Showing posts with label cat charities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cat charities. Show all posts

Thursday, 12 October 2023

Woman ran Chicago marathon (3:31) and rescued and rehomed a kitten at the same time!

This is a great little story on Facebook. A Boston resident, Sarah Bohan, was a participant in Chicago's marathon. She was running the charity for PAWS Chicago. This is one of the largest no-kill animal welfare organisations in America. There were 482 runners on the team running for PAWS. A wonderful effort.

Sarah Bohan rescues stray kitten during Chicago marathon
Sarah Bohan rescues stray kitten during Chicago marathon. Image: FB.

That would have been great by itself but Sarah went a lot further. She was on a personal best time when she noticed a scared and dirty kitten under a bridge at the 21-mile mark. She was not that far from the finish line really.

This is what she said.

"I saw this white fluffy thing scurrying under a bridge and recognized it as a dirty, scared cat that was obviously a stray separated from its mother. At that point, my personal record was out the window and I knew what I had to do."

She rescued the kitten and then walked for about a mile asking spectators if they would take the kitten that she'd rescued and rehome her. She found a woman who is a cat caregiver who promised her that she would rehome the kitten. Or perhaps she's taken the kitten in. The picture above shows the moment of handover.

Then Sarah continued her race and finished in an impressive 3:31:35, which is a good time.

Sarah did an amazing job. The only question I have is that we have to hope that the woman who took the kitten is the right one meaning she is genuine and will do a good job in either looking after the kitten or rehoming her. She looks genuine to me. Well done, Sarah.

The kitten has a Turkish Van coat for anyone who's interested. A very Mediterranean appearance.

Here is the Facebook post:

Thursday, 31 May 2012

THE SPONSORED WALK

By Barbara (UK)

You can see the four earlier posts on Barbara's walk by clicking on this link.
Click on this to see a large format version.
Poster by Ruth AKA Kattaddorra

This is the final installment of the series of four written by my sister Ruth ‘Sharing the fun of fund raising for needy cats’.
 
The day of the walk dawned and it was pouring down! The forecast had said rain to start with but clearing…it didn’t clear! Anyway I got ready with the help of my dear (patient) sister and we both went up to my work so Ruth could take some photos and she’d said she would go over the road to a shop and get me a Cats Protection balloon filled with helium to attach to the pushchair. As it turned out she got two and free of charge as the shop owner said it was to help a charity, so there was another kind soul.

My manager Jenette was at work already as she was manning the office in my absence, she hooted with laughter when she saw me but said I looked good, just not like me, she also donated £10 which was lovely. Then we waited for Julee to arrive, she had to travel about 45 minutes to get to us and got lost at the very end, after phoning for directions she was soon with us and then changed into her doggy costume. She’d made it herself and admitted she’s no seamstress, so that made two of us, but she had to be stapled into her suit as she hadn’t had time to put a zip in!

Finally we were ready and Ruth took our photos indoors and outside, once the photos were done we’d had to cover the pusschair with plastic as it was raining so heavily. Then we said cheerio to Ruth and Jenette and set off on our journey. We made our way through the shops, knocked on the window of the hairdressers that Ruth and I go to and they came out to see us and started our collecting boxes off, despite having already sponsored us.
On we went, past the cemetery, past the last of the houses and onto the bypass, still pouring rain. We got a couple of beeps on car horns and a few waves but didn’t meet anyone except two horses looking over a gate and they were scared of us, or maybe the balloons. Eventually we came to the end of the bypass and made our way to the Bishop Auckland branch of Funeralcare where we had a quick cuppa and set off again for the last bit of the walk, down into the town centre where we positioned ourselves outside of the shopping arcade, dripping wet but still in good spirits.

Most people ignored us! They were of course huddled up in their coats and covered by brollies then Julee hit on the idea of handing the little CP furry stickers out to kids, which made some of the mothers feel obliged to stop and put some coppers in our boxes, one or two cat lovers came along to have cat conversations with but not as many as we expected, purely due to the rotten weather.

We stood for about an hour and a half and we had a laugh but really we were wasting our time so we phoned my manager and she came to pick us up and bring us back home, my feet were squelching in my shoes and my shoulders soaked through so I was glad to call it a day. We’d only collected £23.42 in our boxes.

I really enjoyed it, despite the soaking, I’d thought the walk would be hard going but it flew over, it would have been nice to have some sunshine but it wasn’t to be.

We haven’t got all the sponsor money in yet so I can’t give the total amount raised until we do but I know that each of the two charities, Cats Protection Wear Valley & Darlington, and Hope Animal Shelter will get £200 each at the very least plus the £100 each from the Co-operative Booster Fund.

