Canine Partners

I’ve just got back from London, joining up with our brilliant Fundraising Committee who have been so active in this, our twenty fifth anniversary year. Looking back, it really has been quite a year for Canine Partners in London, and everywhere in fact. Our K9 Chess event, masterminded by the amazing Lady Pearson, raised well over £100,000, and today we heard how our combined efforts at our annual Clay Shoot, and our one-off Cavalry and Guards Club dinner, held within a few days of each other, raised a combined total of a further £95,000 for the cause. Which means we can transform a lot more people’s lives. Those few days were a bit surreal to be honest, and merit my giving a bit more detail.

The Clay Shoot is run and hosted for us with great enthusiasm and generosity by The Earl and Countess of Clarendon at their Holywell Estate, with our wonderfully supportive vice president Jane Clarendon helping in the background. Forty two teams enjoyed a brilliant day’s shooting, and included His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester, patron of Canine Partners, as well as gold medal winning Olympian Peter Wilson. The standard was exceptionally high, the scenery was beautiful, and we were blessed with autumn sunshine. Not only did people thoroughly enjoy the day but they were also inspired to give generously to the cause, which meant everyone went home with smiles on their faces. None more so than Christina, who had several breakfasts. Or Milly, who had put so much effort into the whole thing. Or maybe Jane, who succeeded in selling over a thousand pounds’ worth of raffle tickets (when the Dowager Countess of Clarendon asks, and thrusts a bucket at you, you tend to say yes, and hand over your money). My only helpful contribution to the day was to get overexcited about the silent auction, mainly because there were walkie-talkies involved – and over £6,000 of bids.

No sooner had our guests departed, than the team set to work transforming the marquee into a scene from Bake Off, in readiness for 140 new guests to join us for a Sunday cream tea. Jane donned her Marigolds this time, and was joined by Ali and her brilliant ‘purple army’ of Southampton-based volunteer helpers. The teas raised £4,000. Just amazing!! What’s even more amazing is that on the very same weekend, John Lewis’ opened up their Longstock Park Water Gardens in aid of Canine Partners, while other members of the purple family attended Paws in the Park in Kent. Special mention of our Ken, who works tirelessly behind the scenes to support all our events, loading vans and lugging tables and chairs around. This is a big team effort.

And then we bounced merrily back into London for our Cavalry and Guards event. What can I tell you about that night?! I honestly don’t know – it was absolutely bonkers! The complete ‘force of nature that is Jimmy Zouche’ led us through a most memorable evening, where guests were so generous that we could hardly keep up with all their offers of help. Costs were covered by amazing  sponsorship, which meant that all £58,000 raised from the night went as pure profit to train more dogs and transform more people’s lives. Jimmy, staunch volunteer, was the brains and mastermind  behind the whole thing. Afghanistan veteran Guy Disney gave the keynote speech, and Jo gave a very moving testimony (that’s for real, rather than just predictive text) of how canine partner Derby has made a profound difference in her life, and in the life of her whole family. A brilliant evening that will stand out not only in the memory of our twentieth anniversary year, but also in the history of Canine Partners as a whole. I felt very privileged to be a part of it. Even if I did have to wear a dinner jacket. And clip-on bow tie. Well done Milly for organising us again.

From there, three days later, we cruised into Petworth Park, where we had laid on running/walking courses of 5k and 10k for a whole load of willing local people, with and without dogs, all inspired to raise money and get fit for Canine Partners. And all wearing very fetching purple hairy hairbands. Holly was in charge of this one. And Sarah and Ali gave demonstrations in the main ring with canine partners Hamlet and Yarna. Our new range of Christmas merchandise made its first serious outing. (Visit our online shop, to avoid disappointment. All very reasonably priced).

Having helped register people for Petworth, and sell the odd Christmas card probably at the wrong price (maths never was a strong point), I then headed down to Wales to take part in the Cardiff Half Marathon. Having not had time to do any serious training for this, and suffering from a slightly dodgy left knee, I was rather apprehensive about this one. Not least because of the 4am start to make the journey. I needn’t have worried. I got round in one piece (1 hr 52m) and was completely bowled over by the incredible sponsorship from the Canine Partners family. Somebody donated £100 to my sponsorship tally yesterday! There really are some amazing people in this world aren’t there??

Talking of amazing people, brings me to Roger Jefcoate, vice patron of Canine Partners who has been with us from the very beginning, through thick and thin to our present day. On this occasion Roger had joined forces with our staunch local volunteer Jim Devlin, and our brilliant satellite of Bedford puppy parents, to lay on a demonstration event to potential new supporters and some extremely influential people in the local area. Lorraine led the demonstration, in which our puppies were stars of the show, showing what they’ve learned in their early stages, on the road to become canine partners of the future. Local partnerships Gwyneira and canine partner Nikki, Shelley and canine partner Kibble, and Jo and canine partner Derby all gave very moving talks to the assembled audience, describing how their dogs have made a profound difference in their lives. It was a brilliant day and we are immensely grateful to our friends at fellow charity Wheelpower for granting us the facilities, and to all our guests for their immense generosity. It looks like a lot of money will be raised in the local area as a result of this event. A special mention of Roger’s wife Jean, who supports so effectively from the wings, and tries to organise Roger’s enthusiastically full diary. They are both seventy five and really ought to be taking a step back in life – but are driven to keep making a difference in the world, not only with our charity, but with so many others too. Some people are so inspirational, don’t you think?

So, in summary, it’s been a busy couple of weeks. And what I haven’t told you, is that the result of all the above activity is that we’ve been able to transform more people’s lives, with these amazing dogs of ours. Over the last month another six people have stayed with us for their two-week residential course, either at our Southern or our Midlands Centre, collecting their dogs after a culmination of 18 months’ tailor made training. Which means that we remain on course to transform more people’s lives this year than in any previous year in our history.

And to put the icing on the cake, our budding breeding programme has been given an extra boost as canine partner special mum ‘Sula’ gave birth to seven pups this week, who will end up being fully trained canine partners, God willing, in eighteen months’ time. Our thanks, as ever, to Guide Dogs, for helping us to get our breeding programme off the ground.

Onwards and upwards everybody – now go and buy yourself some Christmas cards from our online shop, to help us do more of our work!

Andy