ANIMAL lovers voted overwhelmingly to safeguard the future of Borders Animal Welfare Association (BAWA) by appointing a co-ordinator at the charity’s AGM earlier this month.
The new post will attract a salary of about £28,000 and trustees hope to appoint someone within the next few months.
New, formerly acting, chairperson Julia Romanes said: “It’s a fantastic chance to get somebody who has got the time and commitment to give to the charity to make sure we are running it in the best way possible.”
The charity wants to review what service local animals need in the next year, said Ms Romanes.
“We need to look at how we can fit better in the community and we really need to help people understand the most up-to-date way of looking after and training their animals, particularly dogs. We also need to be more involved particularly with the young and we want to encourage people to become members and participate.
“We also want to maximise our volunteers to deliver as much of the management and service as possible and we need to review the charity shop: it’s been an incredibly difficult year there, very few volunteers want to run it and we need to look at whether it’s the best use of our time and, in this day and age, whether it is the best way to get an income.”
The trustee/directors of the charity had been concerned that, if the required three quarters of members had not voted yes to employing a co-ordinator, they may have had to look at closing the charity and animal rescue centre. But only one member voted against the proposal.
BAWA runs its rescue centre and horse livery at Earlston as well as a charity shop in Galashiels. Since opening its Earlston centre the charity has rehomed more than 1,500 animals.