Registered Charity 269668

Kennel News

31st December 2020

We are at the end of a very different and challenging year! 

We are extremely lucky to have been supported by our Head Office throughout 2020 and they have kept us up to date with the continually changing DEFRA guidelines which enabled us to carry on homing our hounds. This included 'virtual homechecks', not allowing the public in to the kennels and viewings by appointment only. 

We have kept in touch with our volunteers throughout, a number have chosen to continue to help where they can and we have seen others who have popped in for gallops and nail cutting. 

With social distancing regulations, we had to suspend our monthly Sponsor Weekends. To meet demand, we have put in place a half hour appointment scheme which seems to have been well recieved! 

We have missed seeing all our supporters out and about at our awareness events! We managed 2 at the beginning of the year before the coutry was put into lockdown. 

This has had a dramatic effect on our financial resources as people were always very generous when they saw our lovely hounds when they were out and about. Here is an update from our branch treasurer...

On the financial front, we have been fortunate in 2020 to lose only two of our regular monthly supporters. Given the problems people have had with lockdowns, furlough and redundancies we are very grateful that more supporters have not had to stop contributing. This has been counterbalanced by a number of very generous supporters who have made one-off donations to help with the cost of looking after the dogs during these problem times. With racing suspended, we had no income from dogs coming in from the trainers. Fortunately the Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB) introduced a scheme whereby they made a contribution for each dog in the kennels during the lockdowns, to help towards the cost of feeding. In the event, this scheme actually continued until the end of November. With the support from GBGB and as homing picked up after the first lockdown our income stream recovered and the Branch ends the year in a healthy financial position.

 

Maybe the biggest challenge for us this year was securing veterinary spaces for netuering. Both of the practices we use were following their own guidelines which meant all non-essential operations were suspended. 

Remarkably, with all these challenges, we are only 15 homed dogs down on last year. We are going in to 2021 with lots of families enquiring about adoptions. This brings our grand total of homed hounds, starting February 2002, to 4,236.

Thank you for everyones continued support and interest in our work, and we wish you all a Happy New Year from the hounds. Let's hope 2021 is better for everyone!

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