Answering calls from the general public, returning mobile calls!

[Dawn F]

our local rspca won't call back to mobiles because of cost

[wharfevalley catsprotection]

Haha, yes, we could all do with a much needed income boost don't we?!

We've currently having to raise over a thousand pounds for Billy who is a semi-feral who had an RTA and has extensive surgery, we fundraised liked crazy to get two thousand pounds for Hector to regain his sight and we saved Suki who has an aggressive, hostile 10 year old who had been adbused. I got an e-mail recently to say that Suki now sleeps on the bed every night with her new owner and has begun to sit on her knee and be stroked - it makes all the stress and difficulties worth it doesn't it?!!

I'm sure we'll keep in touch on here!

Jen

[Canterbury_cats (Sharon)]

You only need to read about the wonderful Jesiri who we saved last year after just about every bone in his body to realise that like you  we take in the cats that no one else wants to spend money on.. We had 6 cats last year all needing a load of vet care (some people will remember my posts about some of them i.e Baz, Solomon, Humprey, Jes!).. Each cats bill was nearly 1000 on its own. All are now living happy contented lives...

The RSPCA this way openly admit not taking in older cats! Despite rehoming Cleo the diabetic cat some 5 years ago they refused to take her back in when her owner died and would of PTS. She came to us for a few months but eventually succumbed to the stress of rehoming but we gave her a change..

Gus also (who we have just homed) was on death door before we were notified of him. The RSPCA would only pay to have  him PTS. It makes me liviid i tell you!!

Sounds as though you are doing a grand job as well. Until someone leaves us a huge amount of money this phones system will have to wait!

[wharfevalley catsprotection]

Thanks great news! We work well with our closest branch Wharfe Valley and York adoption centre helps us with spaces sometimes. We also do not have a great partnership with the RSPCA. They do an amazing job, but we feel that feral, semi feral, FIV, elderly, FeLV and other such "un-rehomables" are actually re-homable if you give them time, whereas they tend to PTS. The main focus of our branch is neutering and feral/semi-feral cats.

I think that CP makes it's job harder for itself as we aren't selective about the cats that come into care and I really do feel that we are the charity (along with other smaller groups) who really stands up for the harder to re-home cats. Yes we could re-home many many more if we just took in domesticated, young, friendly cats, but we don't. We give cats that might not otherwise have a chance - in esscence we rock!!!

It's really nice to hear from other CP branches as sometime I can feel like we're a bit isolated and fighting a losing battle here as the level of cruelty and neglect is unbelievable. It's great to know that there is a wider community out there who are battling on, despite the rising costs and stress it puts on us.

I think our vets bills came to ninteen thousand last year and I don't think that that covers all the neutering vouchers we issued in our neutering campaigns on the huge, sprawling estates here in Leeds.

Keep up the fantastic work!

[Canterbury_cats (Sharon)]

Thanks for that.
We do indeed have a message on our phone about mobile.
Generally our rehoming is good, last year rehoming 224 cats in total which considering we are small branch that covers most of EK is great.. But the downside to that is we are virtually skint with all those vets bills.

The last few weeks managed to rehome elderly Gus who was going to be PTS and some senior cats as well which is a godsend and i know i am going to regret this but we have not had any kittens since before Christmas (famous last words)))!!!

However, with new people onboard this year we hope to change that.. We do have pet shops this way but its not so bad as some areas. Thanet is worse for ignorance and damn stupidity, we do work well with otehr rescues and have since the beginning of this year worked well with our local (well to us not really local) adoption centre, we  help them and they help us.. We dont have a good relationship with the RSPCA local branch though as they get inspectors to ring us instead of their branch. All the ferals Pinkbear treated and trapped last year they wanted to put them all to sleep!!! We neutered 24 ferals and rehomed 19 odd kittens, which may not be a huge number for some branches, but everyone needed a trip to the vets and some had cat flu. We also have a successfuly FIV rehoming rate as well

Other then lack of money (whichis a problem when we cannot pay bills) we are not doing too bad really...

Good to hear from another CP branch though

[wharfevalley catsprotection]

My goodness I didn't know it would cost that much!!! (it was already here when I started)

Hmmm it seems like we're lucky here. I don't know how busy your line gets and what sort of "competition" you have from other rescue centres and pet shops. Beacuse things are so dire here in Leeds for pet shops we try and ring people back asap as there are so many other places that they could go. It might be quieter for you though (i'm not sure) and most people totally understand that we are a charity and don't man the phones 24/7 (or you get the opposite reaction and people think we get paid to do this!!!)

