Ivan:
Salina just smsed me to say a caregiver wishes to talk to me about Public Education for community cats. She said the caregiver wants me to call him. That creates a dilemma. Why?
Since Dawn’s departure, we no longer have any operational phone line for speaking to caregivers (Dawn’s cellphone used to be a ‘hotline’). Thus, we would emphasize to caregivers who are familiar with emailing to reach us by email instead.
Having said that, we understand that many caregivers do not email and are reachable only via phone. The problem now about calling back caregivers is that 1) many of the committee members are studying or working long hours. Some of us have jobs that disallow us to make calls; 2) we always assert that our private cell phone numbers be kept confidential. But there will be cases where it gets leaked out and we get calls from people we do not know.
Given the inconvenience of calling and related privacy issues, many of the committee members as myself are apprehensive about calling back caregivers using our own cell or home phone. We do try our best though to find a payphone or phone with restricted number display to call back caregivers. Given the difficulties we face, we seek everyone’s understanding to try your best to email us for all situations.
You can either email us at info@catwelfare,org OR to us directly if you know who is taking care of your zone or the matter you are interested in. E.g., ivan@catwelfare.org for Public Education and West Zone cases.
Down the pipeline, we do consider the option of having a part-timer or volunteer who is willing to take phone calls to help us.
9 Comments
August 4, 2008 at 10:08 pm
I hope the committee members of CWS understand that not everyone know how to email or own a computer. Hello … we are talking about the mostly uneducated elderly aunties and uncles stray cat feeders and the low income stray cat feeders who rather spend their money on feeding stray cats than buying computer or take computer course just because CWS only way of communication is email.
You should have follow Dawn Kua method, she gave her phone number for anyone calling in crisis for the sake of the stray cats.
If you and all your committee members claimed you all busy with your own daytime work, unable to help and refused telephone calls as way of communication, you might as well don’t become committed joining in the committee or simply just close down the CWS.
August 4, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Hi Anonymous,
Thank you for your feedback. We do take note of your point and many times we do take the ‘risk’ to use our private lines to call back, if we cannot find a payphone or restriced number display phone.
Dawn was working for CWS on a full time basis. Currently, CWS cannot find someone to work full time for us nor someone who can commit to handling calls from caregivers. It is not that we do not wish to help extensively but it is the case we are restricted by manpower shortage (we do not have full committee strength and everyone is active at different times) and financial resources (whatever donation that comes to us on a monthly basis are given out via rescue and sterilisation reimbursements – thus our recent implementation of income cap for medical claims to channel more monies to sterilisation). Frankly, we did think of shutting down CWS a few months ago when Dawn left, but we decide to give it a go and operate without a full time staff, and without a hotline for non sterilisation matters.
I do sense a strong level of commitment on your part to help the aunties and uncle caregivers out there who have no email access. We will be most glad if you volunteer with us to take calls or sponsor the monthly expenses for a operation-use mobile phone. We can then try to take turns to man the phone for limited hours each day.
August 4, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I think that was a really rude reply to Ivan’s posting…it showed a complete lack of empathy or understanding on your part to people who truly care about the cause but who also face many limitations and constraints in terms of having to balance volunteer work with their regular jobs and regular life activities.
As Ivan had already pointed out, CWS is fully aware that, “many caregivers do not email and are reachable only via phone”. The answer to this then is that CWS will then try their best to “find a payphone or phone with restricted number display to call back caregivers”.
Is it fair to call for CWS to be closed down just because they are not able to offer their cell phone number as a 24 hotline? As some are full time students and others hold regular 9-5 jobs (like yourself, surely), they are not always available to take/return calls 24/7. Neither do they have the funds currently to get someone to man a hotline. For this reason alone you slam their committment?
So if your boss doesn’t see you staying in the office for 24 hours, can your boss say then that you are not serious/committed to your work?
August 4, 2008 at 11:37 pm
I think we have to accept CWS with its present limited resources. I am glad to see CWS continues despite the loss of Dawn and that there are a lot of young people on board and that gives much hope for the future. Perhaps we can help the aunties and uncles by acting as liaison until CWS can get a full time helper.
Please do encourage the continuation of CWS. Its closure will mean a loss of a significant voice for the cats. We are, after all, concerned about the welfare of the community cats.
August 5, 2008 at 12:52 am
My earlier comment did not indicate that CWS should handled phone calls 24/7 like what Kee Kee mentioned. Kee Kee don’t put words in my mouth when I never said such thing. I know Dawn Kua line closes in the evenings after 5 p.m. and on weekends, so I never said anything about 24/7.
