You'd best settle down as I could be having a bit of a rant here. The title says it all. Of course this in my personal opinion and should be treated as such. I suppose in that case this is a bit of an edtiorial. But then I did say this was a blog about the trials and tribulations of a small equine charity in a big charity world didn't I? So I think I had better get my personal feelings about it off my chest and done with so I can move on with you all.
If there is one thing that we have learned here in the last two and a half years it is that being the underdog in the charity world means that you can easily be forgotten by the public. Tucked away in the beautiful Welsh countryside as we are means we aren't on the tourist route so we get few passing visitors. You have to make an effort to come up here so visitors are always welcomed by us for having made that effort. We work tirelessly to raise awareness of the Trust in the hopes that we will be able to keep our funds above danger level; at the moment we have well less that one year's funds available to us.
The major charities have huge sums of money. I break no confidences with that statement, it is all on the world wide web to see, all charity accounts have to be available. One day when you are sitting at your machine with not a great deal to do, have a trawl and have a look at just how much money some of them have and indeed how much we have. Their advertising budgets alone are more money than we see up here in the space of several years. Their medical facilities are all superb, their stabling palatial, their staffing levels we can only dream of.
If there is one thing that we have learned here in the last two and a half years it is that being the underdog in the charity world means that you can easily be forgotten by the public. Tucked away in the beautiful Welsh countryside as we are means we aren't on the tourist route so we get few passing visitors. You have to make an effort to come up here so visitors are always welcomed by us for having made that effort. We work tirelessly to raise awareness of the Trust in the hopes that we will be able to keep our funds above danger level; at the moment we have well less that one year's funds available to us.
The major charities have huge sums of money. I break no confidences with that statement, it is all on the world wide web to see, all charity accounts have to be available. One day when you are sitting at your machine with not a great deal to do, have a trawl and have a look at just how much money some of them have and indeed how much we have. Their advertising budgets alone are more money than we see up here in the space of several years. Their medical facilities are all superb, their stabling palatial, their staffing levels we can only dream of.
We carefully consider where every penny goes to and nothing is wasted. We have a duty of care to the animals we have as well as those who will come later. As a small independent charity, we are very much front line here and will often try to pick up the pieces when major charities won't act. We have a criteria and try to stick to it but it is a rigid criteria often flexibly applied. We will bend as much as we can afford to in order to help animals in need.
Now don't get me wrong, we work very closely with several of the major charities and the people on the ground are good people, hard workers and committed to their work. No problems with any of them actually. All very helpful and nice people. But still the smaller charities struggle on with little if any help from their larger brothers, many going under. We have been told twice in the last year that despite being a wonderful place and doing wonderful work under difficult circumstances (blah, blah, blah), we should close down, sell up, forget about it, we're too small, we will never make it in the twenty first century world.
Well I don't think so. We have a professional job here to do, it is an important one. It is one of ANIMAL WELFARE. We will survive in the twenty first century without the help of any of the major animals charities if we have to. It is hard work but we will survive.
So next time a major animal charity rattles a tin under your nose or advertises, just give a thought to one of the smaller ones that you may or may not know about. I would love you to support us and us alone (yes please!) but there are so many that need your help, I just ask you to think about it a bit, that's all.
Now don't get me wrong, we work very closely with several of the major charities and the people on the ground are good people, hard workers and committed to their work. No problems with any of them actually. All very helpful and nice people. But still the smaller charities struggle on with little if any help from their larger brothers, many going under. We have been told twice in the last year that despite being a wonderful place and doing wonderful work under difficult circumstances (blah, blah, blah), we should close down, sell up, forget about it, we're too small, we will never make it in the twenty first century world.
Well I don't think so. We have a professional job here to do, it is an important one. It is one of ANIMAL WELFARE. We will survive in the twenty first century without the help of any of the major animals charities if we have to. It is hard work but we will survive.
So next time a major animal charity rattles a tin under your nose or advertises, just give a thought to one of the smaller ones that you may or may not know about. I would love you to support us and us alone (yes please!) but there are so many that need your help, I just ask you to think about it a bit, that's all.
Rant over and thank you for being there.
Will do nanny. Good post.
ReplyDeleteMrsL
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