The months go flying by and it’s time for our quarterly newsletter again. It has been tremendously busy these last few months. We enjoyed our favourite event of the year in June, Our Volunteer Celebration which took place a little later than usual this year due to the Jubilee celebrations. We usually mark the occasion during Volunteer Week, when we can take the opportunity to thank our volunteers in person for everything that they do for the charity.
It was wonderful to have Councillor Margaret Marks with us to award the prizes for some of the games especially as she had nominated us as one of her chosen charities (along with SARS) for which to raise funds during 2021-2022. We were delighted to receive a cheque from her last week for £450.
We attended the Red Rooster Festival at Euston Park and were extremely grateful for the generosity of our volunteers, Tracey and Adi Nunn, who very kindly lent us their caravan which was such a comfort over the long weekend.
We were extremely grateful to The Bury St Edmunds Male Voice Choir who hosted a charity concert raising funds for Our Special Friends. We are yet to tot up the final total from the ticket sales but so far managed to raise £419. It was a wonderful concert and we were thrilled that they chose Our Special Friends as the charity for which to raise funds.
We are gearing up for the Suffolk Dog Day at Helmingham Hall, where we have been invited to be part of the Pound Gates Happy Hub where we will be joined by the Rural Coffee Caravan, Suffolk Community Foundation and BSEVC. The Happy Hub will form an area where dog owners can come and have a chat and a coffee and their dogs can relax and enjoy our paddling pool to cool down in. We look forward to welcoming you to meet up there and hope to have the weather on our side. Not too hot, not too cold, but not pouring with rain would be perfect!
We move into yet another new phase at Our Special Friends as we say thank you and goodbye to Sally who has been working with us on marketing and PR for just over 5 years. We wish her all the best in her new culinary pursuits. We are also delighted to welcome a new trustee, Jill Gurney. She is an experienced medical practitioner and was involved with PAT Dogs shortly after its inception in 1983, and for several years she edited the Journal of the Society for Companion Animal Studies.
