Greek Animal Rescue Trustees Report
The trustees of Greek Animal Rescue UK present their annual report for year ended 30 November 2020. The charity is organised in such a way that the trustees discuss regularly how best to manage its affairs. As there are no paid employees, the organisation relies on the continued support of a small number of volunteers to manage its activities
Charitable objectives
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The relief of suffering of animals in Greece in need of care and attention by the provision of funds, materials and equipment for the care, accommodation and treatment of such animals
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The prevention of cruelty to all animals in Greece.
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The advancement of public education in all aspects of care and protection of animals
Activities
In practical terms this means
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Promote, co-ordinate and provide funding for sterilising campaigns.
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Provide financial and practical assistance to local organisations and individuals involved in animal welfare within their community
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Lobby the Greek government for better, properly implemented animal welfare legislation
Sterilising campaigns are the most effective way to reduce stray animal overpopulation in Greece. Greek Animal Rescue manage many different size campaigns throughout Greece from intensive programmes sterilising hundreds of animals to small local campaigns for just a few local animals. Grants for this work are paid direct to the vets to ensure funds are spent correctly.
Assisting local organisations with their own rescue work improves the welfare of animals living on the streets. This assistance is generally in the form of medication together with the distribution of donated animal food. In return, the local animal welfare volunteers will assist with our TNR Trap, Neuter and Release sterilisation programmes.
Lobbying the Greek Government is primarily at a local level. Animal welfare legislation in Greece is reasonably good with each municipality being responsible for the health and care of all street animals within its geography. However, at a local level this legislation is rarely implemented effectively.
Achieving our goals
Increased sterilising campaigns and support for local animal welfare volunteers totalled £475k. Through these grants for sterilising projects, we have improved our network of contacts in Greece which enables us to respond to calls for help more effectively. This year we sterilised 4,442 dogs and cats, an increase of 1,159 animals from 2019. This is the best ever annual result for the charity and this increase is due to legacy payments.
We are also continuing to trial local schemes for assisted sterilisation of owned dogs most notably around Athens Megara and Kozani. The reason behind this is that many Greeks do not sterilise their own dogs and when they inevitably fall pregnant, the resulting pups may be dumped at a shelter if they are lucky or in boxes and roadside bins if they are not. This continues to increase stray overpopulation.
We work with a wide variety of local charities , organisations and individuals in Greece that we know and trust. We provide medication and food for street animals that is distributed by animal welfare groups. In order to ensure that funds are used for the intended purpose, all grants for neutering or payments for veterinary work are paid direct to the vets’ nominated bank account only. All animal transport costs and food are paid direct to the transporter company and food suppliers too. We never pay the welfare groups direct.
We have historically supported two animal welfare groups on a monthly basis on Kos and Salamina and will continue to support these trusted partners for the foreseeable future. However, we do not intend to extend this activity for regular payments to other organisations as there is less control over the use of these funds and our priority is to address the source of the problem by focusing funding neutering. We do not fund capital projects as this has proved unreliable in the past.
We continually encourage the reporting of animal abuse to the Greek government both at local and national level.
In addition to our charitable objectives
Greek Animal Rescue offers a limited rehoming service with full back up service for any animal we bring to the UK to ensure that none of them ever knowingly enter the UK charity rescue system. Rehoming is limited to a few lucky animals as we have limited resource and facilities in the UK to provide backup service for failed homes. The cost of preparing and transporting an animal from Greece has increased and has never been fully covered by the suggested adoption donation. This year we have incurred notary fees of £625 in order to comply with the animal Traces registration system.
The help we provide tourists to bring home animals they have met on holiday has understandably reduced due to the lockdowns. Greek Animal Rescue has facilitated the rehoming of 102 dogs and cats this year a decrease of 26 from 2019. We are fortunate to have an experienced behaviourist trustee who is overseeing this process more effectively and devised a detailed preadoption request check and works closely with the Greek rescuers. We have increased the suggested adoption donation and reduced the adoption failure rate by improving the matching of pets to adopters with the help of our behaviourist and this will enable us to continue this service in the future.
Financial Review
The financial statements indicate our financial results for the year.
Total income decreased by 34% from £487k to £322k in 2020. This is entirely due to the reduction in legacies received in 2020 following previous exceptional years. The legacy total of £33k this year is more in line with usual legacy payments.
