Registered National
 Charity No 203644

CATS PROTECTION

LANARKSHIRE BRANCH

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Volunteer Your Help 

Here is a summary of what we do at Lanarkshire Cats Protection.
If anything appeals to you, then why not send us an email.

The Phone Line - taking calls from the public is a big part of being a Cats Protection volunteer. You are the first contact when people get in touch with the Branch when looking for kittens or wanting assistance. You will take messages initially and over time you may learn to give out general advice to callers.

Fundraising - in order to fund Branch activities we need volunteers to help with fundraising events. This may be organising a raffle, a stall, or a quiz night. We also need people to place and collect donation cans, or to simply put up posters or hand out leaflets advertising upcoming fundraising events or cats for re-homing.

Fostering - this involves looking after cats and kittens brought into care until they can be found a suitable permanent home to go to. Fosterers need to be flexible and willing to take in cats or kittens sometimes at short notice. Ideally a spare room in your home would be required along with some general knowledge of cat care.

Home Checking - anyone who wants a cat or kitten from the Branch has to undergo a home visit. This assesses their suitability for a cat and we can also assess which cat would be suitable for them depending on their type of house, garden accessibility, number of children in the home etc. A list of questions to ask is provided and a form requires to be completed for each visit. It's also an opportunity for the potential new cat owners to ask questions and for queries to be clarified.

Feral Cat Care - it is important to care for all cats - not just pet and stray cats, but wild feral cats too. The Branch has a feral cat-neutering scheme that aims to reduce feral colonies. These feral cats often live near farms and need trapped and taken to the vets to be neutered, before being returned to their original area. If you have a couple of hours free on a midweek morning, then why not accompany our Feral Cat Officer on an early morning mission as she leaves bait and sets a trap?

Testimony by recent volunteer recruit Gordon:

I have a great love for animals and thought it would be a fantastic idea to spend some of my spare time helping the cats who have no home or have been treated badly. So I called up the phone number and spoke to Irene about the different type of volunteer jobs available.  

Later that week I went to the co-ordinator’s home and met Maria and the family….and the cats…and job number one was to go to Rigside!! Where??  “Rigside - a little ghost town up the Ayr Road from Lanark” is how Maria put it!!    I met foster-mum volunteer Jayne in Rigside, along with about a dozen cats, and a dog that drinks tea!!  

At first Maria would say:-
“You do as much as you want to”, then a couple of weeks on she would say, “You’re allowed a life outside the branch!” and now she’s banning me from coming to her house every night looking to do more work for the Branch!!   

I guess the good thing about being a volunteer is that you can help a couple of hours a week manning the phone line, right through to it being like another full time job.  
Whatever suits you really.

In the last 2 months I have done various tasks such as trapping cats to go to the vets, home visits, delivering food and litter to fosterers, and fundraising.  Last month we were at Wishaw Cat Club show and raised £144 selling cat toys and Christmas cards.

It’s incredible to think that all the work that is done by the branch is funded by the fundraising events that we hold and the generosity of the people of the Lanarkshire area.  This support is vital as we are all unpaid volunteers ofcourse.

There are some wonderful and unique volunteers in the branch and would take pages and pages for me to tell you what they all do and are like -- maybe another time though!  

The determination and the loyalty that each volunteer shows to the branch is fantastic though.  It’s a great feeling doing something to help the cats and it does get quite tearful when you see a cat getting re-homed that you have looked after and cared for.  However, this is such a wonderful and rewarding way to spend your time and I would recommend it to anyone.

 PS,  I have just adopted a cat from the Branch that I fell in love with – Chloe.    Chloe enjoys playing with my puppy, sleeping in my bed, and knocking over lamps is her speciality!