So, you've joined an RSPCA Branch Committee?

The first thing that will probably strike you is that there's a lot of paperwork and that meetings are run to a fixed agenda that may seem bureaucratic until you get used to it. Meetings start by reading through the minutes of the previous meeting and checking that everyone agrees they are an accurate record. This may appear tedious, but it's vital to have written proof of what was actually agreed if there are problems later on.

A branch committee meeting is only allowed to make decisions if there are at least 4 elected committee members present.

The next thing is that really quite frighteningly large sums of money are involved. In our case the bill for animal boarding runs at roughly £2,000 each month. The basic fee to staff our animal clinic is £2,500 and on top of that there are costs for veterinary treatment of the animals we take in and general items like rates, heating and repairs. 

As a branch, our life is a constant balancing act between not going bust altogether and constant demands to find, "just another £200" in order to save an animal's life.

The trouble is that ONE payment of £200 is not much in relation to our turnover BUT £200 repeated every day would finish us off unless we can increase our income.

Is anybody out there?

I sometimes feel that way, and evidently RSPCA HQ are the same as that's the heading of their latest volunteer survey.

If you do volunteer for the RSPCA, I urge you to complete the online form - especially if there are things you would like to see changed or have irritated, annoyed or upset you. If we don't KNOW about problems we can't fix them.

If you are a volunteer and you complete the form you'll be entered into a draw to win a day out with one of the inspectors.

In some ways the people we really need to ask are the ones who considered volunteering and either never got started or else drifted away. It came up on the i-volunteer discussion board a few days ago and, allowing for the fact that this was just one person's experience, one problem that can be fixed seems to be an explanation of why volunteers can't automatically attend and vote at branch committee meetings or vote at the branch AGM and what they need to do if they would like to get more involved in decision-making.

RSPCA branches are registered charities in their own right, governed by the RSPCA Rules for Branches, and ultimately by the Charity Commission. We can't simply re-write the rules to suit ourselves, or the result would be chaos, and because large amounts of charity funds are involved there have to be set procedures to specify who is eligible to elect the committee. Committee members are personally responsible for proper management of branch funds (and could ultimately be made to pay them back if things went really wrong). If random people could attend committee meetings and vote there would be no way to hold them to account, and it would be very awkward if it was possible to come to a meeting, push through some hugely expensive project and then leave everyone else to cope.

If you are an existing volunteer, or a new one, and are interested in taking part in decision-making at local or national level, the first thing you need to do is to join the RSPCA. (Make sure you request that your details are passed on to the local branch and that you become a branch member as well as a national one).

Three months after your application has been processed, you will be eligible to vote and stand in branch elections. You should automatically be sent details of the date of your own branch's Annual General Meeting (which is where the elections take place) and a nomination form which you can use to submit yourself as a candidate for election to the committee. You need to get supporting signatures from two other branch members (usually if you contact the existing committee they will be only too delighted to arrange this as most committees are short of members). 

For a valid election the branch AGM must be attended by at least 10 members and each committee member needs to receive at least 50% of the votes of those present in order to be elected (members can vote for as many candidates as they like, but can only place one vote per candidate).

Once you have been elected, your troubles will be only just starting...

Boring intermission

It turned out that the 2010/11 HMRC software for calculating tax and NI payments wouldn't install on my old laptop, so the last few weeks have been swallowed up migrating to its replacement.

Finally got all the shop staff transferred yesterday with their details correct, but when I tried to do the automatic online submission of the tax data for 2009/10 the results it offered were about half what I expected (if only!). Their help file didn't sound confident that the totals would be right, so I ended up doing it the hard way by entering everyone's individual P14 details into the HMRC online form instead. Result was at least close to the total I expected (the website claimed we'd made a slight overpayment), but at least we made today's submission deadline.

Normal posting hopefully resumed soon.

Branch AGM provisional date

The provisional date for Cambridge Branch's Annual General Meeting is 30th June. 7.30 p.m. for 8 p.m. start at the Friends Meeting House, Jesus Lane, Cambridge. This the time when branch members have their chance to elect new committee members to run the branch in the following year. 

 
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We need to elect a minimum of seven committee members, and at least ten adult voting members must be present for a valid election. If we fail to achieve this (fairly low) standard, then the meeting fails and we will either be asked to try again or else dissolve the committee and hand control over to the National RSPCA until such time as a valid committee can be elected. 

If you are a branch member, please do try to attend your local branch AGM — apart from other considerations it is very embarrassing, and a waste of time and money, when senior staff from the Region turn out to an AGM and the branch can't even muster ten members to make it worthwhile.

The RSPCA is very dependent on volunteer effort. If you've ever thought "the RSPCA ought to do more about..." this is your chance to make a difference.

Members and Supporters?

One of the links at the side of this blog goes to the page where you can apply for membership of the RSPCA. Adult members receive the society magazine Animal Life several times a year and have voting rights at both local and national level. Local branches are sent lists of members within their areas so that they can send out notices of their Annual General Meeting.

Confusingly, it is possible to have signed up to make regular donations to the RSPCA without ever having filled in a membership application. Unfortunately this means that significant numbers of people think of themselves as RSPCA members but don't get any of the papers which would keep them in touch with what's happening at grassroots level. 

If you make regular donations, but don't get Animal Life then you're not listed as a member and that's why your local branch has never tried to contact you. If you follow the link to the RSPCA membership page, you'll see that there are two types of members: ordinary and friend. "Friends" used to be the term for donors who hadn't registered as members. If you know you are a Friend and you'd like to become active in your local branch but they've never been in touch, you probably became a donor before the change. If you contact HQ at Horsham, they should be able to convert your status into voting membership.