I can’t believe I’ll get away with no aches and pains from today, but it was so, so worth it for the sake of cats!

Thank you very much to everyone who sponsored me for the walk and everyone who has been interested in the event. I’ll post the final total as a comment on this article as soon as possible.

Barbara avatar

Saturday, 20 June 2009

No Government Compensation for Cats Protection

There will be no compensation for Cats Protection. I am very sad for the hundreds of thousands of cats who would have been helped indeed saved by Cats Protection but for the reckless investment of 11.2 million pounds (GBP) by the charity in rubbish Icelandic banks that have gone bust. It seems that this vast sum of money in terms of cat welfare is now lost as today we hear that the “Treasury rules out any help for charities that lost £120m in failed Icelandic banks” (Times Saturday June 20 2009). Cats Protection had hoped that the government would bail them out. Charities in the UK invested about £120 million in Icelandic banks and have almost certainly lost it (or most of it) when they went bust.

The Treasury said that it would set an unrealistic precedent to compensate the charities. Their stance rejects the recommendations of the Treasury Select Committee. That seems to be it. Although charities with a turnover of £6.5 million can seek help under the Government’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme larger charities are barred. I will presume that this bars Cats Protection. If I am correct that leaves them in the unenviable position of waiting years to receive perhaps pennies in the pound of monies invested when the bank’s assets are sold off.

Peter Hepburn, Cats Protection chief executive, is angry. I would have thought he would be scared to. He says, “ I feel incredibly angry…”. He wants to be bailed out. He shouldn’t be in a position where he needs to be bailed out. Responsibility rests with him ultimately for the loss of £11.2 million and he should go. It is a disgrace. He should have spread the investment far more widely. This was other people’s money. The charity held it on trust for the donors. Perhaps he was advised? Ill advised, if he was. The trouble is that the money men always give advice that benefits them. They are driven by self interest and forget about serving the client. Cats Protection found that out the hard way.

I must say I am shocked at the size of the sum of money that was held (and not spent) by Cats Protection. I feel very angry about that. There was and always is a massive obligation to spend money given by people to cat charities for the purposes for which they gave it, the welfare of cats. Of course, there has to be some money invested as it must be impossible to spend all monies received as it is received.

But how much money do you invest? The amount must be at a minimum. And the overall strategy, I say, should always have this in mind. In short the overall business plan of Cats Protection should be built around the premise that all monies received are spent on cat welfare (less the minimum cost of overheads and expenses of running the charity). I don’t believe that they think that way. I think they have gone soft. What I mean is the money was easy. There is no need to make money in a large charity. It just rolls in and this can generate a less than efficient attitude and I am convinced that this is the case with Cats Protection. I have evidence of it.

Their accounts for 2007 say that they aim to have one year’s operational expenditure. This is to protect against unexpected falls in income. This seems excessive. When in the history of Cats Protection did income completely dry up for one year? I would bet, never. I would be almost certain that income has been fairly regular for many years. And in any case any reserve funds must (yes that important) be invested in absolutely safe investments, namely bank accounts tha provide safe levels of interest.

Cats Protection run what I would describe as a rather old fashioned method of placing cats with people. Potential adopters are invited on their website to visit certain centres and select a cat. In the United States they have Petfinder.com where people can search online for individual cats and then go and meet the cat. Many small cat rescue centres are affiliated with Petfinder, using their website to direct searchers to their rescue centre. This is far more efficient. I was surprised that Cats Protection did not use the same system. So I asked them why not?

First I phoned them and the person I spoke to, Zahir White, recommended that I email my query. When that sort of thing happens it looks bad to me. I sense defensiveness and uncertainty. It does not fill me with confidence that this charity is well organised. Anyway, I complied and emailed them. I received no answer. I re-emailed them as follows:

Hello Zahir

I emailed you at your request about 11 days ago. Here is a copy of the email:

Re: Enquiry why Cats Protection don't adopt the Petfinder.com model of matching people with rescue cats

I write further to our telephone conversation today 20th March 2009, in which I asked why Cats Protection, the most established cat rescue operation in the UK, do not adopt the Petfinder.com model, which might be considered a more efficient method of placing rescued cat with prospective adopter.
Petfinder.com works with rescue centers to mutual benefit and to the cat's benefit by allowing people to search for cats (including specific cat breeds) by town and region in the USA. Individual cats are presented and the location provided plus contact details. I would ask you, please, to use the Petfinder site whereupon I would look forward to hearing from you as to why you do not adopt such a method.
Thanks in advance
Michael
Admin Pictures-of-cats.org
As I am yet to hear from Cats Protection, I should be pleased to receive a response.
Regards
Michael

That wasn’t great to be honest. Having complied with their request to email them I didn’t receive a response. I had to chase. Looks sloppy to me. I then received a response as follows:

Hi Michael

Many thanks for your email which was passed on to me by my colleague Zahir White. We are currently working on live rehoming pages for our main site which will be a fully searchable database of cats in our care ready for rehoming. The functionality of the site will allow users to search for cats by age, breed, colour etc and will offer a postcode search facility.

