Quarterly Report  August 2024

 

Official / General

  • Foley Hoag reviewed our Employee Handbook, Suzanne asked some clarifying questions. It has been finalized.
  • BOD insurance was purchased and is in place as of June 20, 2024. Reviewing our current insurance due to the clinic work and will likely need to increase. Also likely will move insurance to the same agent that got our BOD insurance since the current agent is not responsive. 
  • Annual Bunny hop was Aug 11 at Nara Park in Acton and had about 50 people in attendance. Annual awards given out.

 

Financials

  • Statement of Financial Position and Profit & Loss as of July 31, 2024 provided separately.
  • Discuss replacing BraunWeiss (current bookkeeper) with a part-time employee.  The quality of the work provided by BraunWeiss since mid-March has been unsatisfactory. It appears the bookkeeper we previously had has moved on and the new bookkeeper is not performing at an adequate level.
  • A qualified individual has been identified that can take over this function the first week of September. I will take over the responsibility of training Linda and we will complete the August close together to make the transition smooth.  I have known Linda Horwitz for almost 40 years and we have also worked together in the past. She has a very strong work ethic and I believe will do an excellent job. I will also be able to hand-off some of the communications with our tax accountants to her, which will be a great help to me.

 

As of Aug 27, 2024: Bank Balances:

 

Checking: $  32,523

Business Money Market $207,000

91 CD Matures 9/24 $406,752

Total $646,275

 

91 CD should earn an additional $1,378 in interest up through the maturity date.

 

Adoptions

  • 265 adoptions as of Aug 26. We are significantly ahead of last year. 

 

Fundraisers

Capital Campaign is going well, raising $92k as of Aug 27 and expecting checks for $11k-$15k. We plan to extend the campaign another 2-4 weeks. We held an open house at the shelter June 15 which was well attended.

 

  • Salut (4/30) raised a total of: $2313. Salut has since closed down so we will not hold this event again. 
  • Bunny Yoga Wellesley (5/11) they are donating to us in June and it should be around $1,000 (Note- Suzanne is trying to confirm if we received any payments for these)
  • Bunny Yoga Worcester (6/1) raised $805: $750 in ticket sales and $55 in additional donations
  • Bunny Yoga in Wellesley (7/13). Missing information about attendees or funds. 
  • Trivia night at Redemption Rock raised $300
  • Snuggles with Bessie’s babies raised $3,440
  • Summer auction has raised $6,245. There were a lot of issues we are working on ironing out for the next one.

 

Upcoming:

  • 5k and Family Bunny Hop Fun Run set for Oct 12 in Boxboro. Progress is good so far with 62 people signed up to attend. We have $1400 in cash sponsorships and an additional $975 in winners prizes donated already. Working on more sponsorship opportunities and prizes for the sweepstakes. Bill Rodgers, of Boston Marathon fame, will be an honorary guest.
  • Working on another yoga class in Waltham for September (pending figuring out payments)
  • Paint bowl night (9/25) at Just Claying around in Bridgewater. Carly is running the event. 
  • Event at Break Rock Brewing (11/7).
  • Next Auction is tentatively scheduled for early November. Cara C will take over running them. 
  • We are researching Bingo. Our previous vendor can no longer do online events. 
  • Calendars have arrived and are on sale

 

Services (Spa Days, Bunsitting, Bonding)

 

Spa Days

$3,333 raised on the Spa Wars Weekend 5/4/24 and 5/5/24.  Pre paid grooming fees were $2,075, donations for pictures on Saturday 5/4 were $521 and donations for pictures on Sunday 5/5 totaled $737.  This event was very well attended and the volunteer photographers were excellent to work with through the event and afterwards.

 

$1,000 raised on 6/8/24 event (40 sold spaces- attendance down likely due to graduations- Dawn and Bonnie). First event not sold out in months.  We offered two additional after hour spa’s during July 18th and 25th which proceeds went towards the capital campaign under Team Safe a Warren, Team LMT and Team Dunkin.

 

$1,400 raised on 7/27/24 event (56 tickets sold) and we had two individuals in training attend to assist on Spa day.  

