Behind the scenes

Running an animal organization consists not only of rescuing and caring for orphaned kittens, the castration of stray cats, rescuing (possibly ill) stray dogs and puppies, looking for a good home for the dogs, organizing transport if they are adopted abroad, organizing bazaars to generate cash or placing and retrieving the collection boxes.

There must also be spent a lot of time on the administrative side: accounting, tracking the status of each dog (vaccinations, medications, etc.), updating the website and Facebook, answering many emails.

Or, like now, in reactivating the ACT PayPal account.
If the monetary traffic at PayPal exceeds € 2,500 certain documents must be submitted in accordance with EU rules.
This is no problem, until you find out that PayPal is a slow organ, there are always new - or even the same again - data requested, and none of PaypPal's employees are really engrossed in your file.
But thanks to tenacity and perseverance we have now, 2½ month, 26 emails and 24 phone calls later, finally full access again to our PayPal account. And it was about time, because bills need to be paid.

First Summer Bazaar 2016

Last Saturday we had our First summer bazaar of this year.
Although there weren't many tourists we still made a good result of € 339,45 on sales and donations.
We were very pleased to see that many Greek people visited us and are interested in our work.

We couldn't have done this without the help of our volunteers. We would like to thank them for loading and unloading the trailer, building up the stall, making the wheel of fortune and products, selling our products, polishing nails and then late at night breaking up again.

And of course we thank all the shops that donated the prizes for the wheel of fortune.

We hope to see you all again on our next bazaars at the 6th of August and the 3rd of September!

Jasper and his servant

Sure you remember Jasper the cheerful, boisterous, but friendly dog who has found a home at the Dutch author Gerbrand Bakker and unfortunately died suddenly this year.

http://act-thassos.blogspot.gr/2016/03/jasper.html

We were very shocked by Jaspers death. Now we are pleased to report that not only Jasper lives on in our hearts, but also in a book. Gerbrand Bakker has written a book about himself and his faithful companion, which appears also as E-book in the Netherlands and will be released in Germany in September.

He describes how he bought an old house in the Eifel and moves in with his dog Jasper, what they experience there and how Gerbrands past comes back to life by living in the Eifel with his Jasper.
But see for yourself (in Dutch):

https://www.bol.com/nl/p/jasper-en-zijn-knecht/9200000058907374/?Referrer=ADVNLPPcef8f800cdbf929700dcb6aed9030014940 

or here at his former foster family (in German):

http://www.wuestenwolf.de/?p=11533

We are very pleased with this humorous book that shows the soul of man and dog, and it proves once again that it is worth to help the animals, because they teach us more than we think.

Alex Wilson * RIP 17-05-2016

To our great grief we had to say goodbye to Alex yesterday.
After a year of fighting the cancer, he finally lost the battle…

Alex was one of ACT's founders and most involved members. Nothing was impossible.
He was the driving force behind the construction of the enclosure, he built us a beautiful stand for our bazaars - which will always remind us of him - and was always willing to be a loving foster for puppies in need. Even in his last weeks he insisted to take in 2 puppies. Life goes on, he said…

Our thoughts are with Jackie, his children and family and we wish them strength in these difficult times.

Kalo taxidi, dear Alex, you will be missed.

Car Boot Sale in Limenas

We had a really nice day at the car boot sale in Limenas last Saturday. There were about 30 stalls, so it is getting a big thing now. (Thanks Sue!)

It was quite warm and the sellers got sun tanned from risky red to beautiful brown. We really should have been selling hats and sunglasses ;-)
But even without that we made a nice € 303!

Thanks again to our super team (they are getting better and better): Gerry, Val, Jackie and Tanja. And of course the men loading and unloading the trailer and setting up the stands: Peter, Grant, Alex, Joop and special guest John.