GSPCA overwhelmed with finalists at the Guernsey Community Foundation Community Awards 2018

Next Tuesday the Guernsey Community Foundation Community Awards 2018 take place and the GSPCA will be there in numbers as an amazing number of categories have GSPCA volunteers or projects as finalists.

In 2016 the GSPCA were award with the Guernsey Community Foundation Community Awards 2016 Charity of the Year and next weeks key speaker will be GSPCA Steve Byrne talking about the work of charities and some of the challenges we all face.

The categories and individuals that are finalists are below that are linked to the GSPCA but the Shelter works with many of those short listed and a huge congratulations to every nominee and finalist. To see the full list please visit - https://foundation.gg/news/community-awards-2018-shortlisted-nominees-announced

OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT

Ann Wragg - Ann has been heavily involved with a wide range of community projects over the years. She has volunteered extensively at the GSPCA and with the St Andrew’s Floral Group where she latterly led the Group. Ann has helped increase interest in volunteering with the GSCPA in recent years and has been personally involved with the recruitment of a significant number of new volunteers. Ann’s organisational skills have been instrumental in the GSPCA securing grants from a number of sources, including Insurance Corporation, RBC and the Co-op Eco Fund, and helping the GSCPA win awards and recognition from the Guernsey Floral Group. Ann’s commitment and skill was instrumental in acquiring sponsors for a significant GSPCA project, the Poison Garden and pond area - a project which included building decking around the pond, and informative leaflets for pet owners to explain the risks of certain plant species to their animals. The volunteer work Ann has managed to secure for this project is estimated to have had a commercial value equivalent to approx. £30,000. Equally down to Ann, is a new relationship between the GSPCA and Guernsey Beekeepers’ Association who now have their apiary on site at the GSPCA and use it to teach their members, and anyone interested, about beekeeping. In addition to her work for the GSCPA and St Andrew’s Floral Group, Ann played a crucial role in launching the Floral Guernsey Magical Days in the Park, the event held bi-annually in Saumarez Park, to which all primary schools send their students. Ann has also been heavily involved with the Little Chapel Project, and has helped recruit many volunteers to that cause. She has used her environmental knowledge to act as a judge on award panels for primary schools.

The judges said “Ann has been shortlisted for her sustained dedication to a wide range of community causes which have made inspiring and tangible differences over the course of her long involvement.”

Karen Girdlestone - In February of 2017, Karen re-launched FrOGs (Friends of GROW Limited) and is acting as its Chair. The committee had been dormant for several decades and Karen has led the successful effort to revive it. From a standing start, she has recruited a Committee of 10 and a team of some fifty supporters, organised branding for the FrOGs team and sourced a variety of merchandise items for the team to use at fundraising events. GROW Limited is a Guernsey charity which provides training and a safe, sheltered work environment in horticulture for people with learning disabilities. Karen has lent her formidable organisational skills to FrOGs and since its revamp has organised over 30 public events to raise the profile of GROW Limited in the local community. She has helped raise approx. £17,000 since she re-launched FrOGs and is now gearing up for the major task of fundraising for the GROW Redevelopment Appeal. Community work has long been important to Karen. Prior to moving to Guernsey, Karen was a voluntary educational speaker for the Blue Cross Animal Sanctuary in the UK. In her first few years in Guernsey from 2009, Karen regularly volunteered at the Cheshire Home, to assist the less able residents at lunchtimes and assisted at the British Red Cross shop. She currently is heavily involved at the GSPCA, and has spent a year on the KGV fundraising committee. Karen can often be spotted at flag days for various charities, and has previously volunteered at Caritas, and, in 2016, as a lead walker for Riding for the Disabled. Due to her energy and commitment, the Directors of GROW Limited have appointed her a Director of the company. Karen’s enthusiasm has endeared her to GROW Limited’s disabled attendees as well as inspiring staff and volunteers alike.

The judges said “The Judges were impressed by Karen’s achievements with FrOGs in such a short period of time, alongside her other charitable commitments.”

ORGANISING COMMITTEE OF THE YEAR

GSPCA: Animal Welfare Seafront Sunday - The annual Animal Welfare Seafront Sunday, now in its 7th year, is a community event celebrating animals, animal welfare and also the achievements of the GSPCA itself. It was held on 20th May and had to be set up, run and packed away on a very tight schedule and with a limited budget. Organised by a small team at the GSPCA, on top of their 24/7 responsibilities, the event also had around 100 volunteers to assist with the organisation and activities on the day. This family fun event has become the biggest in the charity’s calendar. This year there were over 100 stall holders representing vets, local charities and businesses, a total which was twice as many as the previous year. Collectively over £6,000 was raised which goes towards running the several vital services that the GSPCA provides to local animals in need. Apart from raising funds, the main focus is raising awareness of the importance of animal welfare and providing information on Guernsey pets and wildlife. This year’s event also resulted in many animals in GSPCA’s care finding new homes and several new volunteers joining the GSPCA. It was estimated that around 7,000-10,000 people attended the event.

