable is not the word for it.

It is so telling that we are coming up to Christmas, the phone has only rung once today and that's only cos I rang it from my moby to check the line was working. I feel really low, but probably not quite as cheesed off as our homeless kitties so I thought I'd show you some of our newbies...

They all have one thing in common - they've all been abandoned by their owners; either turfed out on to the street or left behind in property they've moved out of. Not featured here is a group of 5 we've had to take in, they are all quite unwell and struggling to get better.

This is such a sad indictment of our times.

Welcome Relief

I've come to view weekends a welcome opportunity to catch up on work I've not got done during the week! I'm feeling slightly less burdened after having done some catch up and used my house cleaning time to come up with some new ideas such as a Christmas shoe box appeal for our animals...I'll share more when I've written the press release.

I've been having a flutter today about whether people are going to show up to the Christmas Fair. As it's our first ever one I don't want to go mad on lots of paid ads in the newspapers but then at the same time I don't want it to be a washout - just don't know whether it's best to run another this week or not. Hubby says no cos it's £50 a time, so I'm going to go out leafleting shoppers and lamp posts in the area and try and dress up as rudolf too in the process. I am beginning to question my sanity!

My other anxiety is the slowing up of rehomings. Last week we only rehomed one cat and one kitten - you can so tell that "the holidays are coming" - said in the words of Santa Coca Cola advert. I have had some very welcome news tho this week, which is that Ashleigh Vets in Chorlton are running their annual pet food donation scheme again this year and are going to donate it all to us. which is just truly fantastic, and, they have also been exceptionally generous this week in donating a car full of kitten and puppy food. Let me tell you, my little furry folk are loving it!

Speaking of which I really must tell you all about Petey and Meg....

The little one with the white stripe on her face is Meg, so named after the drummer of the White Stripes - yeah, I know, lame - no one, and I mean no-one, has remotely been amused by this except me. Anyway she is now about 18 weeks old and has been waiting a home for going on 5 to 6 weeks now. She was found stray in the Trafford area, the finder wanted to keep her but wouldn't pay the £50 adoption fee (which goes nowhere near the cost of blood testing ,neutering, vaccinating and microchipping) so she stayed with me and Petey, who was found abandoned in Middleton in a cardboard box at just 5 week old. Petey is now about 12 weeks old and the love of my life.

The pair of them have been together so long now that they are inseparable, so I absolutely have to find them a home together - they are both proper bonkers and only go to sleep to get up the energy to start running around together and beat hell out of each other. But when they do sleep they wrap their paws around each other and snuggle up, it is just soooo cute.

With Petey having been separated from his mum too young he is a bit of a head peck. Even if you just kneel down he is there on your lap. Petey really needs a home where someone is around an awful lot because all he ever wants to do (aside from hi-jinx with Meg) is snuggle down for some attention with his human pals.

Whilst I'm really sad they haven't found a home yet, it means I get to snuggle up with Petey and watch X Factor. Speaking of which, the results show is on, so I best get going. But, before I do, can I just say that I thought Joe was outstanding last night. Since day one he has reminded of a young Georgey Michaels and last night just confirmed for me how talented he really is. Long live Mr Michaels Sir!

Shattered

I'm still trying desperately to get 'back to normal' but I've just been away for two days at the RSPCAs Animal Centre Managers Conference. It was really worthwhile and I've come away with loads of ideas and raring to go with them too!

I also delivered a presentation, which admittedly was nerve wracking cos there was double the number of people I had expected and so it was quite overwhelming. Anyway, I seemed to manage to fudge my way through the perils of using non 'quick-release safety buckle' cat collars and gross everyone out with really gruesome pictures of nasty injuries. I was the first speaker (after about 5) that got asked questions at the end so I'm thinking I must have been thought provoking.

So, back to it today and the dawning of realisation that I have to put together a Christmas Fayre in less than a week and I am yet again feeling overwhelmed. I'm all sorted with plans and volunteers - I just need raffle prizes, cake donations and help with labelling a million teddies for a teddy tombola no less! Oh magic.

I've also come up with some gift ideas that I now need to sort out, including - buy a microchip for a furry friend for just £7.50 or a Christmas Day Care Gift for a cat, dog or rabbit for just £5.00.
I'll get there, I suppose, just need cloning, again!

Xmas Fair

No soon as I finish off one event we are straight on to our next, which is a good job as we are having a touch week - on Monday we had a mum and kittens dumped at our charity chop in Chorlton, a kitten abandoned in a box the day after, and an adopter found a stray cat with a severely infected collar wound at the weekend that we have taken in and are giving intensive nursing care to because she is so badly injured (and smelly - cos of the infection). We truly are in cat meltdown, again. But check out the Trafford Metro cos one of the newbies, currently asleep on my arm is on page 3 this week! Oh, and if the get a copy would you save it for me?