I might try adding onto the message on the line that people need to leave mobile numbers only if this is the only number they have, and that they might be asked to call back. The only problem with this is that people then have my personal number and in the past people have phoned me to complain if they've had a refusal etc. hmmm i'll have a think... *rambles on at herself*

[Canterbury_cats (Sharon)]

Hi there Adel CP
Another branch told me about this phone option but it costs 1000 to implement..
I only get evening calls and weekend calls free and deal with homing. The general line is accessed by 4 different people throughout the week to share the load they ring in to pick up messages and then deal with them as and when..

Not an easy option i dont feel, but so far getting people to ring me back has proved to reduce our bill..

Thanks though

[wharfevalley catsprotection]

Hello again Canterbury!

Here in Leeds we do have the "press 1 for re-homing, 2 for neutering etc etc" and it does help a lot beacuse different people can deal with different things - if your branch can at all afford it, it really is a Godsend!

Personally I do the re-homing line and I do find that most people who have land lines leave them as well. I have Sky and I get ALL my landline calls free so that means I can call at anytime without it costing anything. I then don't feel so bad when I call mobiles. In general I think that I claim back aorund fifteen pounds a month on mobile calls.

It is the line that gets the most "traffic" on it, so we don't mind, but obviously would prefer landlines. Other than that we're calling people back about neutering, trapping and waiting list and I don't know how much that costs us a month. I think beacuse we know how crucial re-homing is to the branch, we don't mind the minimal extra few pounds when we might get homes from calling back swiftly and at people's convenience. It must be a much bigger problem with smaller branches though and I think that it's well within the charities rights to get people to call you back or provide a landline number.

[Dawn (DiddyDawn)]

I refuse to ring mobiles from my home phone, rescue cost me enough as it is without the phone bumping the price up as well.  Most people email me first and I always ask them for a landline number, if this isn't possible, I ask them to ring back.  Why should we as rescues be wasting money on mobile calls?    In some instances, I have to phone mobiles when dealing with the cats, ie if I'm out trapping or whatever but then that's unavoidable, but if someone wants a cat, they can give me a landline number like most people or dial at their expense.

[Angiew]

meant to add, my doggy counterpart was extra well organised. she has 3 mobiles wih orange. You can choose an 8 hour off peak slot with them ........  (need i say more )

[Desley (booktigger)]

Very tricky, I prefer ringing landlines back due to the cost, but appreciate that some people dont have a landline - i never used to, I only did it cos Onetel offered a good deal on calls, until then I only had my mobile (but had 600 free minutes a month, so was happy to ring people from it). You also have to consider the fact that if you dont ring people back on their mobile, it could affect your reputation, and we all know bad things travel quite quickly, and we can't afford that.

[Angiew]

When I did the petsearch milarky, I used to use my mobile to text people and ask then to ring back - only thing I ever used my mobile for . In the end I got a free mobile from freecycle (better than my existing one to boot!), paid my 50p for a sim card and now have 2 unused mobiles with no battery life - neither of which I know the number for!

must find the chargers and charge them up

[blackcat]

oi, who are you calling a 'type'!!!

[Mark]

I think as a rule, the type that leave mobile numbers are the type that don't even have a landline . I do try to keep it brief and don't want to hear their life-story at my expense 

[blackcat]

I have to admit to generally leaving my mobile number in preference to a landline simply because i am out and about a lot and don't get home at an hour when I would expect a person to still be willing to call me (after 6:30 seems a bit late to expect a business to call me at least from where I am standing). But if they were to ask me to call them back I would be happy to do that, and generally offer if I am near a landline when they call ...

[Canterbury_cats (Sharon)]

On from another thread... I do agree that more and more people have mobiles and i dont mind ringing them back and saying to them would you mind ringing me back on this number ba baaa, but my phone bill lately has gone through the roof,due to mobile calls.

I get esp wound up when they leave a mobile and have no voice mail to leave a message or indeed never have it on.. Sometimes we try our best but taking days and our time to return a call to me means its probably not important.

I much prefer people to email me first (if its not important) and then get back to them if the answer hasnt been answered via email first (and i always make sure they leave  contact number). I get asked so many of the same questions i have standard (but still able to customise them) replies to things... It seems to work.

What does everyone else do? Esp keen to hear about CP branches who have different people doing different roles and give different numbers (but allow the call to go through to a number without the person at the other end knowing the number). Kind of switchboard system to sort out the enquires, but the cost of such a system was beyond us... Some CP branches have a system where you press 1 for rehoming etc, 2 for neutering etc.. But again its very expensive to implement. I thought about Skytype!

Would be interested in views