Branch committees

If you think you might be interested in standing for our committee this year there's still time. Branch committees are elected each year by the local branch members at the Annual General Meeting. In our case, this is normally late June, as branch accounts and an annual report on the previous year have to be available at the AGM, and ours haven't usually been audited by our accountants until early June. 

To stand for election, you need to have been a member of the RSPCA for a minimum of three months prior to the AGM (this is mainly to make it possible to ensure there's time for everyone eligible to have got onto the membership lists and been circulated with the correct AGM papers.) Before the AGM the existing committee circulate a notice of the time and place to all branch members and include nomination forms so that members can put candidates forward for election. Members of the RSPCA automatically become members of the branch where they live, unless they ask to join a different one - for example the branch where they work.

To form a committee the AGM must elect at least seven and not more than fourteen people. As it's quite hard to get as many as fourteen volunteers willing to stand, most of the time we want the meeting to vote in everyone who comes forward and is prepared to work. It's not absolutely unknown for elections to be hotly contested, but it usually only happens where there is some point of principle at issue - for example whether or not to keep a particular branch facility open.

If you think you are a member of the RSPCA and have never been circulated with AGM papers it's likely that you are actually a "supporter" instead. In this case, if you want to become involved with your local branch, the best thing to to is to contact RSPCA HQ at Horsham and ask to be switched from the supporter category to the adult member one.

Working for change

There's a growing movement in the US and Australia to press animal shelters to adopt the principles of "no-kill": basically a rejection of the idea that the majority of "unwanted" pets will have to be killed because there are far more strays than potential homes. 

One element of the strategy is to encourage voluntary animal welfare organisations to relinquish what we in this country would refer to as "the stray dogs contract" unless they can realistically aim to place all, or nearly all, animals capable of being adopted. In other words, animal welfare organisations ought not to spend funds doing society's dirty work by killing unwanted pets and so diverting money from saving animals.

This became RSPCA policy in the UK some two decades ago, and is the default position for all its branches. It was possible because of our peculiar organisation structure which means that animal welfare policy decided by the national governing council can be imposed on the branches countrywide.

It hasn't meant that no healthy animals are ever killed because they are unwanted, but the evidence suggests that a much higher percentage of animals are successfully rehomed than in the US. The 2007 Animal Welfare Indicators report collating statistics on a range of animal issues records that the RSPCA (overall) rehomed just over 70,000 animals and put down just under 4,000 for non-medical reasons (the lowest figure for five years). [Pet animal welfare indicators]

Working at arms length from the local authority pounds and shelters has its critics and means that some people will be very unhappy because there is a group of very visible animals in need and the RSPCA is not taking all of them. 

Unfortunately this can result in a vicious circle in which the branch limits its intake of animals because it has limited resources but has difficulty recruiting helpers to increase its resources so it can take more animals because people are angry about the animals who weren't taken in. Two members of the Sheffield forum say:

Q. "Looking at this thread and the earlier one about the RSPCA do I assume that we the people of Sheffield, who support the local RSPCA branch have no say in its running, or how they spend the money that we donate, does this place not have a committie that leads/gives direction to the staff ?. could we not as either a group or as individuals, contact this committie and ask them to change their direction, does the overall RSPCA headquaters at Horsham direct the local branch to this course of action ?.

How does one get onto the local committie, to try and change things, or is it a closed shop like most of these societies seem to be, anyone know ?"

A. "I wish i did know Shytalk. All i know is that people should become aware of the things the RSPCA do and DON'T do before supporting instead of just what they DO do. I am not saying they shouldn't support the RSPCA but theres many small rescue centres out there that save 100s of dogs each year from being put to sleep when they have been in pounds for a long period of time on very low funds due to people not knowing about them as most of the time the rescues are only small and arent pleading for support on television, they make do with what they have and ask around for help, they get it and make the most of it.

I would love to know how to persuade them to help pounds and rescue centres. There's been no luck so far."

Ultimately if you don't like the way your local branch is being run, you can join the RSPCA and stand for election against us. Or you can join and stand for election to work with us. We're not a closed shop and no-one will object to newcomers who want to work to increase the number of animals we can help. What can be a problem is if new recruits have a very limited agenda and want to close down existing services to release funds for their particular pet projects. There isn't much point increasing rehoming if you abandon animals who already have owners but will have to be put to sleep if there is no available veterinary help.

Interested in becoming an RSPCA trustee?

Would you like to use your skills and experience in becoming one of the RSPCA's charity trustees? The Council discusses plans for the RSPCA and makes the decisions that will affect how the RSPCA deals with animal issues in the future.

The RSPCA Council comprises up to 25 volunteers elected to serve as the charity trustees of the Society.

Fifteen national Council members are elected by the votes of the whole RSPCA membership and serve for three years, retiring on a rotational basis... [read more on the National RSPCA website]

RSPCA branches are also directed by trustee bodies: each branch elects a minimum of seven and a maximum of fourteen committee members at its Annual General Meeting each year. Branch trustees normally play a more "hands on" rôle than members of the RSPCA Council, because branches rely less on employed staff, so the committee members are responsible for carrying out the board's decisions as well as making them in the first place.

To stand for election to the committee of your local branch you need to be an adult member of the society of at least three months standing at the time of the AGM, and to have been nominated by two other adult branch members. It is important that committee members are "team players" and willing to learn. Most people will have their own particular areas of interest, such as pet rehoming, veterinary treatment or campaigns, but it is important that everyone is prepared to take a balanced view and accept that all aspects of branch activities are important in fostering animal welfare locally.

If you might be interested in standing for the Cambridge branch committee at our next AGM, please email secretary@rspca-cambridge.org.uk. If you're not already a member of the Society, you will need to apply to join, and you can do this online using the link at the side of this blog.