Volunteering

How Can You Help? - Become a Branch Volunteer

We always need additional volunteers to help us locally and there are a number of things which you could do to help us :
foster

Fostering:
This involves looking after a rescued cat or kitten(s) until the branch can find him/her a new loving home. You must have a spare room (as we do not allow foster cats to mix with other cats) or no cats of your own, a telephone and transport (essential for visits to the vet etc). Some of our more experienced fosterers have purpose built, heated pens in their gardens. Fostering is very enjoyable and rewarding but can also have a sad side too as a lot of the cats we take in are strays and inevitably some of them can be unwell or very sick. Very occasionally a foster cat will have to be put to sleep, on veterinary advice. We will support you all the way in this volunteer role. Fosterers must also be prepared to bring their foster cat(s) along to our monthly Cat Homing Shows (see Cat Homing Shows for some pictures of previous shows)

Visiting:
As you will have read on our Adopt a Cat page, we do a home check before each of our cats are homed. Most initial home check visits are carried out by our fosterers, but on Cat Homing Show days we need lots of people to help, as our fosterers will be looking after their cats at the show. If you can help, we will send you out on a couple of prehoming visits with one of our experienced volunteers so that you will learn from them and we would not expect you to go out on your own until you feel confident enough to do so. If you are interested, please come along to one of our Homing Shows and speak to us there.

Transport:
We often need help during week days with transport, particularly for taking stray cats which need treatment to the vets. As most of our volunteers work full-time, we are a bit thin on the ground during the week. If you could offer to help as and when help is needed, this would be most appreciated.

Fund-Raising:
We have lots of events throughout the year and are always in need of extra fund-raising volunteers. Most events take place at the week-ends but can be daytime or evening, depending on the type of event. Most events involve setting up, manning a stall and packing up afterwards or can rattling. Our fund-raisers also play a key role in our monthly Cat Homing Shows. Ideally you should have transport and a telephone/email (so we can contact you). If you do not have transport we will pair you with someone who has for an event. You get to meet lots of people, make friends and help the cats at the same time. We also have a regular informal get together for our fund-raisers to plan and talk about our events, and of course to chat about cats.

Interested?
If you would like to find out more about becoming a branch volunteer in any of these roles, please call us on 01268 543283 or come along to one of our monthly Cat Homing Shows for friendly chat.

last updated 22 May 2018