May 2014 – Contact The Elderly

May’s chosen charity is Contact the Elderly.

This is a national, but small scale, charity that uses volunteers to organise, host, and transport local elderly people to regular tea parties for fun and friendship.

A friend of my wife is a volunteer driver for her local branch. A very worthwhile cause, and it also demonstrates that I don’t just choose animal charities!

http://www.contact-the-elderly.org.uk/

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From their website:

Welcome to contact the elderly

a lifeline of friendship

We organise regular Sunday afternoon tea parties for people over 75, who live with little or no social support.

The afternoons are full of fun and laughter and make a
real difference to the lives of our guests.

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April 2014 – Valgray’s Border Collie & Animal Rescue

The charity chosen to receive the donation in April 2014 is Valgray’s Border Collie & Animal Rescue.

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Valgrays was established in 1978, is based in Warlingham, Surrey and focuses on rescuing and rehoming Border Collies.

As the owner of a bc myself, I know how much effort they can take, but how rewarding they can be when you have a happy, healthy dog.

http://www.valgraysbcrescue.org.uk/

Some information from their website:

Valgrays Border Collie Rescue Site 

Border Collie's are such special dogs, they deserve special owners

• Please take a look at all of our deserving dogs and see if a small space can be found in your house for one of them, as they will surely take up a huge space in your heart when they arrive.  

• Collie's need education and usually like a 'job' to keep them 'sane'. 

• Some of the collies Valgrays have would be suitable for all fields of dog sports and hobbies;   Agility, Obedience, Flyball, Working Trials, Extreme Walking etc,  but the most important thing is that they are a loved and well cared for pet.

• When you get a collie and find a new hobby then you will be amazed at the new friends you will make along the way.

• All the Border Collies offered here have been assessed and all will be wormed and microchipped before going to their new homes. 

• Neutering will be done according to the age of the dog involved.

• Valgrays is a 'tiny' rescue based around Val's own property, we pride ourselves on being small and personal.

• Valgrays relies totally on donations to keep rescuring these dogs - please help us to keep helping them .. please donate if you are able (see 'To donate/help')

• We have many donate buttons throughout this site so please be kind with pennies and pounds - it will help us to help mans best friend. Thank you.,
• Romanian appeal....please donate and help this terrible situation...we will do everything we can to support and bring back some of these poor dogs to give them a better life.

March 2014 – LAPA UK

The charity chosen to receive the donation in March 2014 is LAPA UK

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In Russia thousands of cats and dogs suffer and die needlessly every day through starvation, cold, neglect, cruelty, killings by local authorities, individuals and animal hatred groups.

How a society treats animals is a measure of how civilised that society is.

The situation in Russia is terrible. It is real. It MUST change.

LAPA (Helping animals in Russia) is an animal welfare charity. We are based in the UK and in Russia. Our aim is to end animal suffering, reduce stray population and improve animal welfare standards in Russia.

We rescue, rehabilitate, sterilise and rehome abandoned dogs and cats in Russia. We aim to run education programmes about pet care and animal welfare generally and campaign for animal protection legislation and its enforcement in Russia.

 

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Introduction – What’s all this about?

In late 2013 I resolved to give more to charity on a regular basis. The trouble is – which charity? There are many charities and I’m sure I support the cause of the majority of them, but funds and time are limited, so the easy option is to pick one or two, and set up regular payments to them. But this, whilst easing the conscience, still leaves a lot of charities unsupported, especially the smaller ones that don’t have the marketing budget to advertise, and also it tends to disconnect me from the charity: my regular payment goes out each month, and I forget all about it.

So I resolved to do something a little different in 2014. Initially I decided that on two days a year I would donate the day’s takings from my company, Chocolate Tortoise Dog Walking and Pet Sitting, for that day to a selected charity. Whilst my daily takings are not large, as the company is just me, it is a relatively significant donation for me, and the fact that I would need to select the charity to donate to each time would keep me involved in the process, and a few more charities would benefit, over and above the ones I give regular donations to.

The concept of “donating a day’s salary” is not new, and many people and organisations on the internet exist doing just that. It would be great if a campaign could be started to get more people doing this, but we all have to start somewhere. A simple search on the internet led me to this site:

http://donateaday.net/

whose author donates a day’s salary EVERY MONTH. Which got me thinking – I could afford a day’s salary every month, couldn’t I? And then more charities would benefit, and needing to select a charity each month would get me even more involved. If my business hit a quiet period and times got harder for me, I could continue to do the same thing, but the donations would be smaller. Conversely as the business did well, the donations would go up.

So there it is. On the first working Monday of every month (Monday is one of my busiest days) I will donate the daily income of Chocolate Tortoise to a selected charity, and post to this blog detailing the charity chosen.

This blog is not intended to tell the world how generous I am. I am less generous than many people. The blog is intended to firstly log who I have donated to, and secondly to hopefully inspire others to do the same, or similar.

Please feel free to comment on the blog, and to suggest charities – especially smaller ones that don’t get much of a mention elsewhere. My only caveat is that the charity be non-religious, non-political and does not endorse mistreatment of animals. I will moderate comments to prevent the blog being taken over by spam messages though. And if this inspires anyone to do the same, add a comment or send me a message – the more people doing this, the more charities will benefit, and hopefully the inspiration will spread.

Happy giving.

Chris