Caring for Cats ©2011 All rights reserved

We are very sorry that we didn't send out an Autumn newsletter and that some of you have had to wait for acknowledgement of your renewals.  This was due to illness but hopefully we are getting back on track now.

When we wrote to you last Christmas, we told you that we only had sufficient funds to look after the cats for two more months. You responded magnificently and you have literally kept us going this year with your donations and by giving  food for the cats. Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. We would not still be here without you.

It would have been unfair to leave it all up to you and we have attended as many fundraising events as possible. Many thanks to everyone who has invited us to their events, manned stalls, donated goods and helped in any way. Special thanks must go to Jenny Sykes, who makes beautiful cards and jewellery for sale. We desperately need more volunteers to help with fundraising in Essex and Sussex so if you are interested, please contact Veronica on 01732 365534.

Our Garden Party on Mardyke Farm was a great success but it involves a massive amount of hard work. A huge "thank you" to Carol, Dave, Jan, Pete and Bet for bearing the brunt of this and to everyone who battled the terrible weather whilst erecting the gazebos on the previous day. Jan’s account of the day is later in this newsletter.

Thank you also to everyone who has sent in stamps. This has saved us a great deal of money so please continue to send them in - even 1p and 2p stamps are invaluable when mail falls into the large letter category.

We send our warmest thanks to Carol, Jan and Bet for running our sanctuary with such dedication and to all our wonderful fosterers for taking good care of the cats, whether they have many like Lucy, Andrea and Marion and Tracey, or individual cats. We are very grateful to Andrea's Mum for her help with the cats, also Lucy's Mum, for the many boxes of cat food she buys.. Many thanks to Lesley for giving a home to Oscar, Blackie and Fluffy from Diana's. Diana is now in residential care and we are glad that someone is looking after her now, after all her years of looking after the cats.

A lot goes on behind the scenes and we are very grateful to Sue for her work with the Gift Aid scheme, to Joyce for all her help and to the “listening ears” - you know who you are!

Tony Smith’s help has been immeasurable at Lucy’s. He’s put up sheds, built shelving, done lots of DIY to the enclosure, treated the units with preservative, carpeted the floors and walls of the units to provide insulation for the cats and sold many items to family and friends, to help

with fundraising. Tony does all this work free of charge, usually costing him money for wood, nails and paint etc. If anyone has any lino offcuts for the units to facilitate cleaning, please email

info@caringforcats.org.uk

Grateful thanks too to Dave Tingley for providing the carpet offcuts for the units, to Lynn Fears and Rosie Wood for the food donations from the bin they have in the Eastbourne “Pets at Home” store and to Carol Young, Sue Buller and Fiona Grose, for their food and bric-a-brac donations in Eastbourne.

Many thanks also to Maureen Bates for helping Andrea with the cats every weekend, to “Paws and Claws” rescue for their invaluable help, to Mr and Mrs Leek for the cosy blankets and to all the wonderful people who have helped us this year in so many ways.

Last, but certainly not least, we extend our sincere thanks to all the vets who look after the cats, which is always done with compassion for both cats and humans.

It's been a very mixed year; worrying financially and sad when we lose one of the cats, but uplifting when a cat blossoms or finds a loving new home. Underlying everything is that we know you are there for the cats and that keeps us going when times are hard.

We hope that you all have a peaceful Christmas and that 2012 brings you health and happiness.

URGENT CHRISTMAS APPEAL

We are launching our Christmas appeal with this newsletter and you will find a donation form on the back page. Although we are being completely truthful when we say that we wouldn't be here without your generosity, the cats still need your help because we are literally down to the last few hundred pounds.

We know how hard it is  for everyone at the moment but if you can donate anything to the Appeal, no matter how small, we will be eternally grateful. We have been asked if we have a "Christmas Wish List" but our  only wish has to be that we keep going for the sake of the cats in our care, many of them elderly and sick.

Please help if you can.   Thank you.

Food

The food you kindly donate if your own cats won't eat it is known as "barter" throughout the Charity because we all swop food as well! Please continue to bring in your unwanted food; it’s surprising how it mounts up. We would especially like to thank Sheryl Saxby, Gill Aldridge, Lynn Warnett,  Maureen Bates and her friend Brenda and  Celia and Jez for their regular donations of "new" cat food. Enormous thanks go to Barbara Pillar for her frequent donations of Tesco gift cards  so that Lucy can buy food for the cats and also for the lovely bric-a-brac items for Lucy to sell.

Some cats who have recently arrived

Sadly, we are now only taking in cats in exceptional circumstances because we just don't have the funds to support them. However, a few have crept in and these are some of them……

 

Stella was found in the basement of a brewery, hence the name. She was taken into St Anne's  vets and everything about her led them to believe that she was an elderly cat because she was very thin, in a poor condition and infested with fleas. After Stella had been with them for two weeks,  Lucy was asked if we could take her. Stella has really blossomed and we now wonder if she may not be quite so old as we thought originally. Her fleas have proved to be incredibly stubborn but we hope we're on top of them now and she's eating well. Regrettably, our vet can feel a mass in her stomach and although so far we have been concentrating on building her up, we will see which treatment may help her.

