Vale Wildlife Rescue - dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of Bristish wildlife

Keep up to date with the latest news from Vale Wildlife Rescue

APPEALsome of our badgers including 'Eric' our erythristic 'red' badger

We have almost run out of food at Vale Wildlife.
As usual for the winter months we have a large number of hedgehogs in, around 90 at the moment who, together with the other mammals & birds in the Hospital, are getting through around 5-600 tins of pet food every week.
Coupled with the fact that donations to the charity are down by about a third, we are struggling financially at the moment & would appreciate any donations of pet food from anyone living near the Hospital. Money can also be sent which will be used to buy tinned food.

The current global recession is affecting all charities - our donations have decreased significantly. Unfortunately we do not have large financial reserves to fall back on so we are relying, more than usual, on the generosity of the public to help us get through this difficult time.

If you support the work that we do for our wildlife, please would you consider giving a donation towards our running costs of £20,000 per month. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Donations can be made very easily via our donations page on this site. You can also donate by cheque, made payable to 'Vale Wildlife Rescue' & sent to Station Road, Beckford, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, GL20 7AN, or by credit card by ringing the Centre (01386 882288).Please remember - every little helps and plays an important part in helping us in our work, we are extremely grateful for all donations.

Our plight has also been featured in the Guardian. (link to the Guardians video article)

Thank-you for any help you can provide in our appeals

Caroline Gould, Founder & Manager'

CLOTHING APPEAL

Sadly our request to run a fund raising stall at this years Glastonbury has been turned down. However we are still in desperate need for good quality, second hand clothes, shoes, bags, jewellery etc to sell at our charity shop in Evesham town centre to raise funds for the charity. Please take all unwanted items to the shop or the hospital.

Sally Belcher fundraising for VWR

Sally is a trustee for the charity and is running a half marathon on 7th March 2010 to raise funds for VWR. Please visit Sally's just-giving donation page if you want donate and sponsor Sally.

Donate on-line now through JustGiving - We offer a range of ways to make donations to VWR and we are extremely grateful whichever method you use. We have teamed up with JustGiving, the UK’s leading online fundraising website, so you can donate and raise funds for us online. Using JustGiving saves us costs and reduces our admin burden, so going online is by far the most efficient way of supporting us. It’s easy to make a single or monthly donation with a credit or debit card online. All you need to do is go to http://www.justgiving.com/vwr/donate or click on the 'Make a Donation button below for more information plus details on all of the other ways you can make a donation to us.
 

Donate on-line now through JustGiving - We offer a range of ways to make donations to VWR and we are extremely grateful whichever method you use. We have teamed up with JustGiving, the UK’s leading online fundraising website, so you can donate and raise funds for us online. Using JustGiving saves us costs and reduces our admin burden, so going online is by far the most efficient way of supporting us. It’s easy to make a single or monthly donation with a credit or debit card online. All you need to do is go to http://www.justgiving.com/vwr/donate. You can also create pages on JustGiving to raise funds on our behalf. Click on the 'Make a Donation button below for more information plus details on all of the other ways you can make a donation to us.

 

CAROLINE'S BLOG

Caroline, our manager and founder, is now publishing her blog online - 'The Diary of a Wildlife Hospital'. While the winter months are generally quieter at the centre there is always something happening - so read about the latest arrivals and also those satisfying times when we are able to release animals. Also about Ozzy the female skunk found in the Forest of Dean. It can be accessed via the blog link at the left of the page

 

WILDLIFE REHABILITATION COURSE AT VWR...
Our ‘Basic Wildlife First Aid & Rehabilitation’ course is proving to be extremely popular,  and we are pleased to announce that it will be running next over the weekend of Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th April 2010. As the course is very  popular we recommend early booking if you are interested.


Subjects covered include:
• A brief history of Vale Wildlife Rescue.
• Some of the legislation surrounding wildlife rehabilitation.
• Capture, handling and transportation of injured wildlife.
• Initial assessment and first aid.
• Nursing care.
• Feeding and nutrition.
• Rearing orphans.

The course is very basic and is aimed at anyone with an interest in this type of work, whether taking it up as a career or just in case you come across an injured bird or mammal in your garden one day. We hope that it will also encourage more people to get actively involved in helping our injured wildlife, and perhaps become one of our volunteers!! Or even set up your own wildlife rescue centre!

The course cost is £95 per person. The minimum number required to run the course is 6, with a maximum of 12 participants per course. If we have more than 12  applicants, places will be offered for the next available course.
 

A draft itinerary for the course is available here, if you would like to place a booking please print off the booking form and send it to us with your payment as detailed on the form (sorry we cannot take bookings online). Alternatively please contact Caroline, the course co-ordinator by emailing to caroline@vwr.org.uk or by telephone on 01386 882288.


