The Wairarapa SPCA provides a 24 hour, 7 days a week rescue service for injured and unclaimed pets. We provide shelter, care and rehoming for lost, abandoned and unwanted pets.
We provide a pet link service for lost and found pets. We investigate claims of animal cruelty.
SPCA IN THE WAIRARAPA
Our Animal Welfare Centre in Masterton handles over 1600 cases each year, providing care for lost and abandoned animals. We operate an around the clock ambulance service to ensure immediate attention for injured animals and also a Pet link Service which notifies the public of lost and found animals reported to us. We then try and reunite the animals with their owners.
The SPCA has been committed to caring for animals in your community for 60 years. The picture at the left shows our current staff members.
Most of the society's work is with cats and dogs but we also deal with a large number of other domestic pets, farm and wild animals.
The SPCA also provides speakers for interested groups and operate an educational program for all schools in the Wairarapa with speakers, visual and static displays. Our warranted inspectors investigate reports of ill treatment or neglect of animals and our Animal Welfare Centre is a safe haven for pets which are the innocent victims of the many social problems in our community.
The area we cover is the Wairarapa Valley from Pahiatua to Cape Palliser.
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Our website is designed and maintained by AJ Hunter, who has his own personal website and can provide larger verions of the images on our website if you contact him via his website or the SPCA.
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THE CURRENT WAIRARAPA SPCA COMMITTEE
PRESIDENT
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VICE PRESIDENT |
SECRETARY |
TREASURER |
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
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Jenny Milne |
Lorraine Kelf |
Lorna Simpson |
Craig Robinson |
Ash Peterson |
Rebecca Stevens |
Lesley Gibson |
Sharon Aston |
Maureen Wither |
Carolyn Pohl |
Dogs have owners, cats have staff: Above is a picture of the 2009 SPCA Committee in our adult cat room. The Committee's AGM is usually held annually on the last Sunday in May.
_______________________________________________________________________________HISTORY OF SPCA IN THE WAIRARAPA
The Wairarapa SPCA was formed and registered for Incorporation around October 1947. The records of the Society were destroyed in 1990 by the committee of the time and it is sad that there is no written history between 1947 and 1991.
Ppeople from the early era put the society in good standing within the community. Doug Smith served for many years on the National Council as well as sharing the roll of Wairarapa Society President. He was also an Inspector for many years. Bunny Bennetts served as Treasurer for over 30 years and there were many other people who worked tirelessly for the welfare of animals in the Wairarapa. 1991 saw huge changes and people gathered around to broaden the society. Old faces left and new ones came in.
Ken Beaver and Val Ball took over the running of the Rogers Lane centre and many different ideas emerged. There was more publicity, different approaches to the public and a real call for support. Over the years there have been many people who have been Inspectors for animal welfare. Doug Smith, Geoff Laing, Linda Powell, Val Armstrong, Judy White, Peter Gilliland, Val Ball, Michele Lambourne, Adele Lowen, Debra Keirnan, Juliet Curtis, have all contributed.
Val is still in the field. There may have been others but these are the ones who were on record as official Inspectors over the past 50 years. Each has been involved at the highest level combating animal neglect and bringing about change and safety for the animals. With the Animal Welfare Act 1999 the qualifications became harder to achieve and the expectations rose as well.
The vision of the SPCA grew when Peter Gilliland was employed as a Administrator. Helen McKenzie was President at the time and she worked with Peter to introduce new procedures and better management. New faces, new skills and the growth of the Wairarapa SPCA was happening. With the dedication and the new faces enthusiasm at the centre buzzed. In 1996, after much wrangling with Masterton District Council about the problem of barking dogs, the centre put a real effort into relocating.
A call to Mr Graham Tulloch resulted in the beginning of great things when he agreed to sell the society 2 acres. The SPCA then had to negotiate with the council to pay for the connection of water and sewerage before we signed off on the purchase. This took twelve months to complete: then the Society faced the real task of finding the necessary money. Once the land was purchased it was all hands on deck and we were able to use some of the accumulated funds and start building with the help of a.We received a $100 000 bequest which was earmarked for the dog compound area. The building was planned by the committee of the day and based on things we had gleaned from other centres. We wanted a centre that was practical, easy to clean and one where the animals were comfortable and secure.
I believe we have achieved this.
Mick O'Conner from Lockwood Homes started construction in 2000. It was fantastic to watch it being built and scary that we might not have funds left to run it... but three weeks after the foundations were laid we received notice that a large bequest would be coming our way within six months. It was enough to put the costs of construction into the bank, where it is remains today. The new centre, with housing for up to 60 cats, 15 dogs and pups was open for business on the 25th of February, 2001 with a staff of eight volunteers, under the leadership of Val Ball.
From that time on the centre has been a place for people to come and spend time with the animals, a place for troubled young people to learn about nurturing and caring. A really caring group are now working in the centre. They volunteer their time, give their skills and learn much. The centre is supported by John McLaren, from the Animal Hospital in Masterton. John has been the Vet for the Society for 18 years and is a very good friend.
