Minutes of Annual Meeting

House Rabbit Network, Inc.

The House Rabbit Network held its annual meeting on February 4, 2001 at the home of Suzanne Smith in Wilmington, Massachusetts. All board members except Laura O’Connell were present, as were about 25 volunteers. Suzanne Smith presided over the meeting and called upon other volunteers to give extra details of projects they are involved with. The following business was discussed.

Adoptions and foster homes: We have placed 44 rabbits in permanent homes since our incorporation in February 2000. We currently have eight foster homes formally affiliated with our network. We need more foster homes. Suzanne Rubins suggested that anyone who is reluctant to foster because it would be difficult to let the rabbits go consider taking a sanctuary rabbit. We have several rabbits in our network who are unlikely to be adopted for various reasons. We are committed to maintaining them in good health and happy conditions for the rest of their lives, but the more we have, the fewer rescues we can take from shelters. Sanctuary homes would help a lot by freeing up foster space. Suzanne S. has a mother and nine babies who will need to be separated in a few weeks, so we need to prepare foster spaces for them. Mike Kokernak also has three rabbits for us staying with a fosterer he works with, and we would like to bring them into our network as soon as possible.

Shelter Support: Starting last April, volunteers have been visiting shelters regularly to provide exercise and socialization. Suzanne R. coordinates this informally and anyone interested is welcome to contact her. It was noted that the MSPCA at Methuen has very limited space, so volunteers usually can only pet the rabbits or hold them, rather than set up exercise pens. We are most active in the Boston Animal Rescue League and Boston MSPCA.

Newsletter: The second newsletter has been issued, thanks largely to Suzanne S. Volunteers contributed articles and are welcome to continue writing for future issues. We like to have a balance with some clinical health-related items along with more informal stories.

Education and Events: There’s a rabbit seminar planned for Chelmsford on February 15 and flyers were provided for publicity. As Jen Walsh who used to coordinate pet fairs and other events now has an infant, Cherryl Rheinhardt volunteered to assist with this task and will get in touch with Jen.

Educational Emails are handled by Beth Croghan. Phone calls are shared by Laura O’Connell and Suzanne R. with Cherryl as a backup for education calls. Callers usually hear about us from the web site and flyers posted at vet’s offices and pet stores.

Volunteers were invited to contact area pet stores that do not sell rabbits to set up information tables at any time. We recommend pairing new and experienced volunteers for these events. Beth Croghan has prepared material for us to use at pet fairs including an HRN banner with our logo and educational posters featuring rabbits we have available for adoption and information about indoor rabbits.

Fundraising and Promotions: Lycos and Ebay may have promotions to assist charities such as ours and Carol Youngclaus agreed to contact them for more information. We will have a yard sale in North Andover in early spring—April or May—at Kathy Duffy’s house and Teresa Tomari will help out. We’ll need other volunteers and donated items to support this effort. Rabbit sitting has also been an excellent fundraising effort. Diane Thomas has experience with Tupperware sales and will look into coordinating this for us.

We need computer-savvy volunteers to keep the Petfinder and Arfdigita services up to date on the rabbits we have available. Carol agreed to help with this temporarily.

Beth Croghan and Michael Lain have been sending out the Rabbit Health 101 book as a fundraiser and will continue to help with this effort. All who have seen it agree that it is a useful resource. Suzanne S. had confirmed that it is not necessary to charge sales tax on it because it is an educational item.

We have T shirts, sweatshirts and smaller fundraising items (pens and magnets) with the HRN logo on them to use as fundraisers. Again, no sales tax is to be charged for these as long as they are associated with a fundraiser. All fundraising expenses must be carefully tracked and reported to the IRS and Mass. Division of Charities.

Continued efforts are needed to advertise. Flyers need to be posted in vets offices, around town, on community bulletin boards, etc. Suzanne R. will place an ad in Bay Windows. Special efforts are needed prior to the Easter season: Bruce Fuller brought in some posters created by the House Rabbit Connection which we have permission to use stressing the commitment required for a pet rabbit. Bruce will help support Easter efforts and requested contacts at area newspapers and other media. He also encouraged people to write letters to area pet store managers informing them that rabbits purchased for Easter frequently wind up getting discarded. Suzanne R. will contact the Boston NPR station which has a "pet doctor" feature during their noontime show.

The web site has been down due to a change in server sites. Linda Massey believes the problem will be resolved in a few days.

Finances and Taxes: We have approximately $5,000 in our account. Teresa Tomari’s offer to be treasurer was gratefully accepted. We can meet with a volunteer accountant and both Suzannes will help prepare the taxes. We will prepare a standard form for fosterers and others who have incurred expenses in connection with our rescue and educational activities. This will be available on line, and fosterers should fill them out and send them in to us to get a signed receipt from HRN. This is not absolutely necessary: as long as each donation amount is less than $250, volunteers can claim their expenses as charitable donations and maintain their receipts. However, we recommend sending in an itemized list of the donated amounts because it helps us track the expenses and donations made on behalf of HRN’s work.

Board Election: The active volunteers present agreed to elect all those who expressed interest in serving on the board by acclamation, as the bylaws allow for up to nine members. The 2001 board of directors is as follows:

Suzanne Smith, President

Cherryl Rheinhardt, Vice President

Suzanne Rubins, Secretary

Laura O’Connell

Linda Massey.

Teresa Tomari is our Treasurer but decided not to run for the board at this time. The board will coordinate closely with her and work together to prepare our tax return and annual report for the state.

Submitted by Suzanne Rubins