Tower Hill Stables

[gertvegan]

You can now read Fiona's race report online. Look for April 23rd London Marathon, surprisingly, see here.

Thankyou for everything Fiona.

[gertvegan]

Summer Open Day - Grand Raffle

Sanctuary supported Andi of Happy Hamster fame has very kindly donated a brand new Stereo to raffle off to raise funds!

Read more here.

[gertvegan]

The Sanctuary is now on myspace at www.myspace.com/towerhillstables - if you have a page there, please feel free to link up!

[gertvegan]

Please help spread the word about Tower Hill Stables, it'll only take a couple clicks to add them to your myspace friends.

[Yaksongs]

Car Crash at Sanctuary causes mayhem... (don't panic - no animals hurt)

www.towerhillstables.com/percyscar.html

[meggymaggoo]

You're so silly! I LOVE YOU!

[Yaksongs]

More drama

http://www.towerhillstables.com/percyplane.html

[meggymaggoo]

That made me laugh out loud (plus groan at Doc leaves).

Thank you, I shall forward it on.

[gertvegan]

And now Percy even has his own www.myspace.com/percythebear page, oh and so does Fiona at www.myspace.com/fionaoakes

[meggymaggoo]

He is just too cute that Percy!

[gertvegan]

More from Percy, on myspace.

Good evening - It's Percy Bear here. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has accepted me as a friend - particularly those of you who I haven't been on a picnic with yet.

I have just got back from dropping my human (Fiona) off at Stansted Airport as she flys out to Berlin to compete in the marathon there on Sunday. All being well, she will be starting at the front as she has an elite place & if all goes to plan she should get a top 10 place ! - however there is a lot that can go wrong at her level - so it's fingers, hooves, paws & claws crossed here at the Sanctuary.

I just posted a picture of me taking here there in my car on my profile, I kept my eyes open this time.

Best wishes & goodnight - Love Percy Bear XXX

[Yaksongs]

Fiona is featured in the December issue of Runners World which is just out

Good pro vegan article IMO

Check it out !!

[Yaksongs]

http://veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12528

[Yaksongs]

Please remember the rescued animals this Christmas, you can join Tower Hill Stables Animal Sanctuary from as little as £2 per month.

Every penny goes towards the feed costs of the rescued animals, nothing is taken as income, for admin or other costs.

Fiona cares for over 260 animals on her own & is continually asked to help people out by taking their unwanted animals. She saved another horse last week, making 27 of them at the Sanctuary, it's owner was looking to have him shot as he was too old to ride Fiona agreed to take him - not a penny piece towards his care, not a bag of food was forthcoming.

Please help, we are really struggling

[gertvegan]

Any Tower Hill Stables supporters from here going to the open day in June??

[scarlett]

I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't know anything about Tower Hill Stables until I read this thread today
Having had a look at the website I am in complete awe of Fiona and everything that she does, I had a read through the news (and a bit of a cry too !) and I've just send off a standing order form. I'm sure that every bit helps.

[Pansypuss]

Any Tower Hill Stables supporters from here going to the open day in June??

I would love to but I'll be in Norway.

[Yaksongs]

I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't know anything about Tower Hill Stables until I read this thread today
Having had a look at the website I am in complete awe of Fiona and everything that she does, I had a read through the news (and a bit of a cry too !) and I've just send off a standing order form. I'm sure that every bit helps.

Thank you very much Scarlett - your support will be greatly welcomed as there are now over 300 rescues & just Fiona to look after them. You are absolutely right, every bit does help & 100% goes to the animals, i.e. nothing is deducted to cover admin, salaries, costs etc etc

M

[twinkle]

I'm wondering why there aren't any volunteers to help? I'm sure people would jump at the chance! It sounds like Fiona is too busy to sort anything like that out but there must be other people with experience of running a sanctury who get people coming to help them - maybe people who normally live closer to Tower Hill Stables and once they have a bit of experience would be happy to volunteer?

If you look at things like Farm Sanctury in the US people seem to be falling over themselves to get internships there.

[Yaksongs]

*** STOP PRESS***

Fiona wins the Essex County Championships Marathon today smashing 11 minutes off the course record in Halstead - in less than ideal weather conditions!