The judges said “Shortlisted for having engaged such a large amount of support from the community and for having had so much success with raising funds; increasing volunteers; raising awareness and even finding animals homes.”

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Barclays Bank PLC – Guernsey Branch (‘Barclays’) launched its Shared Growth Ambition in 2016. This strategy has been the focal point of its Guernsey CSR activities. The strategy is built around three pillars: Access to Digital Empowerment, Access to Finance and Access to Employment. In 2018 Barclays has launched both the Eagle Lab at the Digital Greenhouse, a space for community projects and others to access IT resources, and the Later Life skills programme which focuses on building the digital acumen of more vulnerable older islanders, to raise awareness of cyber security. Barclays has also partnered with Action for Children for 4 years and for 2018 secured £44,000 worth of investment for initiatives to help young people with employability skills. This investment seeks to improve the employability skills of 375 disadvantaged young people in Guernsey by funding an Employability Coordinator. They provide up-skilling sessions, with the aim of building confidence, helping the young people gain qualifications and supporting them into employment through volunteering and work experience. They also run the Student Business Challenge, an annual event involving teams working with mentors to create and run a business over a ten-week period. Each team is given a loan of £100 by Barclays and this year 30 teams entered. They collectively generated £13,577.94 net profit, of which £3414.99 was donated to local charities including Guernsey Mind, GSPCA and Les Bourgs.

The judges said “The Judges were impressed by the range of Barclay’s CSR programmes, from developing older people’s skills to providing initiatives for disadvantaged young people through its strong support of Action for Children.”

State Street Guernsey - There are two key elements to State Street Guernsey’s CSR programme delivery: community investment through the grants programme, supporting charities in the area of education with an emphasis on workforce development and employability, and employee engagement through the volunteering and matching gifts programmes. Within matching gifts there are three components designed to promote staff awareness and engagement in community events and activities: ‘CollectMore’ enables staff who participate in sponsored events to have their individual fund-raising matched; ‘GiveMore’ supports staff that make personal cash donations to a chosen charity and this provides another opportunity to double their giving power; 'DoMore' matches donation of volunteer time – for every 16 hours accumulated with a charity, staff are eligible to apply for a cash grant payable to that charity. This last component supplements the annual two day (16 hours) allocation that State Street gives to all permanent employees – staff can leverage from this allowance during the working week but it is recognised that many are involved with charitable work in their own time. The DoMore component enables staff to log all volunteer time and be eligible for a cash grant after 16 hours donated to one charity. Over the past ten years State Street Guernsey has awarded grant funding to charities, such as Headway, assisted with the launch of new charitable projects such as The Hub, and Every Child Our Future. Funding has also been given to the Guernsey Boys Brigade, Bailiwick of Guernsey Scouts, the North Youth Centre and others. The giving of time is a core part of State Street’s CSR initiatives. In the last year, State Street staff have given nearly 400 hours to support eight local charitable organisations. Considering that State Street have a local staff of 30 this is an amazing achievement, equalling over 16 hours per person. Examples of State Street Guernsey’s CSR work from the last year include working with the Channel Islands Occupation Society on a site clearance project, assisting on the Saffery Champness Rotary walk and work with the Youth Commission and Guernsey Botanical Trust. In the case of the latter two organisations, State Street Guernsey provided the co-ordination for a successful collaborative project. State Street Guernsey, with a view to building the long-term capacity of the charitable sector, has also provided funding to support the GSPCA with the launch of its NVQ training and the introduction of its Community and Training Officer role

The judges said “Shortlisted for having such a high involvement of staff in CSR activities, which are clearly embedded within the company’s ethos, and for their projects having long lasting effects on the local community.”

