Friends of Animals Rethymno: Update

The Rethymnon branch of the Cretan International Community meets on the first Thursday of every month. The January meeting will take place on Thursday 07/01/10 and the February meeting will take place on 04/02/10 at Cafe ‘La Bamba’ in Rethymnon from 11.00 am to 12.30 pm. The cafe is open from 10.30 am on the meeting day. If you are coming from the centre of Rethymnon, going East, La Bamba (Sof. Venizelou St. 7 - 8 ) is on the beach road between Plateia Agnostou
Thanks to Clodagh Hogan for providing us with this update about the work Friends of Animals Rethymno. Clodagh writes: ‘After Nellie resigned as president in October the charity had to do some restructuring. We had elections on 8th December for new committee members, the results were as follows: Rita Leatherbarrow, President; Clodagh Hogan, Vice President; Vera Oevland, Treasurer; John Haslam, Secretary; Tom Oevland Committee Member.
‘Now it’s back to business as usual but obviously with so few active volunteers for 2010 we will have to reduce the amount of strays picked up. We are trying to learn from our past mistakes, for example that with only 4 or 5 people actively involved with the charity on a daily basis it is impossible to cover the huge area between Bali and Georgioupolis. Nevertheless, we managed to rescue over 280 dogs last year and re-homed 236 abroad. We also euthanized about 30 dogs, cats, kittens and puppies. But unfortunately we only managed to re-home 26 dogs here on Crete. Our expenditure so far has been over 70,000 euros, as you can imagine it takes an enormous amount of work and time to raise this money via our charity events, donation boxes, and putting in applications for grants to charities abroad. We receive hundreds of calls from locals and foreigners who have picked up stray dogs or found boxes of puppies and kittens, but most people don’t realise that all we have to work with is 1 mobile phone passed around the committee members and a few dedicated foster homes. We have no kennels, no office and the majority of the committee members have to work during the summer season which leaves them leaving little time for themselves. PLEASE if anyone could help out in any way contact me, Clodagh on 6945170226.
Our FAR Charity Shop has now re-opened in Pigi Square (next to Zorba’s Taverna). From Monday 4th Jan. it will open from Mondays - Saturdays. 11.00 - 14.00. We would welcome all donations of books, bric-a-brac, household furniture etc., and if anyone would like to volunteer to do a day in the shop it would be fantastic.
‘On a brighter note, we had a very successful fund raiser at the White Lady Taverna in Adele Kampos, on 29th November. A wonderful Christmas Dinner cooked by Jackie. We raised 1381.00 euros. which was fantastic. We would like to thank Yannis and Antonia and all the people who worked so hard that day to make it a success. And of course we would like to thank everyone who came to the lunch to support Friends of Animals of Rethymno.

Calling All Amateur Musicians!

RETHYMNO YOUTH ORCHESTRA IS LOOKING FOR NEW MEMBERS

The Rethymno Municipal Youth Orchestra is an amateur symphony orchestra, consisting mostly of high school and university students, but essentially anyone playing an instrument and wishing to play it with others is welcome. The orchestra’s activities are mainly in Rethymno, but also have an eye on the rest of Crete. Repertoire is ‘symphonic’, that is to say: classics, but also The Police, Frank Zappa, Manos Hadzidakis and other contemporaries arranged for symphony orchestra. The orchestra has even worked together with Greek popstar Alkinoos Ioannidis. For further information please contact Rino on 6944758441

Community Outreach Health Care Clinic: New Location and Times

Last April we reported that a community health care outreach clinic had been set up in Rethymnon. This project, aimed at providing health care for those who are not being taken care of by the existing insurance schemes, has met with a massive response in terms of people attending the clinic (we hesitate to call this a ‘success’ rate). It rapidly became clear that the original site was not big enough to cope with demand, and that some extra health care provisions were needed. In view of that, in mid November the clinic moved to a new location: Kastrinogiannaki 12 (small street by the Pharmacy on Metropolis Square). Surgery times have changed, too. Initially the surgery was only open on a Wednesday afternoon; according to our most recent information these are the new times: Monday, 6pm to-8pm - ‘pathology’ clinic (’pathology’ is roughly equivalent to ‘general practitioner’ in English), a pharmacy service is also available on Mondays; Tuesday, 10am until 12 noon - preventative gynaecological clinic; Wednesday 6pm to 8pm - paediatric clinic. It is hoped that in the near future there will also be a community dental surgery as well. The outreach clinic is a volunteer project that has been set up by local doctors, pharmacists, nurses and other volunteer workers. It currently also has the financial support of the municipality and the prefecture.

Publicising Community and Charity Events in the Bugle

We are more than happy to publicise up and coming local community and charity events in the Bugle. There are now various ways in which you can promote the event. We also welcome news that is of benefit to the international community here (for example details of changes to local facilities etc). For the hard copy of the Bugle the copy deadline and contact details are as given on our ‘This Month’ page (but obviously for events such as charity fundraisers, the sooner we receive details about these, the more publicity we can give them!). Events may also be publicised online via the www.rethymnon.biz website and the Rethymnon Coffee Morning Facebook Group.