Meg had sadly lost her owner and despite being taken in by the daughter, was not happy in her new home. After living the quiet life she now found herself at 17 years old in a household with children, so she decided to take herself off and live under a hedge, only going home to be fed. Several concerned people contacted rescues and after her owner was traced, Meg came to us. She is now safe and warm and settling into the sanctuary.

Bo is the tiniest cat we have ever seen (dwarfed here by Alfie). She came from a local feral colony, where we had spent several years trapping and neutering cats, but the colony was more widespread than we realised.

One day we had a visit from some ladies, who just by chance popped in. They asked if we could take some cats, now neutered, to live on the farm, not knowing we already had the rescue here. It turned out they lived in the same road as the colony and over the years had seen the cats breeding unchecked and decided to do something about it themselves. So with a borrowed trap and free neutering arranged with a voucher scheme from another charity, they set about trapping the cats and kittens. They  did a fantastic job and hopefully now all are neutered, but there was one little cat they were worried about, Bo. She is a tiny little thing and the other cats were picking on her, she also has scarring to her eyes due to her catching Herpes which had been rife in the colony.  She was very shy when she first arrived and even now greets us with a hiss, but once you stroke her she rolls around purring and wanting her tummy tickled. Her favourite toy is a little yellow duck, which she loves to play with. She is probably so tiny due to all the inbreeding in the colony.

Katie came to us after we were contacted by another charity desperate to find somewhere for her. Poor Katie is 23 years old and has spent the last 22 years living in a garden, after being thrown out when a new baby was born. Her long thick coat was terribly matted and dirty, her skin very dry and scurfy, so there was nothing we could do other than to shave off all the matts, which were all over her body apart from her head, legs and tail. She will now have her first warm winter in 22 years and is already starting to trust us, although she does cower if we move a bit quickly, so we think she has been hit in the past. Today for the first time she climbed on my lap and then realised that people can be nice, and purred. If I stopped stroking her, she would push her head into my hand or rub her head under my chin. One happy cat, I think.

FUNDRAISING

London Marathon

The final total for the Marathon was £1,330 and we are very grateful to John and Steve for their contributions, to everyone who so kindly sponsored them and Nicola, for the precious guaranteed places.

Blackshots Triathlon, Grays

We are delighted to tell you that Sandra completed the race in 1 hour 30 minutes. Sandra said that the hardest part was the swimming because it was at the beginning and she was nervous, so it affected her breathing. We received £245 in sponsorship monies and we are sincerely grateful to Sandra and everyone who supported her, as this was very much a last minute fundraising event.

St Anne's Veterinary Group, Eastbourne

We had a table at St Anne's 65th Anniversary Open Day in July and we raised £60 for the cats. There was also a general collection held by the practice, which was shared by three animal charities. We are very grateful to all the staff and especially the partners, Jim, Simon and Raymund, for choosing us as one of the recipients and we received a cheque for £137 as our share.

The Wylie Veterinary Centre, Upminster

Jenny, Joyce and Brenda had a stall at Wylie's Open Day in September. We were a bit worried about the weather but  the day was much better than expected. The Open Day is always a lovely event and everyone at the practice puts in a  lot of effort to make it successful. We raised £140 and as always, we are very grateful to Wylie's for inviting us and Jenny, Joyce and Brenda for turning out for the cats so many times throughout the year.

 "Pets at Home" Horsham and "Pets at Home", Lakeside

We are honoured to have been chosen by the Horsham shop as their Charity Partner. Andrea held a collection there in April and we were invited back in July, when £130 was raised. These collections are different because the staff run the event and although Andrea is there to answer any questions, collection buckets are placed round the store and customers are invited to donate their change.  We are very grateful to everyone at the store, especially the Manager, Caroline, who has really taken us under her wing. We have been offered another collection there this month and although the date is yet to be confirmed, Christmas Eve has been mentioned!

Many thanks also to the staff at the Lakeside store, who give us a 10% reduction on everything we buy, and who gave away free bags of cat food.  at the Garden Party. We have been chosen as one of the beneficiaries of their Christmas fundraising campaign and Jan has been very busy sending them pictures of the cats, which will be displayed in the store.

Other Fundraising Events

The Tithe Barn Museum Charity Day raised £73.50, our stall at the Dragonboat Festival raised £78.93 and our tables at the Pussycat Lodge Christmas Fair raised £206 for the cats. A huge "thank you" to all who  invited us to these events and to Jenny, Joyce, Brenda, Sue and Wendy, who manned the stalls.

Benny, A very special boy.

It was a week after the Garden Party and we all became concerned that none of us had seen Benny for a couple of days. The days turned into weeks and we feared that something tragic had happened to him. As the weeks passed and turned into nearly 3 months, regrettably we had given up hope of ever seeing Benny again, but oh how wrong we were.

