Events

Thank you to our volunteers

There was a great Christmas Vibe at our volunteers thank you lunch this week.

More than 150 of our volunteers came together to celebrate our achievements over the year.

The Executive Manager of Vision Services, Garry Peschel, representing the Chief Executive Kate Thiele and the Chairman Joe Thorp, said that if he was using Social Media, and posting about our volunteers we would gladly use the hashtags awesome, dedicated, passionate, friendly. There’s probably many, many more, words we could use but we’d run out of space on Twitter!

“You are part and parcel of our Guide Dogs family. And yes all 350 volunteers outnumber our paid staff four to one,” he said.

“Each and every one of you with your enthusiasm and commitment bring your own story, your own gift of your skills to Guide Dogs.

“Each one of you makes up a chain – whether that’s administration, data processing, Puppy Raising and boarding, community education, telephone calls, bringing Beau’s Personalised Pet Hotel to life, driving the community bus, sending out and picking up the collection dogs – you all add your special link to a chain that keeps Guide Dogs achieving.  Your individual roles adds another link to that chain. A chain that grows stronger each and every day.”

Certificates were presented to more than 40 volunteers who had reached the milestones of 5, 10, 15 and 20 years service – including three who had reached more than 20 years service. Presentations were also made to Jody Holdback and Isabel Barrett who were recently made Honorary Life Members for their ourstanding service as volunteers to Guide Dogs.

Board Member Bruce Ind who is a sought after speaker for community talks spoke about how his Guide Dog Wallace had changed his life – thanks to the work of Guide Dogs and it’s band of volunteers.

Enjoy the gallery of photos from the day.