Donations and subscriptions have decreased by 14% from £292k to £250k in 2020. This is our core income and it is a huge concern that this trend does not continue.
Legacies, we are very grateful to those people who remember GAR in their Wills as this enables us to increase the amount of work we do. Indeed, it is only due to legacies that we have been able to increase our vital neutering and rescue work the last 2 years.
Fundraising has decreased by 12% to £22k in 2020. The lockdowns have prevented us from taking our stalls to events. We are very grateful to some long term supporters who do boot sales for us and managed this in between lockdowns and we also acknowledge our two volunteers who manage Ebay sales which has generated £9k an increase of £1k from 2019.
We are very grateful to our volunteer who manages Facebook and creates fundraising appeals on social media which has accounted for most of our fundraising this year. Other Income represents merchandise sales and income from sales of medicines to Greek welfare groups where they have fundraised locally. We acknowledge our website volunteer who set up an online shop for us this year enabling us to generate sales during the festive period. We hope to expand this and find a volunteer to manage this in 2021. We have also recognised the workload in responding to requests for assistance from tourists looking to home strays found while holidaying in Greece, and the time this places on our small team of volunteers. So from next year, we will be making a charge of £100 for our assistance and professional services for each tourist animal brought to the UK, which will be a new revenue stream. We are also looking into finding an experienced fundraising individual or team in Greece to assist with creating more effective on line appeals to increase supporter engagement. Once funds have reached the necessary requirements we will also revert to applying to Trusts again which have occasionally been successful in the past.
Greek Rescue Expenses
Following the previous good years for income, the trustees planned to continue with the sterilisation campaigns and we are very proud with 2020 being the best ever annual result. During 2020 GAR neutered 4,442 dogs and cats costing £193k. These are principally shelter animals or Trap, Neuter, Release (TNR) programmes for street animals. We confirmed with the families of the legacies that this is the wish to primarily use the funds.
Neutering prices vary greatly all over Greece mainland and islands – a female dog being from €50 to €120. In many areas vets have set high prices and the use of foreign vets is rarely permitted anymore. We have two volunteers who are a great help in contacting the Greek vets and help to negotiate the best prices. In many areas neutering was a permitted activity during Greek lockdowns. We have always received more requests to neuter cats than dogs.
Neutering Greek Geography Report for the year
----- Start of picture text -----
Area Cats Dogs Area Cats Dogs
Achilleion 40 Koufonissi 30
Andros 3 7 Kozani 50 170
Argolida 30 Kyparissa 105
----- End of picture text -----
----- Start of picture text -----
Aspropyrgos 80 Larissa 10
67
Athens 8 92 Lefkada 200 37
Corfu 85 95 Lesvos 357 10
Corinth 30 Loutraki 50 30
Crete 275 Messini 12 20
East Pilio 110 35 Orepos 55
Evia 50 Patras 5
Florina 25 Paxos 50
Grevana 25 Preveza 54 36
1
Halkida 190 00 Salamina 151
Halkidiki 50 25 Samos 25
Igoumenitsa 67 105 Serres 80
Kalamata 20 Skopelos 50 25
Kallithea 40 Skydra 40
Kalymnos 55 Thessaloniki 20 10
Karditsa 15 Trifilia 30
Kastoria 20 Volos 100
Kavala 25 60 Xanthi 10 10
2, 1,
Kefalonia 38 Grand Total 771 672
4,
Kos 85 55 Total animals 443
----- End of picture text -----
We received less requests to help with food supplies and this cost has decreased by £7k. We acknowledge our two volunteers who assist with the transport and logistics of this. We were very pleased that to feed the strays was a permitted reason for animal welfare volunteers to be out during lockdown. However, we increased the spend of medicines and Greek veterinary costs from £80k to £103k. We experienced a large increase in the requests to provide tick treatments thus preventing fatal diseases transmitted by ticks.
We continue to sponsor a maximum of 10-15 dogs at any time and this is reflected in Greece board and kennels costs under Kalyvia.