 

Upcoming spa day will be held at the Westford Public library on September 14th from 11:30 to 3:00 PM.  The plan is to staff five stations if we have enough volunteers, allowing us to have 72 spots available for grooming.

 

Bunsitting

  • 133 paid requests since the April update totaling $30,240
  • 29 requests are scheduled up to 4/18/25 with 1 open request (which is in the process of being filled)
  • 10 new sitters were onboarded and 5 asked to be removed from the group
  • 6 sitters were given the bunsitter discount totaling 55 days between them

Bonding

 

  • In person bonding total since April update: $4120
  • 7 virtual bonding consultations since April update totaling $275

 

Grants

We have spent all the MAC grant money. Final report will be submitted shortly.

We have not submitted for any new grants.

 

Donation Management & Development Committee

  • We are adding cash and check donations into Zeffy for better reporting
  • Fundraising Committee has been struggling but will work on ramping it up again.  

 

Subscriptions

 

Monthly  Bringing in each month $1090

10 for $50 / month  

14 for  $25 / month

23 for $10 / month

2 for $5 / month 

 

Yearly

15 Mini Lop  $25 / year

3 New Zealand $50 / year

11 Flemish Giant $100 / year

 

Shelter

 

We wrapped up the month of July by moving the bunnies from the shelter into foster homes. We had some new foster homes but many of our current fosters were very willing to help us out as we needed to have all bunnies out by July 28th. We were pleasantly surprised that we did not need to move many bunnies to Suzanne’s house. Since the closure of the physical shelter space in Westford, we have been working out of Suzanne’s home. Jessica and Lauren go to Suzanne’s home a few times a week to help with rabbit care, appointments and keeping up to date on veterinary visits and wellness checks. When not at Suzanne’s Jessica and Lauren have other tasks to complete to make sure all bunnies within HRN are updated and up to date with documentation. Jessica is working on updating the SOPs for the shelter and tweaking some of the online application forms. Lauren is helping to keep the vaccination clinics going and updating our bunnies’ medical records. We currently have 24 bunnies at Suzanne’s house and have adoption appointments scheduled every week. We are still intaking surrenders but have slowed down the frequency in order to leave some space for emergencies.

 

Clinic

The shelter completed the load out on July 30th and notified the contractor the facility was now available for construction to begin.  On August 5th Bonnie and Jessica met with Chris Rice (PM from Cole Contracting) and Norman (Supervisor from Cole Contracting) at the shelter for the walk through.  Construction began with demolition on the 5th, which continued thru the 9th of August.  During the site meeting held on Thursday the 8th, HRN reviewed the structural beam and column found during construction with the structural engineer Travis.  The report received on the 12th indicated the beam and column were not structural to the building but most likely for a future second floor in the front quadrant of the building.  Due to this beam and column one of the bathrooms did require a small layout change that was completed by the architect, reviewed by the plumbing engineer and issued to Cole and HRN.  The design minimized the impact to the plumbing, walls, and doorways already planned.  During the week of August 12th the concrete floor was saw cut and the new plumbing drains and drain locations were installed.  The plumbing past inspection on the 19th and Cole Contracting began repairs to the concrete which was completed on the 22nd.  Bonnie had several discussions with Suzanne about the beam and column discovered during demolition and requested a quote to engineer the newly discovered potential space.  The estimate was shared with the board via email requesting agreement to move forward with the design of the new space.  On Monday August 19th we gave the engineers approval to complete the design work so Cole Contracting can give us pricing for the 2nd floor (approximately 760 sq-ft).  On August 22nd the preliminary designs were sent to Cole to start the estimating process.  On August 26th additional sectional drawings were sent to Cole to assist with pricing development.  Bonnie has requested the construction estimate for the second floor prior to the August 27th Board Meeting.

