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| the Shelter Staff and dog Walkers and Dr. Innis, one of the Vets at the Shelter Clinic |
IN THIS ISSUE:
***We had our AGM on April 4th
1. management committee:
2.
fundraising:
3. members:
4. the shelter and staff:
5. education:
6. visitors:
7. spay & neuter clinics
8. clinic:
9. projects for the
year:
10. pound:
11. volunteers:
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1. MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE:
Regular monthly meetings have been held throughout
the year. Action items were agreed and
Financial Statements reviewed, to ensure that we are in full control of our
expenditure in relation to our income.
The Committee members work on a volunteer basis and are to be commended
for their hard work and dedication.
2.
FUNDRAISING:
- We continue to rely heavily on
fundraising projects and private donations.
- Book and jumble sales are ongoing
projects together with the collections from our dog boxes, placed in shops and hotels. The last Saturday of each month a white tent
is erected outside “Stumpys” and there you will find Mrs. Pamela Phillips and
her volunteer assistants and a wonderful collection of books for sale. We are indebted to Pamela Phillips for her
continued assistance.
- Through our fundraising Committee,
we held events which were well attended and proved successful particularly our
pre Carnival Party at Stonehaven. Thanks
go to Duane Kenny and his crew for their support.
3. MEMBERS:
New members were approved. We continue to welcome new members. $100 for life membership
4. THE SHELTER AND STAFF:
- Check out our new Sign at the
Entrance given by an anonymous donor.
- The Shelter has a new laptop,
printer, washing machine and freezer all donated. We are so grateful.
- We have maintained the same staff
throughout the year and their loyalty is commendable. Bonuses were awarded at
Christmas in appreciation. Throughout the year the staff have been sprucing up
the Shelter by cleaning and painting the buildings, repairing doors on kennels,
retiling the dogs’ bathtub area etc. We purchased a Weed Whacker so the grounds
are now maintained by the Staff.
We continue to work with the Staff
to update them on their job discriptions and any staff issues they may
have and
their role in helping the TSPCA follow their mission and vision.
“A stray free country, where animals are treated with love
and respect”
At the end of March the number of
animals at the Shelter: 27 dogs, 5 Boarders, 11 puppies, 5 cats and 6 kittens.
- During the year we sent 7 dogs to
Germany and the UK, all adopted by Visitors to our Island.
The rules for sending dogs to the UK
or any EU country has changed and instead of having to spend 6 months in
quarantine, the dog can be micro
chipped, given a rabies vaccine and travel to any EU country 21 days later.
- Many of our animals have been adopted from the
Shelter and at our Adoption Drives held at the Gulf City Mall.
- Dr. Paul Crooks hosts a regular programme called “Ask the Vet” on Tobago Channel 5 on
the “Rise & Shine” morning show, on the second Monday each month. This
is an interactive show and deals with both pets and farm animals.
5. EDUCATION:
The Animal Welfare Network in
Trinidad are working on a programme on Education with regards to the welfare of
animals and will be testing the pilot programme in two schools. On completion they will forward us the
programme together with activity books and we will introduce it into our
Primary Schools in Tobago.
We
are looking for Volunteers for this programme. We
must empower students to realize
they can apply the concepts of respect and kindness towards animals in their
own lives.
6. VISITORS:
- We said goodbye to Miguella-Carew a fulbright Scholar from
Cornell University USA who had paid us several visits during her stay in
Trinidad & Tobago. She continues to
keep in touch and promise s to assist us with our next SPOTT programme.
- Alexandra Rothlisberger, Program Manager for the Caribbean from the
Humane Society International paid us a visit early March. She
has promised to assist us in our next SPOTT programme.
- Phillipe LeFarge, from Ireland, organised a golf tournament, while
he was in Tobago and came to visit us with a donation, proceeds from the
tournament.
- Dr.Charlotte Balcombe from UK
spent the month of September in Tobago and assisted Dr. Crooks by spaying and neutering
all our animals at the clinic.
- Many other visitors came, viewed
the Shelter and left us a donation. We
are indeed grateful to one and all.
7. SPAY & NEUTER CLINICS
- Since our last SPOTT (Spaying prevents overpopulation
in Trinidad & Tobago) in January
2011 we have received no funding from Humane Society International due to the
recession in USA. We have worked very
hard since 2008 on advertising and holding the SPOTT programmes and in total have
spayed and neutered 425 dogs and cats so preventing many unwanted litters. In
March we got a comittment from the Humane Society International for some
funding and we are making arrangements to hold SPOTT clinics in July 2012. We are
hoping to get some assistance from the Tobago House of Assembly.
8. CLINIC:
- Dr. Paul Crooks renewed his tenancy of our Shelter Clinic. Dr.
Crooks does pro-bono work on our Shelter animals and we are very grateful. It
is reflected in the general health of the animals in our care.
- The Clinic is being extended with
the generous help of Ms. Luise Kimme.
- The Clinic is open to the public
from 4 – 6 pm daily and 8.30 am – 12.30 pm on Saturday.
- The Clinic offers the general
public affordable safe veterinary care and medications.
9. PROJECTS FOR THE
YEAR:
- New Kitchen:
This was finally completed, when Mrs. Beverly Smith, one of our
Committee Members took over as Project Manager and was ably assisted by two of
our staff, Keishon and Leston.
- Boarding Kennels:
We have been unable to obtain the required funding for our new Boarding
Kennels which we planned to build to generate funds for the Shelter. We have collected some funds and with a
promise from an overseas member, living in the UK, who will match us dollar for dollar we are
going to build the foundation and as we collect further funds we will add each kennel. (10 in total)
- Extension of Clinic: Almost completed
10. POUND:
-This is the responsibility of the
Tobago House of Assembly but we have offered to let them set it up at the back
of the Shelter and as in Trinidad, the TSPCA would run the day to day
operations. We had a promising meeting
with representatives of the Public Health division in September and a recent
promise from Mr. Melville, secretary for Agriculture to set up a meeting with
the Secretary for Health with a view to setting up a POUND to alleviate the
problems of the stray and roaming dogs on the Island. We await the outcome.
11. VOLUNTEERS:
We depend heavily on the services of
Volunteers to help with walking our dogs, socializing with our puppies and
kittens and helping at our fund raising events. Those volunteers who do spend time at the
Shelter we are indeed grateful. If you
have time to spare please come and walk a dog.
We need foster Homes for dogs to
help socialize them before adoption.
As Chairman, I would like to thank
our Manager, Ms. Clare Joseph and her
staff for their support during the past year.
I would like to thank Mr. Alan Porter for auditing our books
for 2011.
I also wish to thank our Committee for their support . We have been able to achieve some of our
goals and we are making progress on others.
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