UK rescue costs have decreased by 20% from £26k to £21k. This is back up for rehomed dogs in UK. The kennel costs have decreased by 50% which is a reflection of our more efficient process thanks to our behaviourist. Medical costs have increased but £7k of this £12k total cost was for one dog for whom we had an appeal to recoup a lot of the costs.
Our general costs for administration have decreased by £5k – there were higher legal fees and notary fees in 2019. We also sourced cheaper printing for the newsletter. We continue to produce two newsletters per year which each cost £1.7k to print and post but then typically generate £12-£15k in donations for each edition. We understand that online fundraising will be of more significance going forward but currently this newsletter still proves worthwhile and we have many supporters who are not on line.
Merchandising has decreased by £6k due to reduced events and most notably we had no request to pay for the t-shirts, tea towels and calendars for Skiathos Dog Shelter as in previous years.
There is £1.5k legal cost to recover £30k that the charity was owed from an estate claim received in 2020. Postage has also decreased by £1k as a result of GAR sending medication to Greece using DHL which proved cheaper than Royal Mail. We expect Brexit to have a detrimental impact on this aspect of our work next year
We had another successful year creating and selling our own calendar and we appreciate our volunteer who managed all this.
Financial Reserves Policy
Based on our working capital requirements and the obvious risks and uncertainty associated with our income the trustees believe that £250k is currently an appropriate unrestricted reserve to maintain. This typically represents what was our annual expected income pre these large legacies and approximately 8 months of current operational expenditure.
Restricted Funds
We have been the recipients of a number of legacies during the last two years, some of which have an expressed desire for the funds to be used for neutering campaigns or specific geographies. The trustees had therefore designated £38k in the accounts for the purposes of neutering for the
Island of Samos which now stands at £21k. We supported 3 groups on Samos in 2020. A fund has not been set up for the sole use of neutering being our main objective.
Investment Policy
As noted in the last audit the trustees have decided to invest £300k in fixed term deposit account as effectively and efficiently as possible with no risk to benefit Greek animals over the next three years by increasing our normal activities in such a way that they can be scaled back again once the funds have been used.
Trustee’s Response to the Independent Examiners Report
The trustees recognise the advice of the independent examiner regarding medium and long term investments. However, we firmly believe that while there are animals in need, Greek Animal Rescue should not invest funds for the long-term future but use them as effectively and efficiently as possible to help animals now until these funds are depleted and then stricter budgets for our cost categories will be imposed and will be reviewed next year. We will therefore continue with our short term investment policy to ensure funds are available when required.
Greek Animal Rescue Income & Expenditure account for year ended 30[th] November 2020.
| 2,020 | 2,019 | |
|---|---|---|
| Donations & Subscriptions | 250,419 | 291,85 0 |
| Legacies | 33,782 | 157,97 5 |
| Fund Raising | 22,318 | 25,396 |
| Investment Income | 2,356 | 277 |
| Other Income | 13,037 | 11,732 |
| Total Income | 321,91 2 |
487,2 30 |
| Expenses | ||
| Greek Rescue Expenses | 470,951 | 424,06 4 |
| UK Rescue Expenses | 21,102 | 26,479 |
| Ofce Services | 4,119 | 6,750 |
| PPS & Journals | 7,458 | 8,377 |
| Advertising & Publicity | 1,015 | 2,094 |
| Merchandising | 3,002 | 9,375 |
| Miscellaneous | 5,819 | |
| Total Expenses | 507,64 7 |
482,9 58 |
| Proft/ ( Loss) for the year | (185,73 5) |
4,272 |
| Balance Brought Forward | 820,044 | 815,77 2 |
| Balance Carried Forward | 634,30 9 |
820,0 44 |
| Represented By | ||
| Treasurers Account | 10,141 | 105,95 8 |
| Treasurers Account (2) | 1,044 | 8,149 |
| 30 Day Account | 285,525 | 345,78 2 |
| COIF Account | 15,000 | 15,000 |
| Lloyds Term Deposits | 300,000 | 300,00 0 |
| Paypal/Cash in Hand | 5,868 | 380 |
| Nochex account | 16,731 | 44,775 |
| 634,30 9 |
820,0 44 |
Approved by the board of Trustees on 21st September 2021 and signed on its behalf.