The new pages will draw in cats from our branch and Adoption Centre network.

Thank you again for your enquiry and suggestion, and all best wishes with PetFinder into the future.

Kind regards

James

James Blake

Communications Manager

So great news from James Blake. I wonder if the massive loss of funds will impact this?

I made a earlier post about this some time ago. At that time there was talk about a possible compensation scheme for charities generally as many had invested in these banks that in hindsight were very risky. It never worked out………

I feel for the cats that are being euthanized as a result of this huge loss of funding and the fact that there will be no compensation for Cats Protection. Do the people at Cats Protection feel this loss?

From No compensation for Cats Protection to Home Page

Monday, 16 March 2009

Cats Protection Organisation

I would like, if I may, to politely castigate the Cats Protection organization. They are the leading feline welfare charity in the UK and they claim to re-home 55,500 cats every year. The Cats Protection was formed in 1927, a very long established cat charity and to be commended for that. They are a big business. In fact, they have quite possibly lost about £11 million (GPD) in investments placed with Icelandic banks that went bust (see update at base of post, please). They wouldn't be the only British organization that has lost huge amounts of money invested in Icelandic banks. But the level of this single investment indicates to me a carelessness in respect of their precious donations from cat lovers.

I am not a financial expert but I feel I know more about how to invest money than the people at Cats Protection. I would argue that a charity (any charity, not necessarily one concerned with cats) should place donors' money into safe investment vehicles for the simple reason that it is donated money. The donations should be spread over a number of investments to protect the money. The money is a gift. A gift to a cat charity is almost held on trust on behalf of the donor. It must be used for the benefit of cats and cats welfare only.

There is an argument that it should not even be invested at all, but ploughed into cat welfare immediately. It is not the place of a cat charity to invest millions of donors' money but to spend it, yes spend it, on cats and their welfare. This is the only way that it is possible to truly satisfy the donors. How many people are there, who would have given to this charity but now do not give to the Cats Protection organisation because of the poor investment strategies of this charity? The losses go much wider that just immediate monetary loss but potentially well into the future affecting the welfare of cats in the UK as a consequence.

I have made a post about this sometime ago: Cats Protection and Lost Millions.



Petfinder.com
Someone found their beloved cat on Petfinder.com...photo by FlippyO

OK, on to the next gripe. In the United States they have an organization called Petfinder.com. They declare on the home page of Petfinder.com that they advertise 271,081 adoptable pets from 12,411 adoption groups (these are not just cat groups, of course). It is a website, through which, rescue centers can advertise their animals for adoption. There are many rescue centers that use this excellent facility to help match cat to human. As a result Petfinder.com is very big and gets a hell of a lot of traffic. The Cats Protection, the UK's biggest cat charity gets less visitors (by a considerable margin at the date of this post) than this website, which gets about 8,000 visitors daily. What is happening?

With the kind of funding that is available to Cats Protection they could have invested in an interactive website that places person with pet. What they have created with all their millions is, frankly, a pretty basic website. A visitor can find a Cats Protection center that is the nearest to them but that is it. What is happening to all the millions given to this cat charity? Perhaps they have decided that the mony should be spent on new facilities but the central task is to match cat with human and with the advance of the internet there should be a more modern website. They say they re-home 55,500 yearly but in comparison to Petfinder this must be a tortous process.

Sure, a person who wants to adopt must actually visit the home to ensure the choice is right. Well, in my opinion, it is very wise to do that. But it can't be beyond the capabilities of the Cats Protection organisation, surely, to facilitate this process; to encourage adoption through a more modern website, which shows off the homeless cats. How many cats are not placed with people each year? I am not sure but on this page:

http://www.cats.org.uk/workwedo/intothefuture.asp

.......it says that, "more than 157,000 cats are given the chance of a better life every year". On the home page, as mentioned, it says that 55,500 cats are re-homed yearly. Does this mean that 157,000 minus 55,500 (101,500) cats that pass through the hands of the Cats Protection organisation are euthanized each year and if so would a better and more interactive and alert website save cat lives?? I am not sure about that but what I am sure about, as mentioned, is that with the funds available (provided they invest them more wisely) they can do better.