At present we only have this course scheduled but we are hoping to expand the range that we offer and also more dates for this course.

 

OPEN DAY

Sunday 6th June 2010 - Mark this date in your diary and keep it free for this years Open Day at the Wildlife Hospital in Beckford. We are currently making plans and will announce them here so please keep checking back for details.

 

Great news - Hugh Warwick, writer, ecologist and self-confessed hedgehog addict will be at our Open Day where he will be giving talks about why he thinks that hedgehogs are the most important creatures on the planet, why their numbers are in decline and why he decided to get his first (and probably last) tattoo ... of a hedgehog of course!
Hugh has also very kindly become the latest Patron of Vale Wildlife Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre.
Visit Hugh's website and read all about his work.

 

WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP

On Saturday 26th June 2010 Vale Wildlife Hospital present a one day workshop which will get you started with wildlife photography. 

You will learn valuable tips and tricks for setting up your camera, finding a subject, designing images and the basics of processing your images. There will be a rare opportunity for a tour of the hospital plus practical sessions likely to include a perched Falconer’s bird of prey and some of the current patients. The course is suitable for owners of a wide variety of cameras that have zoom lenses (but not camera phones).

The cost of the workshop will be £50 which will include tea and coffee, but not lunch. The workshop will be held in our Education Centre and around the hospital grounds at Beckford. All proceeds will be going to the hospital. If you would like to book please fill in the order form and post it back to us with your payment.

Please see our information sheet for more details or contact info@vwr.org.uk
 

 

Find us on Facebook

 You can now find us on Facebook. Click on the facebook logo to go to our group page.

 

Car Boot Sales

We are currently not holding any fund raising car boot sales at our Beckford site. We expect them to restart in the Spring of 2010 when the ground conditions are suitable in our field. We will post an update here when they resume.

 

 

VWR on BBC Gloucestershire radio

Steve Kitchen from BBC Radio Gloucestershire was given a guided tour of our Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre by Caroline on his lunchtime show Listen to the show broadcast on 10th Sept 2008 - click here to open link from the BBC  site

Exciting News—Planning Permission Granted!!

We have received the great news that planning permission has been granted by Wychavon District Council for our proposed Education and Training Centre. For more information about the new facility please click on this link

 

Discussion Forums

We now have a forums discussion area available on this site. It can be accessed using the Forums link on the menu. After you have registered you can post questions and comments related to  Vale Wildlife and our work, you will also be able to post back and add comments to other discussions that are taking place. Caroline, staff and volunteers from VWR will be monitoring contributing to the forums.

Live pictures on-line via our web cam

We are very pleased to  bring to you live pictures from our wildlife hospital.  Due to the variety of wildlife in our care the pictures will vary from day to day. Click on the webcam link on our menu to the left to go to the webcam page.

baby otter

Vale Wildlife Charity Shop

Our charity shop is located at 10 Vine Street in Evesham and is within easy walking distance of the town's shops with parking at the front and rear of the shop. The charity shop was originally opened in 2001 when we were unable to undertake many of our normal fund raising activities due to the foot and mouth crisis and raised much needed funds to help replace the shortfalls. Initially we were extremely lucky to be able to obtain an empty shop rent free but it was only a short term location. However as this venture was so successful we now have leased a property to fix ourselves at a particular location. We sell good quality second hand clothes, books and bric-a-brac so please drop in to snap up a bargain and to support us.

Visitor Centre closed

Although not actually owned by the Charity, the Visitor Centre was opened in 1998 with two main purposes: firstly, education which it has succeeded in to a certain extent, although we would have liked to do more. Secondly, its aim was to raise much-needed funds for Vale Wildlife, as all the profits of the Centre were covenanted to the charity. Sadly, it failed in the latter, and always struggled financially – a great shame as we all believed the centre had great potential. Without financial investment, the Visitor Centre was going downhill and it was therefore decided to close at the end of August 2005.

This was very sad news for us, and the decision was put off for a long time, but it was felt that this course of action had to be taken before the centre became too neglected.

This of course makes the job of raising money for Vale Wildlife even more difficult as, although we didn’t gain financially from the Visitor Centre, it was a very effective way of raising awareness of the work that we do, and we therefore anticipate that we will lose the opportunity of some new supporters.

 

Charity Auctions  

We are now holding auctions on the internet auction site Ebay of items that have been generously donated by members and supporters to be used to raise funds for VWR. Read more about it here.

 

Vale Wildlife Rescue

Registered charity No. 702888

email info@vwr.org.uk
telephone - 01386 882288 (treatment & rehabilitation)
Last updated 07 March, 2010

 

Please note that all photos and articles on this site are copyright Vale Wildlife Rescue

Please do not copy or use any material from this site without seeking our approval

   

For information about this site and to report broken links email webmaster@vwr.org.uk