 |
 |
|
 To download the complete version in PDF format, click here: In The Loop download the February issue. 16TH annual Greyhound Reunion April 25 12-4pm Northwest Park, Lang Rd., Windsor CT. Nicholas Bouquet and Manny compete in the Greyhound Bowling contest at last year's Spring Fling. We will have our usual booth where you can meet Greyhounds available for adoption and will have delicious food at our Greyhound Grill but is there something special that you would like to see at our event? Something that would make you bring along family and friends? What do you think about being able to get a massage, right at the event? Would you like to see an exhibit where you could learn more about Greyhounds, and their life on the track? Would you like to attend a brief dog training session? Or, hear from a veterinarian about health issues?? Perhaps there is a special game or contest you would like to see? We are looking for new ideas. Let us know what would make the day even more enjoyable for you. Visit our website and let us know. Is the raffle and auction your favorite part of the day? Maybe you can help make them bigger and better. We always appreciate your personal donations for the raffle and auction tables. They truly help the event tremendously! Would you be willing to ask a business you know to donate an item? We would put information about the business (or a link) on our website. Lisa Crouser will help if you need a formal letter or other assistance with requesting donations. She can be reached at (413) 348-7000 or retiredgrey@msn.com. (Please put greyhound options in the subject line.) Perhaps you, a friend, or family member might even want to have a booth and “exhibit” at our event. Again, just contact Sherry Jones at (413) 667-8801 and she will send you vendor information. We welcome any and all ideas, as well as your help. We want the event to continue to grow so more and more people can learn about, and adopt, our wonderful greyhounds. If you have suggestions, or want to help in any way, please contact Claire Sygiel at ckerr1@aol.com or (413) 967-9088. See you there! Directions to Northwest Park:From Hartford and points North: Interstate 91 to exit 38Take right on Poquonock Ave ( Route 75 north)Travel approximately 1 mile.Take 1st LEFT ( Prospect Hill Road ) AFTER traffic signal.Go to traffic circle bearing RIGHT on Lang Road.Continue to end of Lang Road and the Northwest Park parking lot. Chocolate GreyhoundsWe have some chocolate greyhounds that we hope to be selling at our monthly meet and greets. If you are at a meet and greet, be sure to look for them. They are delicious and a real treat and only $3.00 each! We have sold some with hearts for Valentines Day, and hope to have other holiday designs. Thanks to Mary Almeida for making them.  It's nice to have someone to just hang out with. "Specter" Strong and "Barry" Collins spend a relaxing afternoon together. The State of Greyhound OptionsWe are finally beginning to hear from people who are looking to adopt a Greyhound after a long stretch of not much activity. Most of the adoption inquiries are coming via our web site and Facebook and traffic at our meet and greets is picking up. This means that we are moving more dogs and can take more in. Hopefully this trend will continue once the weather gets a little warmer. In our continuing efforts to update our communications, we need some folks who are willing to make a few phone calls. As you already know, we have embarked on an expanded and quite active web presence. But in order to communicate effectively within our community we need to contact our adopters and acquire their e-mail addresses. To date we have managed to get only about one third of the addresses we need. If we could find 13 people who are willing to make 26 phone calls each, we would have a fully functional communications network. Please let us know if you could help us with this project and/or if you would like to receive this newsletter via e-mail. The advantages are, of course, saving postage and paper but you also will receive the Loop in full-color! We hope you make plans now to join us at Northwest Park in Windsor CT on April 25 for our annual Spring Fling. It will be bigger and better than ever this year so bring your family and friends to this fun event! Happy Holidays! Cliff Kerr, President Greyhound Options Inc. 2010 G.O. Board of DirectorsAt the annual meeting held December 6, the following were elected to the 2010 Greyhound Options Board of Directors: Jonnie Arroyo, Lisa Bryant, Tony Bryant, Mary Dunklee, Sherry Jones, Kathy Loiselle, Chris Packard, Mark Masztal, Caroline Silva and Claire Sygiel. Officers elected include President Cliff Kerr, Vice-President Lisa Packard, Clerk Lisa Crouser, Vice-Clerk Kim McCord and Treasurer Michelle Fortier. We thank Anne-Marie Barker, Joanne Browsky, Shelley Lipman and Keith Marchessault who stepped off the board this year, for all of their help these past few years. 
