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A letter from Anne Finch - Greyhounds in Need:

Dear Friends of GIN,
Another hectic six months has passed since our last newsletter, covering the ‘silly’ season with its huge numbers of fundraising events often 2-3 every weekend, and we find ourselves already in Autumn and ask ourselves, ‘where the did the summer go?’ Just this last week, (mid September) Arthur calculated that he drove over 1000 miles to 6 different locations in the UK for GIN !

It is now 12 years since my work began in Spain and 16 years since those early days in the mid 80s when I began homing dogs for the RGT with Ann Shannon, the earliest of those pioneers and advocates for Greyhounds.

On October 28th, having reached of age, I will be retiring from my nursing job, after 40 years of working full time.

Doing both these tasks, with the vast amount of foreign travel involved, the immense amount of rescue, liaison, organisatory and fundraising work involving hundreds of people, financial responsibility, the media and publicity work in several languages, (even this newsletter takes over 100 hours of work), and the inevitable problems arising out of working in the voluntary sector and of investing massive effort into unstable, ill equipped areas of society where you have to have eyes at the back of your head, all this has taken its toll on my health, peace of mind, my personal domestic life and finances, which have been suffering and been out of control for some time.

I am sorry to say that on November 1st, I will be stepping down as Trustee and handing over the reins in the first instance to Carolyn and Arthur. Already we have appointed Martin Humphery (see p. 23) as fourth trustee with the possibility of a fifth in the wings. It has always been my wish that the larger core group shares the concerns which have weighed heavily on us three for some years now though it is difficult when most have other jobs and live at a distance to know how this can be done in everyday practical terms.

I feel choked to be departing this work when there is still much remaining to do and when the charity is bursting with resources, supporters and interest from all quarters, but I know that I have to do this.

Already six months or so ago when I discussed this decision with Carolyn, Geoffrey and the other Trustees, they have taken off me some of the work of attending events, and I am grateful to all of them particularly Arthur who has put up with my highs and lows particularly over the last four years which have been the most difficult for me since the charity grew so large and spread so wide.

It remains for me to commend Carolyn, Arthur and the rest of the core committee to your care.

Look after them please!

Anne

Anne Finch

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