We now have 30 volunteers. Some only do one shift a month, others work every day and some once a week. No matter how often they work the gift is the same. Our volunteer ages range from 11 to 81. We have an aviary with pigeons and doves who fly free but come home to roost. The atmosphere is one of family with all staff working as a team, sharing the work. We are at the moment aware that we need more space and are exploring a possible new building Still in the dreamland stage but will have to happen soon.
We meet at the centre on the 3rd Thursday of every month. Several of the committee members, like our Dog Manager Kelly Soper, are also volunteers in the centre, either working with the animals or answering the phones. Others help in other ways.
OUTREACH
Many people who feel the pressure of the world around them visit the centre to play with the cats or the dogs. They stay a while and leave knowing that they have been accepted and given unconditional love by an animal. We also have visits from young schoolchildren with learning difficulties and people with health problems for whom time spent with an animal is healing. We also host people who have broken the law and are doing community hours or referrals from Work and Income who need to do some voluntary work to stabilize their benefit.Education is the key to changing the way people treat animals and so Val Ball does school and other public speaking engagements on behalf of the SPCA, explaining the work that is done by the team. NZ SPCA is a changing world and the focus is more on people and pets than just pets, Accepting that neglect of and cruelty to animals may be symptomatic of a family in crisis, the SPCA is working with CYFS to help keep children and animals safe. Val Ball is on the National Committee for First Strike which is the umbrella group formed to study family dynamics and animal cruelty and neglect. The centre has a strong link with Women's Refuge and with the Violence Free Committee in the Wairarapa. It is so important to start education at an early age.
HISTORY OF THE SPCA
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) was born in England in 1824 (five years before Britain"s first police force) and is recognised as the world's oldest and most influential animal welfare organisation. This document will give you an insight into the dedicated activities and inspiring achievements of the Wairarapa Society as they strive to Speak For Those Who Cannot Speak For Themselves.BEGINNING OF A MOVEMENT
"Unto all men we owe justice, and unto all that are capable of it, grace and dignity."Those were the words spoken in 1781 by Jeremy Bentham, an English Jurist, who recognised the need to treat animals with humanity, dignity and respect. They were timely, as in the England of his era work animals were beaten to death for lack of performance and bull-baiting, cock-fighting and organised dog fights were a regular occurrence.
Attempts to establish a law to outlaw bull-baiting as a cowardly, beastly, execrable practice were made by a courageous MP, Sir William Pultney in 1800. The Times newspaper of the day proclaimed that any such law which interfered with man's leisure laws was tyranny – the Bill was lost.
In 1811 an elegant lawyer, Lord Erskine, later to become Lord Chancellor of England, observed that animals were considered only as property and accordingly were without protection from cruelty and had no rights. He presented a Bill to the House of Lords for preventing malicious and wanton cruelty to animals. He noted that man’s domination over animals was not given by God for their torture but as a moral trust. Nature had provided the same organs and feelings for enjoyment and happiness to animals as to man – sight, hearing, feeling, thought, the sensations of pain and pleasure, love, anger and sensibility to kindness. Extending humanity to animals would have a most powerful effect on men’s moral sense and upon their feelings and sympathies for each other, he concluded. Even with such an impassioned plea this Bill was defeated.
Richard Martin, an Irishman and Member of Parliament for Galway, was the next to introduce an animal protection Bill into Parliament in 1821. His Bill was designed to outlaw cruelty to cattle, horses and sheep (but did not include cats and dogs as such animals carried low esteem and were likely to damage the support he hoped his Bill would receive).
Although defeated at first the relentless Irishman made another attempt in 1822 and on this occasion received the support of the Parliament and the Protection of Animals Act became the world’s first ever anti-cruelty law in 1822.
In 1824 an Act of Incorporation was created. It read Whereas in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-four at Old Slaughters Coffee House, St Martins Lane, in the City of Westminster, a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was established by diverse, benevolent people.
It was the Reverend Arthur Broome, an Anglican Priest, who called together a formidable group which included Richard Martin (now affectionately called Humanity Dick), William Wilberforce (well known for his bold stand against slavery) and Lord Shaftesbury. Broome sacrificed his London living to work full-time (unpaid) for the Society as its first Secretary (eventually ending up in prison because of the organisation’s debts). Broome stamped the Christian ethos with which the Society still operates to this day with his first Minute Book declaration that the proceedings of this Society are entirely based on the Christian faith, and on Christian principles.
The first recorded donation to the Society was for 50 pounds sterling, and in its inaugural year 63 offenders (mainly from the Smithfield Market) were brought before the Courts on animal cruelty charges.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had arrived growing with the formation of the Scottish Society in 1839, and in 1866 with the American SPCA formed by Henry Bergh, coincident with laws patterned on the English Legislature.
