Meeting

I just returned from tonight's volunteer meeting. We had a decent turnout again tonight with lots of great ideas included.

We have decided to postpone "this spring's" dog walk until next May (2013) to give us more time to plan. This will be our first fundraiser of this kind, and we all decided we needed to make sure to give ourselves enough time to plan ahead to make it successfull. We did not feel as though we had the "active volunteer base" needed to put together such a large event, and agreed to wait until we get more interested volunteers willing to attend meetings and head Chairs and Committees.

After this, we discussed some other fundraisers that we would be interested in hosting this year. Some ideas included:

• Spay & Neuter Clinic
• The President of TCHS has been searching for a local building we can get approved by the Dept. of Agriculture to steralize and use as a Spay and Neuter clinic for the public, and our shelter animals. It will be a low-cost clinic, but not just for low-income families. More on this topic will be discussed upon further discussion at later meetings.
• Calendars
• This was a GREAT idea one of the newer S&T student volunteers mentioned that we do to help raise money for the shelter. We can get some photos of our dogs and cats together to post into a calendar to sell with proceeds benefiting the shelter and its animals. A small blurb can be posted under each photo to tell its story. I love this idea, and can't wait to get started on it for next year.
• Celebrity Autograph Auction
• We talked about somehow accumulating autographed items from celebrities to auction off to raise money for the shelter animals. This was a very interesting idea presented by the VP - Katrina Macey.
• Dog Wash
• We held our first dog wash last July (2011) and it was very successfull and fun. We washed about 30 dogs total and raised a little over $500. We definitely plan to hold one or two more this coming summer. They were easy to plan and easy to put together with a couple of volunteers on-hand. We also offered nail trims. The wash raised money through donation-only. Meaning some people paid $1 for a dog wash and some people gave $50+ for a bath.

We have many more fundraisers planned for this year, and I look forward to sharing them as they come along.