Friends of Many Tears

The Friends of Many Tears was founded by Glenda Fry in January 2007. She had been a fundraiser for many years and wanted to help the incredible work of Many Tears Rescue. Sadly at the end of 2009 due to long term family illness, Glenda has had to hang up her hat and hand the Friends over to Bill Van Atta. ( Please see notice from Sylvia and a response from Glenda further down this page) During the three year a fantastic £71,564 has been raised and a huge thank you is due to all who have helped in any way to achieve this incredible amount. Glenda is particularly pleased with the £32,604 raised in 2009, the year that the recession hit fundraising so hard. She is proud and pleased though that many of the ideas she has set in place will continue to raise funds year after year.

The Friends website will close towards the end of 2010 and is here now only to guide people who wish to help, to the Friends page of the Many Tears website. Or go direct to www.manytears.co.uk and view the many dogs that are looking for new, loving, forever homes.

The Friends were able to give Many Tears many donations throughout the three years which I know helped enormously. The last of nearly £12,000 was handed over in January 2010. Bill has placed the following announcement on the Thanks page of the Many Tears site.

16-1-2010

Another huge thank you is owed to our wonderful Glenda Fry who has had to step down from heading our fundraising side due to family illness.

Friends of Many Tears was her inspiration and she has done a fantastic job of overseeing this voluntary group of supporters and fundraisers for the past three years.

Glenda has been working with me and trying to prep me for taking over as our new head of fundraising. Part of this prep work is closing out the 2009 accounts before signing over the final banking responsibilities for "Friends". She has now done this and turned her books over to her accountant for auditing, and this week she has presented us with a friends cheque for nearly £12,000. We have had massive Vet bills over the Christmas holidays and this will help us cover them and even leave us with some towards our new puppy unit.

The final collection total for 2009 under the helm of Glenda was in excess of £32,000.

Thank you so much Glenda for all your hard work- I hope I can live up to the standard you have set and that the Friends of Many Tears continues to grow in the future.

We will miss you, but I hope that you can take comfort in this difficult time knowing what a wonderful job you have done for us at Many Tears.

Best wishes

Bill VanAtta

We are grateful for his kind words and it is easy to see from the thanks given that our support has been truly appreciated. We feel sure that the Friends will go from strength to strength and that is Glenda's wish. The biggest possible tribute to her would be that the organisation that she founded and cares so much about will flourish and continue to help needy dogs who without the support of Many Tears wouild not stand a chance in life.

Many, many thanks to all who have played a part in the last three years.

Announcement from Sylvia (November 2009)

It is with great sadness that at the end of this year our amazing head of fundraising, Glenda Fry, is retiring due to long term family illness. We will NEVER forget how she created “Friends of Many Tears” to oversee fundraising so that we could dedicate our time to the dogs here at the centre. This wonderful group of dedicated fundraisers has been instrumental in keeping us running over the last 3 years and we will always be grateful to Glenda for taking on this role.

After January 1st, Bill will be taking over her mammoth job. As he is already very busy, and because of the sheer size that “Friends” has grown into, we may be dividing the fundraising into various sections. One of the changes we are considering is having regional coordinators. Bill is working with Glenda, and we will announce any and all developments on both the Friends site as well as here.

It is my personal wish that we have something here at Many Tears to always remember Glenda for having the inspiration to start this amazing group. I would like to be able to dedicate something here at the centre to Glenda, in order to show our appreciation for what she has done for us. I have a number of goals and projects for the centre this upcoming year. Some of these include: a new puppy isolation unit built and fully fitted with its own bathing area, new concrete pathways and walkways to the reception and kennels, a new purpose built feed storage shed, and a separate sink and toilet facility at the front for visitors to use. I am hoping that we can continue with our successful fundraising efforts and we can complete and then dedicate one of these projects to Glenda.

Thank you Glenda from the bottom of my heart.
Sylvia

Response from Glenda

The Friends of Many Tears was founded in January 2007 and I am very proud of what it has achieved in the three years that I have been at the helm.

I walked into Many Tears and told Sylvia what I had in mind and she said "Yes please, I would like you to try" I had no idea where it would end or even if it would start as there was just me. One by one others joined and today there is a strong group all wanting to fundraise and spread the word. This of course is testament to Many Tears and the amazing job it does. Sadly I have no option other than to hang up my hat. I have thoroughly enjoyed the three years but the volume of work has increased and increased, so much so that I can no longer handle it along with the long term family illness that I deal with on a daily basis.

I am deeply touched by the very kind and appreciative write up that Sylvia has placed on the website. I still believe passionately in Many Tears and the work that it does and if I can help in any way in the future, I will gladly do so. Indeed there are many fundraising ideas that I have that I was never able to put into practice due to the large volume of admin work that the Friends became. I will hand over to Bill early January but still be on hand if needed.

I would like to thank each and every one of you who contributed in any way over the last three years. The Friends would have been nothing without all of you. The foundations are now laid and I have no doubt that it will continue and grow in strength and number and that in itself will make me very happy.

I am grateful for the large number of wonderful e-mails that I have received since the notice went on site. So many of you have asked to keep in touch with me, which is really lovely. I have also had the best Christmas present ever in that my gorgeous baby grand daughter (and her Mum and Dad of course) are moving back to Wales. So it seems everything is changing.

I wish Bill the very best of luck for 2010 but feel sure he won't need luck with all of you behind him.

Sincere thanks for a wonderful three years.

Glenda

Our Total

The total amount of money raised in 2009 by the Friends of Many Tears was:

£32,604

A huge thank you to everyone who has helped in any way to achieve this wonderful amount during a recession.

The total amount of money raised in 2008 by the Friends of Many tears was:

£28,460

A big thank you to all who contributed.

The total amount of money raised by the Friends in 2007 was:

£10,500

Many thanks to all who made it possible.

friendsofmanytears

helping to provide the light that creates the rainbow

Our Total