Fund-raising CornerEVENT PROGRAM ---- ADS, MEMORIALS AND CELEBRATIONS If you attended last year’s Spring Fling, you may recall getting an event program at the registration table, which listed all of the day’s events. The Fundraising Committee called on local business and sold small ads for the program to generate a new source of income. If you, a friend or family member have a small business, please consider purchasing an ad. You may get some helpful exposure, while supporting Greyhound Option’s fundraising efforts. A small ad is $25 ($30 for ads on the back cover), and larger ads are also available at VERY reasonable rates. We can work with a business card, and will do our best to take ads in various formats. There will also be a page in the event program where we will have the opportunity to memorialize our beloved hounds waiting at the Rainbow Bridge. A small Memorial Ad is also $25. Finally, we are more than happy to include celebrations that you wish to share with our Greyhound community. It can be a celebration of your greyhounds “gotcha” day or any other happy event. Same pricing applies. The deadline for all ads is April 14. We appreciate your support. FUNDRAISING COMMITTEE (“FUNCOM”) LOOKING FOR HELP We started selling candy bars at our monthly meet and greets. We found that we did well with it, as long as we had someone at the meet and greet who could focus on the candy, while others at the meet and greets focused on the dogs. We are looking for a few volunteers who can commit to attending our monthly meet and greets, and overseeing the sale of candy, and periodically, raffle tickets. There are so many other ways that we can use your help. If you have time and the desire to assist with fundraising projects, please let us know. And of course, if you want to go all out and join the Fundraising Committee, you are more than welcome! Volunteering is a great way to make new friends, and we promise you will feel like you have done good. LOTS OF INTEREST FOR ANOTHER SERVICE WITH A SMILE AS WELL AS OTHER DINNERS We have received feedback that people really enjoyed the Service with a Smile Dinner and Auction at Abruzzo Restaurant, and would like to see us do it again. It is a still a little early to start planning the event, which will likely be held in August, but we would like to have some “unique” items to auction, and wanted to give people plenty of time to think about it. At our last Service with a Smile, in additional to wonderful hand made items, we auctioned dog sitting services, dinners, a day of fishing, a golf outing, a manicure, acupressure massage services, handyman services, yard work services, a computer tune-up/clean-up, a wine tasting, an afternoon of holiday gift wrapping, holiday greeting cards, poop patrol services , fruits of someone’s labor (5 pints of blue berries or 5 quarts of strawberries), and house cleaning services. Maybe you will be willing to offer your talents. We will check back soon. Finally, we will also be planning some other “regional” dinners for people to just get together and talk about their dogs. Let us know your favorite restaurant. To respond to anything in this Fundraising Corner, please email fundraising@greyhoundoptions. org.Fund-raisingCorner Cute Greyhound Photo ContestWho doesn't love to photograph their beautiful Greyhounds? Bring your favorite photograph to the Spring Fling, and you may be the winner of our Cute Greyhound Photo Contest. We will have a display board near the welcome Table, and all you have to do is bring over your favorite photo. Photos should have your name and contact information written on the back. No more than 3 photos may be submitted, per family. Photos will not be returned, and may be used for publicity purposes. (Professional photos that have been copyrighted are not eligible.) Cute Greyhound Photo Contest The winner of the contest will be announced at the end of the day.  "Astro" Sygiel-Kerr is planning to submit this photo to the Cute Greyhound Contest. Great things are in store for the winner. First, the winner will receive a $50 gift certificate, redeemable for G.O. merchandise. Next, the winning photo will be assured a prominent spot in the next G.O. Calendar. And finally, the dog (or dogs) in the winning photo will receive a bag of home-made doggie treats. There is no entry fee, so don’t forget to bring along a picture or two and enter this fun contest! Holiday Social SceneWe had a wonderful turnout at our Holiday Social, held December 6 at A.W. Brown Pet and Garden Center in East Longmeadow MA. Wishes for a happy holiday season were exchanged between old friends and especially between Greyhounds and their former foster "parents". The refreshment and raffle tables were popular stops as were the G.O. GreyGoods table and Judy Sherman's Doggie Salon. We thank everyone who took time out of their busy holiday schedule to celebrate with us. (Photos courtesy of Dawn Jarrell)  "Rosie" and "Tubby" Wilkinson check out the merchandise table at the Social.  Raffle items were popular at the Social. Greyhound Bone Cancer Research StudyBack in 2003 I was the proud caregiver to Zeke and Sassy, healthy, seven year-old, retired racers. I learned through G.O. of a research study looking for a genetic link to Osteosarcoma. Greyhound adopters were encouraged to participate by supplying blood samples from dogs that had been diagnosed with bone cancer or healthy dogs over 7 years old. I sent for two collection kits, made an appointment with my vet, mailed the samples to Dr. Kenine Comstock at the University of Michigan and filed the information away. When Sassy broke her leg in January, 2008, I knew in my gut what the x-ray would show. After we said our final goodbye to our sweet girl, I sent an email to Dr. Comstock with the diagnosis. Nearly two years later, I relived that nightmare with our beloved Zeke. This time, when I attempted to contact Dr. Comstock, the email was returned. A bit of detective work turned up a new contact, and showed that the research continues, with collaboration from several colleges. If you submitted blood samples and pedigree information from a healthy Greyhound that has since passed, please update the researchers with cause of death, especially if it was bone cancer.  "Zeke" and "Sassy" McCord E-mail dog-info@broadinstitute.org with your update. For more information, including how to participate in this very important research, go to http://www.broadinstitute.org/mammals/ dog/donate.html. Kimberley McCord 10th Annual |
ARCHIVE Click here: In The Loop download the November issue. Click here: In The Loop download the August issue. Click here: In The Loop to download the May issue. |
|