Wearing her Vegan Runners top she collected her medals and is now on her way back to the Sanctuary. She was photographed by lots of interested press in her Vegan Runners gear & so hopefully someone somewhere will make something of this story to promote the cause.

Fiona can be contacted by e mail fiona@towerhillstables.com

[cedarblue]

Yes i got a mail about this - well done again fiona!!

[macbeth]

Great news! She's an inspiration Well done Fiona!

[Yaksongs]

...and here she is being presented with the award from the Mayor !

[Kevster]

Haha! Well done!!!

[Yaksongs]

& here are the official results - nice to see a Vegan at the top in sport

http://halsteadroadrunners.net/docs/2007/AllLadies.html

[Yaksongs]

Fiona will be on Essex Radio at 3 pm Thursday 24th May (this Thursday!) to talk about her work and achievements.

[boomer]

is that BBC Essex or Essex FM?

[Yaksongs]

BBC Essex

[Yaksongs]

Please help save these lambs from slaughter



There are 23 altogether (including their mums) & the person who owns them has lost his grazing field, so is selling them for the freezer. He is comfortable for them to come to a Sanctuary, but still wants the "meat value" of them - i.e. £50 each lamb. People even turned up to choose 2 to take to slaughter whilst we were there - we have however managed to get a 'stay of execution' agreed whilst we see if we can raise the necessary funds.

So far donations on this campaign will save 6 lambs - we really want to save as many as we can.

more details on the sanctuary website

Thanks

[gertvegan]

Theres more (good) news about the lamb appeal on the www.towerhillstables.com website now, and you can also listen to Fiona on Essex Radio.

[Yaksongs]

Thanks Paul - yes the link to the BBC Essex Interview ishttp://www.towerhillstables.com/news6.html

Click on the play button of the little player that you will see to hear the interview with Steve Scruton. It's about 20 minutes (the music break is edited down to 1 minute in this file)

Thanks

[scarlett]

Any Tower Hill Stables supporters from here going to the open day in June??

I'm hoping to, depending on the weather mainly and getting my oh to drive me there

[Yaksongs]

Fiona has been made a Patron of CAPS (Captive Animal Protection Society), joining Peter Tatchell, Brian Sewell & others.

Their website is being updated to reflect this.

I am very proud of her

[gertvegan]

Thats great news. Fiona (and Martin) deserves all the good that goes her way, and more.

[gertvegan]

Fiona's next marathon will be Berlin on 30th September - see here for more details.

[gertvegan]

Please do check out the latest news on www.towerhillstables.com and say hello to Jasmine, an 18 year old cat who is blind, and Squeak who had to be re-homed as his owners who had had him from a kitten were having to move into accomodation where it was not possible for him to live

[Yaksongs]

See the rescued Hornets here !

[YOUTUBE]6arywMI48LM[/YOUTUBE]

[gertvegan]

Hello Yaksongs. Any chance of a Crystal Tips update video?

[Yaksongs]

Each week at work (@ the Bank of New York Mellon) we hold a Dress Down Friday whereby the staff (if they want to) can dress down in jeans etc & pay a £ to charity.

This week it was Tower Hill Stables Animal Sanctuary - so I thought to help raise awareness & as there are over 400 people in this office I would prepare & short presentation about the Sanctuary & the incredible work that Fiona does & deliver it last night at 5 (for 15 mins) & today again at 1 pm for anyone interested.

The presentation is good - even if I say so myself - & has a lot of information, stories about the animals & funny pictures etc etc

Can you guess how many people pitched up today?

Go on guess

[Billy]

I'll be positive - 5?

[Yaksongs]

5? Cripes you are an optimist! - thanks for replying though Billy

Sadly the attendees were < 2 & that includes me

M

[cedarblue]

thats sad yaksongs - i enjoyed your hornets video - what vocal chickens!!

[Yaksongs]

Yes, Sad but True !

Glad you liked the hornets vid - I have posted some others with the sheep & horses. I can't post the links from work as I can't access youtube from here.

I'll post them tonight.

I will do an update Hornet video at some point as the other day I noted that there were 2 massive hornets on the outside of the nest. The normal ones make wasps look like flies, but these 2 were about 1 & a half inches long. I figure they were 2 visiting enormo hornets from a nearby enormo hornet nest! ..or they were just greedy.

