Friday, May 1, 2009

New charity shop

The process of purchasing the lease of 61 Burleigh Street is proving to be very protracted and I know that some of our supporters are feeling frustrated about this. We have to follow the legal advice of our solicitors, as we would potentially be putting the branch funds at risk if we were to sign the lease without getting the proper safeguards.

At the moment, we are waiting for the freehold owner of the shop to provide what is called a "licence to assign", which is a legal document confirming that the current tenants (who currently lease the building) have permission to transfer the lease to us and that there are no additional conditions, on top of those in the actual lease, which could be detrimental to our ability to use the shop or result in increased cost to us. 

We have the purchase funds waiting in our bank account and a mountain of sales stock stored at 188 Mill road, so once the lease and licence are available, we should be able to open very quickly.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Two rats

This is one of a pair of rats who were found running loose in the street by a member of the public and brought to our clinic. They're both visibly aged and this one has an injury which I suspect is the result of him chewing out the stitches after removal of a tumour.

At this time of life it's fairly unlikely that they would suddenly make a break for freedom off their own bat and the most likely explanation is that they were turned loose. They're both friendly and well-handled, and my guess is that the owner couldn't face up to the responsibility of deciding either to take them for euthanasia or organise continued treatment. Cost may have been part of this — a private vet would probably charge in the region of £30 to put down and dispose of two rats — but some of it may just have been inability to cope with the idea of sickness and death. In the past we've had stray hamsters with horrible-looking tumours which had obviously been released because the owner just couldn't bear to look at them. 

The clinic vets say these two are quite happy at the moment, but they've probably not got long before we have to put them to sleep.