This is my plea for help, please:

We have just over two weeks until our first ever Christmas Fair on Sat 28th Nov in Urmston, just round the corner from our charity shop on Manor Ave.

So, what do I want? I want you! Can you please let me know if you can help with any of the following:

- volunteering to help set up from 10 am and run a stall (we open 11 til 2pm)
- get making and baking for us - cakes, jams, chutneys anything!
- donate plants
- donate raffle prizes - gifts, booze, tickets etc
- donate any handicrafts, gift items etc
- put up posters and help with publicising the fair (see attached poster)
- anything else you think will helps us with our event.

If you want to be involved and help raise dosh for our furries please drop me an email - and if you can donate items we can let you know how to get them to us or arrange to get them for you.

Lost my mojo

The gala has sapped every last bit of umph out of me and I've been struggling to get on line to update you all. I have never worked so hard in my life and the two days of washing up I had to do afterwards was just the icing on the cake, but, whinging aside, it was a huge success. We sold out and we had a fabulous crowd of 150 people attend with some really lovely and generous spirited people on the night too.

Above all the team of volunteers were just the tops - I have never had to ask volunteers to work so hard before but they rose to the occasion and then some. I can honestly it was the most amazing effort by all concerned, but I am so glad it's all over and the words 'never again' just ring thru my head over and over again!

However, it was a resounding success, qualified by the amazing number of emails and and calls and texts from people saying how fab it was - which is so nice of people to take the trouble to contact us.

So, I am pleased to tell you that with ticket sales and sponsorship we started the night being £1000 in profit and raised another £1,250 from the sale of drinks, raffle tickets and auction prizes, so in total we raised the phenomenal sum of £2,250 - which is simply tremendous.

But I sooooo want to stay in bed for a week.

Still Awake!

So I've put my awakeness to good use, I hope, and designed our Christmas Fair poster...what do you think?

Farty Cat in My Office

So, I've woken up in the middle of the night traumatised by Norman the cat's trumpy bum and now can't sleep.....

Ok, so only part of that sentence is true -

1. Yes, I do have a trumpy arsed cat living in my office that whiffs for Britain and I can't open a window cos he'd 'do one'

2. Yes, I have woken up in the middle of the night, hence the blogging

3. Is it all because of Norman? No. It's that whole gala thing.

I've woken up cos I'm having a volunteer crisis and pretty much exhausted every avenue I can think of. I know that they say 'it'll be alright on the night', and I don't doubt it will, but I'll be so glad when it's over. Just to give you a flavour of how much it has taken over my mind... my parting conversation with hubby tonight as I drifted off to sleep was....

"Do I serve the cup cakes individually or on platters to the tables?"

He rightly shrugged his shoulders and said "whatever". I keep saying never again to myself but I know I will happen all over again next year and with nobs on. But for the time being, if I could just ease my woes with helpers I'd be a lot happier.

So, let me tell you about Norman - poor lad's a shabby looking cat. We think his whiff-a-roos are due to a change in diet - decent diet that is. All I know is that an Inspector had a call to a home with 5 cats in varying poor states - Norman, bless him, has blocked tear ducts and his skin below his eyes is red raw and crusted from constant running and no care paid to it - ouch. But, despite all this, he is sooooo affectionate, you just have to hold your breathe! We have 2 others from the home but have sadly run out of space to take in the remaining two.

Last week we were able to say yes to I think 5 or 6 new cats, but the majority have turned out to be unwell and in need of rehabilitation first, like Jess, a beautiful torty girl who is recovering from neutering only to have infected her wound because she has such severe gum disease and now needs many of her teeth removing. Bless her heart, she was slathering everywhere when she came into us post op - so we whipped her off to our vets and discovered her dental problem. Antibiotics are really helping with the drooling and she seems a lot happier cat but both she and Norman are homeless cos we've run out of foster carers so they are living in our offices - yippeee for me!

I'm saddened today cos my Tilly Looney girl has not gone to her new home. We delayed her adoption a couple of weeks ago due to an eye infection but ever since then we have been ringing and ringing the person who wanted her and they have never returned out calls - so we have concluded they are avoiding us and don't want her any more. How could they, that's my baby! But Tilly Looney is being fostered so at least she'll be getting the attention and love that she needs. I love Tilly Looney - hubby said I couldn't keep her - meany!

But, probably the best news of all to share is that our last longest stay dog, Ben (pictured), may have found himself a home with friends of the people who adopted Roma. A home visit is being done this week with the idea of a month trail fostering him with a view to adoption - so I only hope his winning personality shines through. Please keep your paws crossed.