Update: The lost funds are still lost it seems (as reported in Charity Finance -- http://www.charityfinance.co.uk). The Cats Protection organisation has formed, with other charities, an action group to try and recover the lost funds. The government won't bail out charities who lost money invested in Icelandic banks. Not surprising as they have thrown hundreds of billions into the busted bank black hole. This is bad news for cats and I am angry, quite frankly, with Cats Protection for being reckless (in hindsight admittedly) with gifted money. You cannot be anything but cautious with donors' money. It must go to the cats, please.

Update 30th March 2009: The position regarding the recovery of this money is still very much in the air. The Cats Protection organisation cannot know what the outcome will be. It may take a great deal of time for any money to be paid back to investors in these failed Icelandic banks. I don't know what the position is regarding running costs at Cats Protection. It may have been the case that the Cats Protection organisation used some or all of the interest on the 11 million to service running costs at the charity. Even at 3 percent tha would have worked out a third of a million pounds per year. This must be missed, surely. I am in trying to make contact with the Cats Protection people to ask some questions but so far am not receiving a response.



Cats Protection Organisation to Feral Cats

Photo:

Wednesday, 25 February 2009

The Price of Keeping a Cat

Astonishing, the cost of keeping cats in India. What, though, is the price of keeping a cat? It depends where you are and what your expectations are (and the cat's expectations too!). In the UK you can buy a box of 12 sachets of decent cat food at a local supermarket for about £4-50p. It would be cheaper at a big supermarket. It is estimated that with all bills taken into account, it costs about £10,000 over the lifetime of the cat on average in western countries (see Pet Care Costs). But here is the astonishing thing; in India there is a fine upstanding lady who has a husband, 2 children (who might work though), and 15, yes 15 cats, all rescue cats who she adores and she looks after them all including the people (!) on 80 rupees per day, which converts to 1.106275 British pounds or 1.60432 U.S. dollars.

Now lets look at that a bit. Lets say that of that approximate £1 she has, say, 30p left over after providing for the people in her family. 30p to feed 15 cats. 30p might buy one sachet of cheap cat food in the UK or a cheap can of cat food. My Timmy a stray boy cat consumes about 4-5 sachets a day (I need a mortgage to feed him) alone. You can see the enormous difference.

In short this tells of the huge divide in India and the UK, for example. But what is also stark is that there are still people in the United States and other countries (but I cite the US as a relatively rich society) who abandon their cats on the pretext that they cannot afford them because of financial constraints brought about because of the credit crunch (see cats as a disposable item). Surely it is a question of priorities. Budgets can manage to include the cat if people want them to. But when people think of cutting costs in the household budget the cat comes into the equation when it positively should not. Cats are taken on for their lifetime. These people are not committed to their cats and commitment is required. Caveat: there will, of course, be genuine cases so I must not generalize but I make my point nonetheless.

The price of keeping a cat is, most often, not the reason for giving up a cat. It is more about the psychology of keeping a cat. Incidentally, the woman concerned, mentioned above lives in Gujarat’s Porbandar city, which is here:


View Larger Map

The Price of Keeping a Cat to They Wanted Their Cat Back

Monday, 20 October 2008

Cats Protection and lost millions

Is it fair to criticize Cats Protection and the lost millions (or to be more accurate the potential lost millions as they haven't actually been lost yet)?

Cat Protection may lose £11.2 million of donations because they put the money on deposit into an Icelandic bank that went bust. In their statement they say that the Icelandic bank concerned Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander, checked out on credit rantings checks.

I don't think it really fair to criticize for choosing an Icelandic bank. What I would criticize the charity for is that it seems that all the eggs (more or less) were put into one basket. That created a risk. Also the Iceland banks were offering high interest rates. With high interest comes higher risk. If the charity wanted to invest in high interest accounts they should have spread the investment over at least 5 banks perhaps more.

When personal, individual donations are concerned (some donations from relatively poor people no doubt) the investment of funds before expenditure should be risk free. The bottom line objective of Cats Protection is to give away money for the benefit of cats, not to invest it and make money from money.

So, Cat Protection risked albeit to a lowish level at the time (in hindsight it was a high risk) peoples' money. The chief executive explains this away rather casually, I think. They will have to put to stop to some major projects to the detriment of cats. 11.2 million is a massive amount of money in terms of cat welfare in the UK, which could all be thrown away (this may work out OK though - we all hope it does).

