Public Notice - **Please dont confuse this post with SAHA defending ourselves in any way. This post isnt to defend ourselves to the people attacking us - This post is to keep our amazing supporters up to date with things that are happening inside the organisation they are supporting. We dont only update people on all of the positive stuff, we also share our negative experience with people as well. I am a firm believe that to get anywhere in life you must always be honest - always have integrity and always do what you believe to be morally right....** Yesterday at around 8.30am two police officers arrived at the Beaudesert Sanctuary with two ex volunteers demanding one of our horses. We have been accused of stealing this horse which was never the case... Here is the story. On the 8th July 2014 a volunteer by the name of Vanessa messaged me about a horse she had picked up from a TB trainer in emaciated condition. Vanessa was rehoming OTT TBs for this particular trainer and I was helping her by advertising them on this page free to good home. But this gelding was sick and Vanessa asked SAHA to take him which we agreed to.. She dropped the gelding off and sadly, out of trust and stupidity I didnt have her sign a surrender form. The gelding was in care for exactly 8 weeks.. We spent a small fortune having him brought back to health all in which I have itemized receipts for.. The horses registered name is Gems Jet and his stable name is Nelson. This particular volunteer was a new volunteer at the time and as the weeks went by she displayed nasty behaviour towards our committee and fellow volunteers getting many offside. She also behaved extremely unprofessionally when we had to make the hard decisions to have a horse euthanized which was diagnosed at the UQ Hospital as having kissing spine, a conditions Vanessa actually pushed for me to investigate herself.. She got angry and nasty when I wouldnt allow her to have a horse surrendered as dangerous and diagnosed with a condition that can make horses dangerous. This particular volunteer also sent out unprofessional emails to people not approved by our committee and when questioned on it she became childish and nasty. Vanessa was asked to no longer volunteer which again made her angry. So knowing she never signed a surrender form she called the police and told them I was holding her personal horse unlawfully and when they arrived asking to hand the horse over or provide a surrender form I had no choice but to hand him over.. This very very tough lesson has just confirmed that SAHA will NEVER take any horse if someone cant immediately sign a surrender form... I do however have text messages from this ex volunteer apologizing for dumping a horse in such condition on me and offering to donate a few hundred dollars towards his care. The horse was a SAHA horse and we never take personal horses to fatten them up and give them back. If she wanted to adopt him she would have had to go through the normal adoption process.. Id just like to say that we have itemized receipts for every vet account etc etc and today I had an appointment with my lawyer to see where we stand on getting some funds returned. The volunteer also demanded copies of personal documents such as adoption contracts, foster contracts and personal names and contact numbers of volunteers, field officers, foster carers etc etc - please understand that all of this documents are protected under the privacy laws and SAHA will under no circumstance be handing these documents to anyone other than our auditor. Our financial statements are open to the public and can be obtained by anyone from the office of fair trading. If anyone would like a copy just contract them and they will get one to you... So a few hard lessons were to be had this week.. Number one, no horses hooves set hoof on our property until owner has signed a surrender form and dont trust anyone on face value.. Id like to thank my amazing lawyer - Roberts Law on the Gold Coast for their amazing help. They did all of our contracts as a donation many years ago and have helped myself out with advice for our Charity many many times.. First photo is of horse on arrival 8/7/2014 Second photo is of horse last week... They waited until he was almost perfect health before deciding to call the police to come and get him... The other photos are text messages between us after she dump him on SAHA... I have also been told that this volunteer has now buddied up with Kim Hollingsworth the convicted animal abuser in order to try and discredit SAHA. So thats the story - thank you all for being a huge part of SAHA and supporting us through the good times and through the bad.. Ill keep everyone posted on the outcome...
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 03:00:42 +0000
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