 

Foster Homes 

  • We have an outgoing  member Liz O leaving the committee
  • We are wanting to add 1-2 additional members to help with ongoing projects
  • Currently speaking with Kair O and she is interested in joining us. She is scheduled to join our next meeting Sept 8th 7PM

Upcoming projects

  • Implementing a vacation form and better way to keep track of vacation coverage and what bunny is where.  We have had 2 times this summer (july 4th and end of August) where we had to organize a lot of folks.  Holidays are coming so we need to get this system in place before then.  Hoping Kari O can take this on to manage as her main task
  • Continuing to update the foster home manual.  Would like to create a link so its a live document that updates as we make changes
  • I would love to do a foster appreciation night at the shelter once it’s opened.  I love seeing foster homes in person and we are long overdue to show them how much we appreciate their hard work.  Lauren has offered to help me organize this. 
  • We had a bunch of new foster homes come on board to help clear out the shelter before construction. (YAY!)  This helped reduce the amount of buns that went to Suzanne’s.  Many of those foster homes have foster failed. This is great news for the bunnies, but most foster homes are no longer fostering.  We will be advertising again on social media to continue to recruit good foster home candidates.  I have asked Lauren to post about recruiting more homes.
  • We have had a lot of requests for surrenders, strays and ACO requests.  It’s been hard to keep up with the demand, and not have them all land at Suzanne’s.

 

Hotline

  • Everything is running smoothly on the hotline. We have had multiple departures and additions.
    • New volunteers onboarded:
      • Brian
      • Iris
      • Krissy
      • Kayla
    • Volunteers departed:
      • Amanda
      • Briahnna (still on Discord for medical/intake questions)
      • Frances
  • Currently have adequate coverage, will look for new recruits if any current volunteers need to leave or split day’s responsibility with another volunteer
  • Worked with Deb and Cara to transition some tasks from hotline responsibility to one of them:
    • Deb does all communication with foster homes
    • Cara sends medical records

 

Outreach, Volunteering & Events

    • Spring outreach events had some small issues with volunteers not effectively coordinating pickup/dropoff of ed kit/supplies. Nikki is working on assembling an outreach event committee, with 4-5 volunteers so that there is always an experienced lead available to attend each event and ensure it runs smoothly.
  • Spring events attended:
      • April 30: Adopt-a-Shelter Pet Day @ Mathworks
      • May 4: May Day Celebration @ Good Earth Farm
      • May 11: Petstravaganza @ Reading Public Library
      • May 18: Pet Resource Fair @ Worcester Public Library
      • June 2: Adoption Day @ Tattersall Farm
      • June 10: Kids’ Education @ Quincy Public Library
      • August 18: Muddy Paws 5K @ Lowell Humane Society
  • Upcoming events:
      • September 28 & 29: Boston Veg Fest @ Reggie Lewis Athletic Center (Boston)
      • October 6: Pet Rock Fest @ Lancaster Fairgrounds
      • October 19: Malden Health Fest @ Lincoln Commons
      • February 1 & 2, 2025: RI Vegfest @ Waterfire Arts Center, Providence
        • Waiting to be accepted (will hear back late August, early Sept.)
      • More events in the works.
  • Volunteers: Processing volunteer applications has slowed due to shelter shutdown. Most applicants want to be shelter volunteers. Nikki is still trying to find someone to take over the info@ email account.

 

RHD

We had a second set of clinics just before shut down June 30th and July 21st  with a smaller clinic at Suzanne’s Aug 9. We fully vaccinated 150 public rabbits and 166 HRN rabbits with an initial 2-dose series spaced 3 weeks apart since our April clinics. We protected an additional 22 rabbits with annual boosters. We have partnered with Lowell Humane to do another pair of dates Sept 29 and Oct 20. EPMV donated $1400 to us for the last few clinics. They will be making another donation to us for the Jun/Jul dates. We anticipate having that amount soon. For Sep we plan to split the money with Lowell Humane.

 

From EPMV: Based on our totals from the last 4 vaccine clinics (Feb 25, March 17, April 7, April 28) the total going back to HRN would be $3,000 (technically $2,692 but we figured we’d just round up!) So if we deduct the $1620 for the shelter vaccines, we will be able to send HRN $1400 (technically $1380 but again we will round up!).

 

Intra-Meeting Board Decisions

 

Board approved new Board Member Nikki LaRoche on May 21st

Board decided to eliminate the Fundraising and Donor Management position. Brooke’s last day was Aug 16.