Diane Chapman
Laura Tregent Trustee
Trustee
Notes to the accounts:
| 2019 v | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 2020 | 2020 | |
| Donations | 291,850.00 | 250,603.75 | -41,246.25 |
| - | |||
| 124,192.9 | |||
| Legacies | 157,974.60 | 33,781.66 | 4 |
| Fundraising Events | 25,395.68 | 22,317.78 | -3,077.90 |
| 277. | |||
| Investment Income | 07 | 2,171.84 | 1,894.77 |
| Other Income | 11,732.65 | 13,036.94 | 1,304.29 |
| - | |||
| 165,318. | |||
| Total Income | 487,230.00 | 321,911.97 | 03 |
| 2019 v | |||
| Expenditure | 2019 | 2020 | 2020 |
| Animal Rescue (Greece) | 424,063.81 | 475,018.27 | 50,954.46 |
| Animal Rescue (UK) | 26,479.02 | 21,102.20 | -5,376.82 |
| Ofce & services | 6,750.19 | 4,118.78 | -2,631.41 |
| PPS & journals | 8,376.75 | 7,458.20 | -918.55 |
| Advertising & publicity | 2,094.06 | 1,015.10 | -1,078.96 |
| Merchandising | 9,375.44 | 3,001.95 | -6,373.49 |
| Other | 6,950.00 | 0.00 | -6,950.00 |
| 27,625.2 | |||
| Total | 484,089.27 | 511,714.50 | 3 |
| Animal Rescue | 2019 v | ||
| (Greece) | 2019 | 2020 | 2020 |
| Board | 5,841.78 | 7,405.49 | 1,563.71 |
| Equipment | 6,578.87 | 6,840.49 | 261.62 |
| Food | 35,741.82 | 27,978.68 | -7,763.14 |
| Grant | 23,200.00 | 17,800.00 | -5,400.00 |
| Medical | 80,033.58 | 103,192.16 | 23,158.58 |
| Kalyvia Kennels | 22,157.92 | 24,582.17 | 2,424.25 |
| Neutering | 149,373.40 | 192,554.18 | 43,180.79 |
| Transport | 101,136.45 | 94,665.11 | -6,471.35 |
| Total | 424,063.81 | 475,018.27 | 50,954.46 |
| 2019 v | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Animal Rescue (UK) | 2019 | 2020 | 2020 |
| 546.0 | |||
| Equipment | 249.28 | 3 | 296.75 |
| 1,164.1 | |||
| Food | 1,181.92 | 3 | -17.79 |
| 6,013.7 | |||
| Kennels | 11,972.72 | 2 | -5,959.00 |
| 12,687.6 | |||
| Medical | 10,397.61 | 1 | 2,290.00 |
| 690.7 | |||
| Transport | 2,677.49 | 1 | -1,986.78 |
| 21,102. | |||
| Total | 26,479.02 | 20 | -5,376.82 |
| Neutering | 2019 | 2020 | |
| Cats | 1726 | 2771 | |
| Dogs | 1557 | 1671 | |
| Total | 3283 | 4442 |
Independent Examiner’s Report
To the Trustees of Greek Animal Rescue
I report on the accounts of the above for the year ended 30th November 2020
Respective responsibilities of trustees and examiner
The trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The charity’s trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under section 144 of the charities act 2012 (the charities act) and that an Independent Examination is needed.
It is my responsibility to:
Examine the accounts under section 145 of the charities act.
To follow the procedures laid down in the general directions given by the Charity Commission (under section 145(5) (b) of the Charities Act and to state whether any particular matters have come to my attention.
Basis of Independent Examiner’s report
My examination was carried out in accordance with the general directions given by the Charity Commissioners. My examination included a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts and seeking explanations from
the Trustees concerning such matters. The procedures do not cover all evidence that would be required of an audit and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a true and fair reflection, and the report is limited on this basis.
Independent Examiners Report
The charity has an operational loss for the year. Clearly the Covid 19 pandemic has had a significant impact on income, but similarly many expenses have been reduced in an attempt to mitigate this. 2021 may have a similar impact and if this is the case a structural review by the trustees may be required. The current balance is still in excess of £600,000 which is more than double the balance of 5 years ago.
Kelvin Speirs
Date 1/9/2021
A.C.Tax Services Fyndings Station Road Plumpton Green Lewes BN7 3BX