Do you have any free time to spare? Would you like to be able to help APAA?
From time to time, we could all use a little help, and the team at APAA are no different. We appreciate that people don’t always want to commit themselves to something on a regular basis, but would be more than happy to help out occasionally. We are therefore looking for volunteers for the following tasks:
1. Redesign and edit our Newsletter. Our current Editor, Barbara, is shortly returning to the UK to live and we need someone to take over this role. The news items are usually written by the APAA team but someone needs to take responsibility for putting them into the Newsletter. Are you a budding Editor?
2. Emergency cover for a shift in one of our three shops. Each shop has a regular team of volunteers, but occasionally need someone to help out because of vacations or illness. Would you be happy to go onto a contact list for one or more of the shops?
3. Transporting a cat or dog to or from one of our approved vets. We are often called upon to take a street dog or feral cat to the vet for sterilisation or treatment. This usually means two journeys as the animal invariably has to stay at the vet for a few hours at least. It would be really helpful to have a few people in different areas who would be happy to do one of the journeys. Would you be happy to undertake a journey or two?
4. Transporting donated goods from the donor’s home to one of our shops. On occasion, we are offered a lot of items from someone who is moving or who has had a major clear-out for one reason or another, but who cannot deliver to one of our shops for a variety of reasons: no transport or none large enough; insufficient time before the move; incapacity due to illness; etc. Do you have a reasonably-sized vehicle and could you provide some muscle?
5. Helping to set up or clear up at an APAA catered event. As you know, we hold a number of events in Jackie’s garden in the Summer months and can cater for up to 36 people. That means a lot of work both setting up and clearing up, as well as preparing all the food. We don’t need help preparing the food, as we usually have this under control well in advance, but on the day, it can be very difficult for just a few of us to meet, greet and seat guests; plate up and serve the food; keep on top of the washing up; sell raffle tickets, etc. Does this appeal to you?
6. Hold an APAA event at your home. Some of our supporters have held a lunch at their homes and done pretty much all of the cooking themselves. Others are happy to host the event, but prefer that the APAA team does the cooking and serving so that they can chat with the guests. In both cases, guests pay to attend and the proceeds go to APAA. Would you like to host an APAA event?
7. Provide some form of entertainment at an APAA event. It was recently suggested to us that instead of relying upon technology at our sing-alongs (which isn’t at all reliable as we recently found to our cost!), maybe we could have someone who can play an instrument and/or sing to lead the singing, and the guests just sing along to the chorus or well-known bits. Is that you? Or is there another type of entertainment that you would be happy to provide free-of-charge at an event?
8. Be one of our ‘official photographers’ at an event. APAA staff are usually too busy collecting money, selling raffle tickets or dealing with other stuff to even think about taking photos. That’s why you don’t see many in our Newsletters! Are you a budding David Bailey?
9. At present, we have four dogs for adoption that are staying at Pet Park (and being paid for by APAA - at a very reasonable rate, thank you Caroline). We need someone to take responsibility for regularly feeding our FB page and other adoption/homing sites and newspapers with their pictures and details in order to find owners for these dogs. Are you a Facebook fiend?
10. Similarly, we have a number of items for sale that are either too big to go into one of our shops, or are worth more money than we could realistically raise in those outlets. We therefore need someone who would be willing to post such items on Ebay or similar sites and keep APAA up-to-date with the response. Are you familiar with Ebay and/or other sales sites?
11. As we now have a number of Portuguese members, we think it only right that we send out important mailings in both English and Portuguese. We are therefore looking for people who could do occasional translations into Portuguese for us. Are you confident in writing both languages?
We will probably think of more things, but these are enough to start with.
If you think you would like to help, please email info.apaaportugal@gmail.com saying what you are interested in, providing and giving a telephone number. Either Jenny or Jackie will then call you with more information.
