Email from Cats Protection.
After sending out my requests to various rescues asking for their permission to show their contact details on my website, I recieved this very interesting email from the cats protection, which has opened my eyes a little and has made me more aware about what I will have to think about when promoting rescues.
”Hello Cassandra,
Many thanks for your email about the Adopt, don’t Buy website.
It would be great if we could have a little more information about the
site before we agreed to it (we have to be careful due to being part
of the Cats Protection name).
How will this website be marketed and promoted?
Where will the website be marketed and promoted?
What other rescues will be on there (there are some rather
unscrupulous ones in Leeds)?
What other information will be on the site?
I look forward to hearing from you soon,
Best wishes,
Jennifer ”
MY REPLY
“Thankyou for the reply,
The site is part of my university project for my final project of my degree.
I feel strongly about animals and have rescued and fostered animals
with my mother for quite a few years.
I wanted this project to promote the adoption of rescue animals and
narrowed it down to just cats for now.
For the project I have set up a Flickr group called ‘The Rescue Cat
Apprieciation Group’ and asked for people to kindly donate their
photos and stories of their rescue cats, for the purposes of campaign
material such as posters and also for the ‘rescued cats’ page on my
website.
The aim of the website is for it to be a place for people to be
informed about rescuing cats and to try and stop people from buying
cats from pet stores and breeders, as I feel there are enough animals
out there needing homes and by the breeders breeding more, the numbers
are just going up and up.
Also I felt with the current financial climate that shelters are
becoming increasingly more full with people unable to look after their
cats. So I felt that the website make a little difference and boost
adoptions.
Basically the website is non-profit and I will be paying for the
domain and webspace as this is my own personal project. I shall be
making web banners for other rescue sites to display allowing the web
users to be directed to my website and also I have made posters which
will hopefully be given to shelters to hand out and maybe at
fundraising days such as RSPCA fundraisers and others (I still need to
research where exactly I could give out these posters/leaflets).
All of the rescues I have contacted so far are within the Yorkshire
Region, for now anyway, as the website isn’t yet finished and I
thought I’d just stick to my county at the moment and add more as the
website progresses. I’ve contacted rescues from the Cat Chat list as I
felt that this was a reputatable website, and were sending the same
message out that I also plan to do. I know it’s going to be a very
similar website to mine, but I feel that the purpose of this site is
to promote the adoption of rescue cats and the more people who are
informed, the better.
Please could you let me know which rescues to maybe steer clear of
promoting, as I don’t want to promote such rescues may be
unscrupulous.
Many thanks again for the reply,
Cassandra”