Risk is the problem. I don't think one can take any risks with gifts from the public. And I think the chief executive should apologize. OK we never really realized that banks can go bust but we did have warning signs with Northern Rock. That gave the Cats Protection board plenty of time to rethink where to deposit money well before the Icelandic melt down. There may be a problem to, with holding on to too much money. I think that it should be spent as quickly as possible as that is what it is given for.

Donations should be spent quickly or put into the safest investment possible. Nothing else is permissible with gifts from a supportive public some of whom are probably now fed up with Cat Protection. They might suffer a fall in donations as a result. Although I hope not as Cats Protection do a great job generally.

Cats Protection and lost millions to Home page

Thursday, 1 May 2008

Cats in Baghdad

Cats in Baghdad US bases and other bases in Iraq are being killed by US contractors to protect the soldiers from getting rabies and other diseases. 5,300 were trapped and killed last year. 7,100 were trapped. Therefore a substantial number must have been released. How are they treated and is this right? Clearly the greatest danger to cats in Iraq is the occupying US forces. Another downside of the invasion of Iraq and a hidden one. It is barely news but these are large numbers.

The US corporations that protect the compounds are following a general military order. I see the need to protect the soldiers.

I wonder if there is not a better solution. Can't the forces there make the compounds more difficult for cats to get into to? I presume that there is an order that army personnel are not to approach and befriend cats. Why then is it not possible to punish the army personnel if they befriend cats or touch cats for example. That way it would be the humans getting punished (the people who have created the problem for cats) rather than killing innocent animals.

It just seems to be a hammer to crack a nut syndrome. One security person, a women is doing her bit to help and saving some cats by exporting a small number to the UK -wow but it is very difficult and expensive (apparently $3,500 per cat to ship them out). Good on her (she calls herself Louise but this may be a false name to protect her identity, I don't know) but the general order needs to be amended to be more humane.

Louise, the person saving some cats has a website http://www.baghdadcatrescue.com/. She needs funding. Although she was looking for finds last November to export the cats, I expect she still needs financial help. Pictures-of-cats.org is doing its bit to help.

Photo: this cat is being treated nicely by army personnel in Baghdad. What is going on? It seems that the generals accept this but on the other hand kill cats. I am confused. Photo copyright MASSIVE DEFEAT

Cats in Baghdad to warrior cats

Monday, 24 March 2008

Sosgatinhos (S.O.S kittens)

Sosgatinhos (S.O.S kittens) is a rescue center in Sao Paulo, Brazil run by Leila Galvão. It is very brave of her to do this and wonderful. I admire you Leila. I also admire the photography of fofurasfelinas (and I can spell her flickr name without copying and pasting :). Her real name is Giane Portal. She lives in Porto Alegre, Brazil, about 400 miles south of San Paulo. She is a designer by profession

Fofurasfelinas is certainly one of the top 5 (at least) cat photographers on Flickr and there are lots of cat photographers. It also means that she is one of the best amateur cat photographers in the world. There is no doubt about that. She is also probably one of the best cat photographers, amateur or professional in the world. And I know cat photography.

Anyway she is supporting the work of Sosgatinhos and so I am as I use fofurasfelinas's photographs on my website under creative commons.

My site is for cat charities and I have some charities marked out. When the money comes through (I've made about $400 so far) I will send some to Sosgatinhos to try and help Leila keep her charity afloat. Good Luck Leila. Love to the cats and thanks.

Read more about Sosgatinhos (as written by forfurasfelinas) on this page (takes you to the Flickr site)

Sosgatinhos (S.O.S kittens) to pictures of stray cats

Sunday, 9 March 2008

Hervey Foundation for Cats

Marjorie Hervey is founder of the Hervey Foundation for Cats, a charitable foundation set up in 1998 to rehome cats and care for them.

I admire tremendously anyone who can devote so much time and energy to such a fine cause. Our domestic cats need this sort of help as the world can be quite hostile for some cats.

Unfortunately some people are less altruistic and just plain bad and one such person is Marjorie's former partner, Stewart Bright who tried to destroy the foundation out of spite and malice after they split up.

He hacked into her computer systems and sent false and defamatory emails with the intention of maligning Marjorie and thereby destroy her charity. He was also found guilty of possession of child pornography (an indication of the kind of person he truly is). Not only did he hurt Marjorie he hurt many vulnerable cats. We don't like people who hurt cats do we?

I hope Marjorie's cat foundation recovers quickly and I wish her continued success. She has a fine website. Click here to go to it.

Hervey Foundation for Cats to Home page

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