1st July

A small insight for the preparation for Battersea Dogs & Cats Home Old Windsor starts weeks in advance. Stands are allocated by invitation only, although an application form is required with the obligatory risk assessment and now supported with public liability insurance. Thankfully Staffordshire Bull Terrier Welfare had the relevant insurance for the affiliated groups.
Luci and Mel were contacted to put the date in their diary with enough time to enable them get sitters for their dogs Tara, Blaze (Luci's) and Sasha (Mel's). Heather, Stuart's sister also offered to help who runs the  canteen supplying us with food and drinks.
Next was how to attract people to the stand to raise money for the rescue whilst promoting the breed and responsible ownership. Quite a few nights were taken up thinking how we could raise money other than the usual bric a brac. Finally we came up with a London Underground Treasure map, buy a pin for £1, pin it to a station of your choice to reveal whether a prize is attached to it.

Luci's friend Susie of Maidenhead Wine Company kindly donated two boxes of wine for the tombola. Armed and ready for the day albeit that the London underground map did arrive until the day before at 7pm when my neighbour knocked at the door to hand it to us as she had taken it in we sighed a sigh of relief.
Saturday morning we got up at 5am to load the van up and take our dogs for a walk leaving home at 7am to get to Battersea Old Windsor for 8am. On route a BT van cut across Stuart with out any indication nearly taking the front of the van off, perhaps the Queen's telephone was down!! I have never known BT to rush to a job before indeed they normally take days to repair a phone line.
Once on site it was a frenzy of activity putting up the gazebo, banners, bunting, tables and bric a brac but we made it before the doors opened at 10.30am and were waiting ready for the people to arrive.
When visiting an event for smaller charities please give a thought to those people with stands and organising the event who do not have public relations/event managers. Many hours are spent whilst still running their day to day life and working. It does not cost anything to say hello!!