Wednesday 15 July 2009

Pets At Home Said No!

Today ended up being a day of disappointment. I rang to speak with Amy at Pets At Home and she called me back late in the afternoon. Unfortunately, they have a company policy whereby they cannot make financial donations to charity events. Amy said that if I was to have some kind of raffle then they could supply some prizes free of charge but, given all of the other stuff I need to sort out, I just don’t have the time for that.

Furthermore, she said that she would be unable to forward posters to each of the stores within the UK – apparently they get lots of similar requests each week so, as a result, they say no to all these types of request. She did agree though to send me a store list with contact details for individual stores so that I could try and get in touch with the manager of each store to see if they would be prepared to advertise for me.

There was some very useful information that came out of the conversation though so it wasn’t a total loss. I asked if she was aware of companies that don’t set their charity budgets at the start of the financial year and Amy advised that most companies do this so they have an easy way of saying no to people’s requests. They’re cleverer than I thought!

Apparently, it is much more beneficial to approach small local businesses as they will be more likely to be open to persuasion on these matters and don’t necessarily have charity budgets to speak of. I have decided, therefore, to draw up a list of companies within Chester and start from there. I will visit each of the companies and try to speak directly with the owners to see what their feelings would be on providing support for what Roman and I are doing.

I received a comment on my blog yesterday from a guy who used to work for a newspaper who reckons he might be able to get my story published. I rang him this morning and he returned my call around lunchtime. He asked some questions to gain more information and said that he would call back later in the afternoon. He has not called back yet so I hope to hear from him tomorrow but he certainly sounded positive about the chances of getting something published for me!

I rang Jennie at the Rottweiler Welfare Association today also but there was no answer so I left a message on the answer phone. I have not heard anything back today but hopefully I will get a return call some time tomorrow. It would be great to get that side tied up so that people can start making donations to the Rottweiler Welfare Association – I seem to have a fairly good following in the dog community.

Roman and I walked just short of 4 miles this morning. Again, his limp was there for the first half mile but, after that, he seemed fine. He seems to have a little more energy today so hopefully he is recovering. I decided against taking him out again tonight – I don’t want to aggravate any injury he might have by doing too much too soon. Patience is the key here I think!

I managed to get a mini workout in earlier with Nathan but we had a football match tonight so we decided against going for a jog. The football match went well – we won 4 2 against a pretty decent side. It was pretty enjoyable too as the weather was reasonably good but not too hot – that’s the key to football weather, if it’s too hot it’s unbearable while you are playing! I do wonder how I will handle football in Rome.

2 comments:

  1. Follwing this with interest, Matt.

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  2. I take it that's Maz that recommended MSF to me? Thanks for the comment pal!

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