Friday, March 29, 2013

Weekly Volunteer Update

Dear Fabulous Volunteers and Fosters,

First, let me thank you again for the very warm welcome you’ve all given me. I’m really getting a sense of how lucky I am to be working with such a kind and generous group.

I will be starting to send out weekly emails and, at the same time, reducing the amount of emails you get daily. This may take a little while, but you should look for important info in these emails, like the following!

As you (hopefully) saw in Erica’s earlier email, we’re about to be in foster home crunch. One of the biggest things that you can do to help us is to get the word out about fostering. We have foster fliers that we would like to get out and about, and since I can’t be everywhere at once yet (working on it!), hopefully I can harness the amazing power of numbers of this list. I’ve uploaded 3 flyers onto THIS PAGE. They should open in nice downloadable PDFs that you can print and post. If you don’t feel like printing at home, that’s fine, too- we’ll have some copies of each on Karen’s desk in the office.

You’ll notice that the page is something you’ve never seen before, because it’s brand new, and very much a work in progress: Our brand new Volunteer and Foster blog! (I promise it will get prettier.) Stay tuned because I think you’ll like what’s coming!

Finally, at the bottom of the flyer page, you’ll see a link to track your hours. This is the same link that is on the For Volunteers page on Hopalong’s main site. We are gearing up this data base and it’s time to get everyone in there, and this is NEW- including fosters.  We’ve been informal about tracking volunteer hours for a while now, but it’s very important for grant purposes as well as to grow the program to have a good idea of our service hours. I’d love it if you write me back to let me know you’re out there so I can put you in the database, but if not, you’ll eventually get moved over there anyway. I’m more than happy to help you learn the system, and if you absolutely positively hate computers and databases, I can still accept your hours on paperplease make sure they get to me.
Banshee and happy adopter!

That’s all the coordinating that I’d like to do this Friday, and I’m sure you’re done being coordinated, so here’s my weekly shout-out: Thank you Deb, Jean and Ellie for a great meeting Monday! These ladies came in on Monday evening and filled me in about all things foster. Pro tip: roll up the carpets!

Have a great weekend, everyone, Happy Easter if you celebrate it, and if I don’t see you before Monday, GO A’S!!!

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Five Minute Volunteers

Check out this new addition to our volunteer opportunities page:


Become a FIVE MINUTE Volunteer!No orientation or training required! Spread the word about Hopalong and feel good at the same time.


It takes just 2 minutes to “Like” our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter or add us on Google Plus….


Like social media? So do we!
We have an ever-growing Facebook presence. We post news, photos, videos, and weekly “featured animals” for adoptions. Type Hopalong Rescue in the Search field at the top of your Facebook page, or type this URL into your browser’s address field: https://www.facebook.com/hopalongrescue.


Follow us on twitter: @hopalongrescue


Add us to your circles on Google Plus by clicking this link.


Add an adoptable animal to your email signature!
(these instructions are for gmail) Go into your gmail settings (upper right hand corner). Under “general settings”, scroll down till you see “signature.”
Click on the icon that looks like a mountain range, it will ask for the web location for the image you want to use. Pick an adoptable animal from our website: http://www.hopalong.org/?page_id=40 Find the location by right clicking on the image and selecting “view image info”. You will need to copy and paste the location information into the box requesting it in your google settings.
Once that is done, please write the name of the animal and that it is available for adoption through Hopalong Animal Rescue. Please hyperlink back to our website: click on the image that looks like two linking chains, and type in”www.hopalong.org” into the available box.


Sign up for a Hopalong Animal Rescue Credit Card
Visit CardLabConnect. $25 after first purchase goes to Hopalong. 1% of each purchase is donated to Hopalong!


Thank you for your support – please pass this information on to your family and friends and ask them to become 5-minute volunteers, too!

Brand new blog!

Check in here as often as you'd like- we'll still communicate via email, but this will be one way I can send out little notes and updates!

On the right we'll try to keep some current volunteer opportunities up, until we get those in volgistics.
-Lauren