We will never know what happened to that very courageous black cat but one morning, as if nothing had happened, there was Benny in the cat chalet waiting for his breakfast. Just a shadow of his former self, spine and ribs protruding, he fed ravenously, and when he couldn’t eat any more he found a cosy bed and slept soundly.  Only he knows what happened, we can only guess.

His coat was still clean and glossy so we don’t think he had been shut in somewhere, and he probably wouldn’t have survived that long if he had been, his feet were swollen and puffy, so we think had been walking for a long time. We can only think he jumped into a car or van and ended up a long way from home and spent all that time making his way back. He is now  putting on weight, he has caught up on his sleep and he’s going out around the farm again.  So welcome home Benny, you are a very special boy and we are so happy to have you back.

Quiz Night

We held a quiz night at the “Crumpled  Horn” pub in Upminster on the 26th September. We would like to thank Pussycat Lodge, who usually hold the quiz there once a month, for kindly giving over the night to us, and to everyone who took part and helped make it a great success. We raised £460 from the entrance fee and another £226 from the raffle held on the night. It was a very enjoyable evening with a sausage and chip supper provided by the “Crumpled Horn” free of charge, so a very big thank you to them.  We would also like to thank Gill Aldridge, (pictured here) who helped organize the event and who ran the raffle. Gill works for PricewaterhouseCoopers and they generously matched £250 of the funds raised under their Matched Giving Programme, so many thanks to them for their support. We have since held another quiz night at the pub, when £380 was raised, and we hope to hold another one early in the New Year.

Garden Party

All eyes were glued to the weather forecasts in the run up to our Garden Party at Mardyke Farm on July 9th, but we needn’t have worried as the day was warm, with a couple of very brief showers in the afternoon Unlike the day before when we were setting up the gazebos, marquees and tables in gale force winds and torrential downpours of rain.

It was worth the soaking as the afternoon was a huge success. Everyone enjoyed looking at all the stalls, trying their luck on the tombolas, lucky dip and raffle, treating  themselves to a piece of jewellery or looking for a bargain on the  bric-a-brac stall, some even had a Tarot Card reading . The refreshments stall heaved under the weight of all the gorgeous cakes ready to be washed down with a cup of tea, they were too mouth-watering to resist and brought in over £500.00. Another stall selling cakes and biscuits to take home was kindly run by Jackie Galea and her friend, who took a day off work to bake them all.

The biggest attraction of the day is the cats, who once again let everyone take a glimpse into their life on the farm and honoured some by sitting on their laps while they drank their tea. The star of the day was Alfie, our big and handsome boy who sat for nearly an hour by the gate welcoming guests as they arrived, wearing his very patriotic Union Jack bandana; he also kept watch over all the food that was kindly donated as an entrance fee. It is always lovely to catch up with  our supporters and welcome new visitors to our work, without you all this would not be possible.

We are pleased to tell you that the day raised over £2000, plus about £500 worth of cat food was donated. Our good friend Marshal, who works for Barclays, oversaw the bric-a-brac and tombola stalls and he did a sterling job getting people to part with their money! These stalls raised a magnificent £693 and we are extremely grateful to Barclays for matching this amount under their £ for £ Community Giving scheme. The final total raised, including Barclays generous donation, was £3,100. We would like to thank all who came, everyone who donated items for sale or manned a stall, “Pets At Home”, Lakeside, who offered nutritional advice and gave away free bags of cat food and who also donated a £20.00 Gift Voucher for the raffle.

The date of next year’s Garden Party is the 14th July.

Siddy's Diary

All the cats have asked me to say a very, very special purry "thank you" for caring about us and for keeping the food on our plates and our illnesses treated. We knew that the humans were very worried and they still are, but we know they won't let us down and that with your help, everything will be alright in the end.

I didn't think much of the Summer and the cats here (including me!) have already gone back to sleeping for most of the day in warm places around the house. Dad and Mum think it's funny, but we are all getting on and Jemima was twenty years old this year! I'm not quite sure of my age, but Mum thinks I must be about twelve now. She says that I was originally called "Pudsey" when I came in for rehoming, so we think my birthday might be in November. I don't seem to remember having a cake!

We all love this time of year because it's very exciting when the postman brings your cards and although I can't see them, Mum always tells us if we receive our own card from one of our kind sponsors. Sometimes we get personal presents too and I always love my catnip mice that Sue, Fergie and Leo send to me. We know that you generously send pennies as well and it is great to know that you are all there for us. No decorations here yet, but little Emily is helping with the tree again this year so we know that Dad and Mum will eventually get there, because she won't allow them to get away with it.

We're not sure what we're having for Christmas dinner but we usually have chicken, fish or turkey. I think I've already told you that we get a bit fed-up with turkey in the end, but it makes a change for a while. It's a shame that there's nothing really nice for us to have for pudding, but not many of us even like cream. I wonder where that fairy tale came from? Whatever you are doing, we all send our love for a very special Christmas - you deserve it!

With lots of extra love from me,  Siddy  xxxxxxxx