INNOVATION AWARD

GSPCA with Employment & Social Security, State Street Guernsey & Guernsey College of Further Education - Over recent years the GPSCA has been supporting Employment & Social Security with their “Work2Benefit” scheme by offering placements for long-term unemployed people to assist with their work rehabilitation. Since 2014, over 100 placements have taken place at the GSPCA through which jobseekers have gained work-related skills and experience and gained more confidence to move into paid work. Some people have moved into paid work, some have progressed on to other work schemes and some placements have led to employment with the GSPCA. One of the challenges facing the programme in its initial stages was that the number of placements which could be accepted at any one time was restricted by the level of supervision which could be provided by the existing management team. The GPSCA therefore developed a proposal last year for a Community and Training Officer to be appointed to help the jobseekers placed with them, to increase the number of placements and to enable the GSPCA to offer more training. The funding of the post and the development of the training element of the initiative was funded by State Street Guernsey and Employment & Social Security. The GSPCA is currently working with the Guernsey College of Further Education to deliver the first NVQ in Animal Care in Guernsey, in fact the first animal care qualifications in Guernsey, which will hopefully lead to the delivery of other courses and qualifications. The aims of this project are to help reduce long-term unemployment in Guernsey by upskilling those individuals undertaking placements with the GSPCA so that they can move on and into paid work. Only a few months into the project it is already seeing some impressive results with placement numbers exceeding initial targets and those on placement actively looking for work and improving their CV with training opportunities. The Community and Training Officer has also been able to help manage the GSPCA’s CSR and Work2Benefit teams as well as Community Service and Prison Placements and other volunteers during his duties. This has allowed the Work2Benefit placements, where appropriate, to work with skilled or varied individuals thereby upskilling their communication and team work even further.

The judges said “The Judges were impressed by how the project is working with multiple partners with the aim of facilitating the delivery of a new qualification for Guernsey to assist the unemployed gain employment, together with the impact this newly created role has already had on the GSPCA’s placement scheme.”

In this award the GSPCA have worked with and alongside both Wellbeing Animals Guernsey and the Pollinator Project.

Steve Byrne GSPCA Manager said “We are all very much looking forward to next weeks Guernsey Community Foundation 2018 Awards and we are all very humbled and amazed at the GSPCA with the recognition of our team members, the projects and events short listed.”

“Well done to all of the amazing charities, individuals, companies and groups there is so such inspiring work that goes on in Guernsey and it is so wonderful to have this show cased at the Guernsey Community Foundation awards.”

“Next week we will have over a dozen GSPCA volunteers and staff attending the awards who have been involved with the amazing work recognised.”

“There are a few tickets still on sale and it is always an inspiring and heart warming evening.”

“A huge thank you to all that have nominated and those that short listed it would have been a very difficult task.”

There are a few tickets to the Awards remaining and all are welcome to attend.  Tickets are being sold at £10 and on a first come, first served basis. Further details about the ceremony, including our line-up of speakers and entertainment, is available here https://foundation.gg/news/2018-community-award-tickets-now-on-sale-and-event-line-up-revealed. For ticket sales, or other Awards' queries, please contact Will at [email protected] . 

Some awards open for nominations currently are –

The ADCH & Petplan Awards - https://www.petplan.co.uk/about-petplan/charities/

The Ceva Animal Welfare Awards – http://www.cevawelfareawards.com/

To find out more on trips, talks and our education work please email [email protected] or call 01481 257261

If you would like to help at one of our upcoming events please give Michelle a call on 257261 or email [email protected]

If you would like to find out more on how you can support the shelter and the animals in our care then please visit our fundraising page www.gspca.org.gg/fundraising

To see some of the animals looking for homes at the GSPCA please visit – http://www.gspca.org.gg/animals

Another way to support us is our on site Charity Shop and refreshment area and to find out more please visit - http://www.gspca.org.gg/page/gspca-onsite-charity-shop

If your group or business would like to find out about spending a day at the Shelter please go to -

http://www.gspca.org.gg/about/corporate-and-group-days

For other ways your business can help us here at the GSPCA please go to -

http://www.gspca.org.gg/about/how-your-business-can-help-gspca-corporate-sponsorship

To find out our opening hours and when you can visit some of the animals in our care please visit  http://www.gspca.org.gg/page/gspca-opening-visiting-times

To see some of the animals looking for homes please visit - http://www.gspca.org.gg/animals

On Tuesday 4^th December we have a volunteer induction evening and for more information and additional induction dates please visit http://gspca.org.gg/about/volunteers or call 257261

To see our upcoming guided tours please visit - http://www.gspca.org.gg/services/guided-tours-gspca

To become an Angel Pen Pal Sponsor to sponsor the hoglets and support our work please visit - http://www.gspca.org.gg/about/angel-sponsorship-scheme-animals-needing-guernseys-everlasting-love

To see our Wish List on our website please visit - http://www.gspca.org.gg/about/our-plans-wish-list

To visit the details on the Urgent Kennel Floor Appeal please visit - www.gspca.org.gg/blog/urgent-kennel-floor-appeal-%E2%80%93-kennel-flooring-work-discovers-need-new-drains-and-completely-ripp

To Buy a Brick in the new Wildlife Hospital and find out more please click here - http://www.gspca.org.gg/blog/gspca-launch-buy-brick-proposed-new-wildlife-hospital

To learn more about our biggest project, become an Exclusive Build Partner and support our Wildlife Hospital please visit http://www.gspca.org.gg/page/gspca-exclusive-build-partner

To visit our Amazon Wish list please visit - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/25MJPPDAGXHL1?type=WishList