Given that we now have the blue tongue disease spreading midge in this country thanks more than likely to global warming, I guess we will soon have the African Mega Killer Hornet to deal with which has a wingspan of 4 feet+ (allegedly...)

[cedarblue]

I guess we will soon have the African Mega Killer Hornet to deal with which has a wingspan of 4 feet+ (allegedly...)

***shudders*** allegedly...

[Yaksongs]

This is the lamb/sheep update vid

[YOUTUBE]4cHUafMAqLA[/YOUTUBE]

[Billy]

5? Cripes you are an optimist! - thanks for replying though Billy

Sadly the attendees were < 2 & that includes me

M

Christ, ignorami (would that be ignoramus in plural??? ). I applied to work at the BNY, won't do it again! (although the fact that I never heard back might have something to do with that as well ).

[Yaksongs]

Unfortunately Fiona has fractured a rib (10 days ago) but although not recovered (obviously) she has still gone to Berlin to compete in the marathon there on Sunday.

As she has an elite start & her vest will say "OAKES" rather than a number (how cool is that?) Plus she will be wearing her Vegan Runners top & hopefully be seen on the start line.

Clearly nursing an injury like this has put pay to her performing as she would like & to be honest if she gets round it will be a huge achievement - although I know how hard she pushes herself & will never quit.

If anyone wants to support Fiona you can do so at this link http://www.towerhillstables.com/london05.html

Any support would be very welcome as the cost of feeding the animals rescued from the meat industry has risen sharply recently on the back of a weak harvest

I am publishing the sanctuary diary in Fiona's absence which you can read at this link http://www.towerhillstables.com/News6.html


Many thanks

[Gorilla]

wow that's amazing. best of luck to Fiona in the marathon and i hope she recovers from the fractured rib very soon.

thanks for the links, have pledged some sponsorship

[Yaksongs]

Hi all - just noticed that someone has put a comment on a video I posted showing the arrival of the rescued lambs

I am not embedding the vid here (even now I know how to do that thanks to a friendly mod!) because you need to see what this person has commented.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYCm3KViWG4

I have commented back

I can't quite work out where they are coming from as I checked their profile out on uTube & they seem to be looking at farming type videos plus at least one anti milk vid.

They "seem" to be angry about calves going to slaughter, but may be being sarcastic. If they are genuine, having a pop like this seems a tad odd to me

What do you think?

Martin

[Yaksongs]

having a pop like this seems a tad odd to me

What do you think?

Martin

Well I thought it was Odd anyway!

Moving swiftly on. On the back of the excellent News that the Farmers will recieve subsidies to have their "Light Lambs" slaughtered as they cannot afford to feed them Fiona Oakes says:

Quote:

"Nice to see that the farmers have yet again been bailed out of trouble. So long as they get their cash from somewhere the welfare of the animals means nothing.

What is this so called 'concerned' Government going to do about the impact the F&M outbreak has had on Sanctuaries? The feed costs have rocketed out of control for us too. The F&M outbreak has left us unable to have Open Days during the critical summer months to help fund the very hard, almost impossible, winter costs.

To give an example, my feed merchant has just informed me that a bag of hard feed for the larger animals has risen in cost by 75p per bag, due to crop prices rising. I use 10 bags a day - doesn't take a genius to work out that is an increase of £7.50 a day on that particular feed alone. The hay costs have risen in a similar way and, towards the back end of winter, I am worried that hay just won't be available whatever the cost.

This is the worst I have ever know it in the time I have been running the Sanctuary. Not only are we crippled by the continuing and harsh price increases in every aspect of animal care (from feed costs to veterinary care to funeral costs - yes, they have to be thought of too) but we are also burdened with the crippling worry of diseases such as F&M, bird flu and Blue Tongue and the impending gloom and doom which African Horse Sickness will bring. Responsible and forward thinking people know that it is only a matter of time before another horror story is broken on the news.

Seeing the attrocious way animals are treated makes me realise that, despite what we like to convince ourselves, animals have few - if any - rights at all. The only rights they have are the ones we afford them when we take them into our homes or Sanctuaries and treat them with the love, kindness and dignity they deserve.

These are extremely hard and dark times for the animals and we must dig deep to help them, we are all they have, their only voice, no matter how faint.

Fiona
www.towerhillstables.com

unquote