And what is this nonsense Ivanong explanation for CWS not having a full time staff willing to work for CWS?
There were already several applicants applying for replacing Dawn Kua job – last I read in CWS website application for administrative staff is already closed as CWS already found candidates to be interviewed and mentioned in this blog, you shortlisting the candidates — yet up to now we never heard of you hiring anyone yet.
If you want an efficient CWS, why not expedite hiring your full time staff soon. It been 8 months since Dawn Kua quit and in the meantime without full time staff, we (the caregivers) get slow response to emails, letters and membership card not received yet which supposedly send months ago, still delayed until next month.
Please if you want to run an efficient cat rescue group, get your full time paid staff soon, no more delay dally, no more excuses, no need explanation from your slow-moving committees.
Bear in mind those poor aunties and uncles stray cat feeders who want to talk to you directly, not through someone else acting as liasion, which takes time.
August 5, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Hi Anonymous,
You must have missed our announcements, we have already hired someone to work for us at a part time basis. She is Wiggie, our new Operations Manager (Part-time), she is also our Catsnip Hotline and Email volunteer. We did interview quite a number of people but we found Wiggie to be particularly outstanding as a candidate as thus we hired her. However, Wiggie can only work at a parttime basis and so managing calls is not feasible for now given the many other work she has to manage.
With regard to your feedback that CWS are slow in responding to emails, letters, and membership card not received for months and will be delayed until next month. I would have to stand by my team mates to say that everyone is trying very hard to answer all emails sent to us asap. I usually try to answer emails even up to 3am, LiTin is constantly on email too and answers them promptly, etc. Is there someone in our team who has not answered your emails? Please let us know and we get the comm member to answer you. Sometimes the email might have landed in the spam folder due to filtering issues.
Letters get processed everytime Wiggie meets with Michelle if it is claim related. May I know which letter you sent are not being reply to you. Email us privately if you are not comfortable revealing your name here. We promised to retain your privacy and get back to you with regard to those letters.
For membership cards, LiTin has worked very hard coming out with the cards and now we are just getting the volunteer to write up the cards and have them mailed out, with the membership perks list.
With regard to “bear in mind those poor aunties and uncles stray cat feeders who want to talk to you directly, not through someone else acting as liasion, which takes time”. I do still hope you can consider volunteering with us to manage calls, or sponsor the monthly expenses for the paid operations phone.
August 5, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Hi all,
I wish to clarify that we have this post to share our honest feedback and logistical difficulties we are facing. It is in no way to put anyone down. Improving the welfare of community cats take two hands to clap. We need the help of caregivers, and committee members and volunteers. Without everyone working together and understanding each other needs, while considering resources constraint, things will not improve.
CWS is still short of manpower and funds(given the significant number of rescue claims per month). Kindly volunteer to help physically or financially if you can. Thanks!
August 5, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Hi Anonymous,
Thank you for the concern regarding the operational issues.
I hope you can understand that we are running a charity/welfare non-profit organisation, and by non-profit, it means that we run entirely on donations and people’s goodwill, so we cannot afford to pay top dollar for a full-time staff. Stretching every dollar counts, you see.
I sincerely hope that you can understand that not everyone is willing to take on a low-paying job to pacify difficult people, solve cat-related issues around the island – it takes more than just employing someone – this person has to have the passion, the drive to be able to fight fires, remain strong and clear-headed. It’s not a job that most people will take up, which was why Dawn was such an important figure of CWS the past few years.
All of us here are trying very hard to get involved as much as we can to get this little society up to speed. We may not be able to do what Dawn did – forgoing a full-time job and running around the whole place helping everyone out (but eventually she had to move on with her life after years of trying to fight fires day after day), but we are trying to split up the work amongst the committee, and hope to reach the level of effectiveness that was previously achieved.
The reason why Cat Welfare Society is not closed after Dawn left, it’s because we understand the importance of having a voice for the caregivers. Every little bit of effort helps, and if like what you said: if CWS cannot be there for everyone, why not close it down?
My question is: Would it help at all? Would it improve the situation? The caregivers will forever be left to their own devices – with no one else to speak up for them.
I think that is the worst possible situation that we are now trying to avoid.
So while we understand your concerns, we do hope you can still continue to support us, and like Ivan said – why not come help us?
Thank you.
Li Tin
August 6, 2008 at 9:27 am
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