The Background
The fundraising project
began in 1999 when the boys' first book was published. At that
stage it was very simple. Collect enough sponsorship to cover
the printing costs for 1,000 books, sell them locally for £1
a copy and give PDSA £1,000. End of project.
That it has grown so much
is a tribute to the help and support we have. To read about
the progress of the project from 1999 to date in full, go to
the Diary
of a Diary
Originally the books were
only available from local bookshops and by mailorder.
Thanks to a lot of local publicity they sold extremely well.
Ann is now concentrating on selling copies of the books and
other items via the online
shop. This is because we have a far wider
customer base online and there was inevitably a limit to the
amount of local publicity Ann was able to obtain, so local sales
reached saturation point some time ago. (She'd like her spare
bedroom back sometime too. It's currently known as "The
Warehouse".)
Once we started to increase
the range of items we sold, it also increased production costs.
Ann couldn't face the idea of collecting more sponsorship money
to reprint the first book, publish the second book and print
the cards, so she "speculated to accumulate" and used
some of the profits. This has been well worth while as we have
already been able to give PDSA far more than the original £1,000
we anticipated.
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In May 2002, Ann
(on behalf of Spock and Dracs), presented the Director
General of PDSA, Marilyn Rydström, with a cheque
for £1,000.
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In early 2004, another
presentation took place at PDSA's Newcastle PetAid Hospital
when a further £1,000 was handed over. The plaque
below is in the Hospital's reception area. Click here
for details, and a photo tour
of the Newcastle Hospital.
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We take great pride in providing
a very professional service. Behind the scenes however, everything
is done on a shoestring to ensure the maximum amount of money
goes into the funds.. The only money that is taken out of the
project is for materials and postage costs. Ann keeps meticulous
books which detail all the income and outgoings.
Ann and all of the volunteers who
have helped take nothing, not even their expenses.
(The boys are hard taskmasters!)
What we've achieved
PDSA opened a new PetAid
Hospital in Newcastle in July 1999. Half the money for the building
costs was given by the Ann Coleman Trust after whom the hospital
has been named. The other half came from PDSA reserves. PDSA
broke down the building costs of the hospital and put a value
on each of the components. For example, consulting rooms cost
£10,000 each, an operating theatre £15,000. Of most
interest to this project was the Feline Ward which cost £6,000.
The Catsup Fundraising
Project has now raised over the £3,000 needed for the
cost of building the Feline Ward to be attributed to Siamese
Authors Spock and Dracs
In addition, paying back
into the reserves, the building cost of the Feline Ward at the
Newcastle Hospital, has released money that can be used in other
Hospitals in other parts of the UK. So where ever you live in
the UK, supporting our project could help PDSA facilities in
your area.
How you can
help
Please take a look
at our online
shop and order some of
our items. We accept payment via our secure server or via Paypal.
If you have a shop,
or work anywhere where it would be possible to sell our items,
please consider stocking our books and cards. Email
Ann for wholesale rates.
If you work for
another charity, please consider buying our books and cards
to sell for your own fundraising efforts. Again, Email
Ann for wholesale rates. (She loves it when 2 charities benefit
from the boys work.)