Recently, we were approached by a really kind sponsor who wants to give us a free website domain, hosting and support included. It was really good to hear from Anderson, whose other half is an avid cat lover, and his sponsorship stems from his love for his fiancee.
It was a critical moment for us at the time, with our main boarding space at Angels Pet Shop having rental issues.
Angels is in the midst of sorting out a new shop space in Ubi, with new investors. Aswat is also still in recovery from his eye surgery - he has been caring for the animals in the shop half-blind, hence the surgeries. It hasn't been easy for Aswat at all having to juggle caring for the animals for Ubi Kuching Project, running a pet shop on his own, sorting out the investors and moving of the pet shop, and having to go for visits to the hospital.
So, some rest is definitely needed on the shopfront-adoption facet of our work. As such, we will be allowing Aswat to rest and recover, and giving him time to finalise the changes that are happening to Angels Pet Shop. After Coffee, Spitty and Tala get adopted at Angels, we will no longer be boarding animals for rehoming at the shop premises, relying instead on fostering the rescues in homes like our own. Once Angels has tided over the changes, we will re-engage Angels as one of our corporate sponsors again, and Angels will continue to be a pet shop that supports pet adoption work through boarding and rehoming rescues for us.
So much has happened for Ubi Kuching Project since we started, and we are going further geographically in our rescue and sterilisation work. A lot of our work is no longer just in our beloved estate of Ubi. This is a direction we want to take while we continue to be involved in helping to care for Ubi's urban wildlife together with our kampung network of feeders and cat-patrons in Ubi. I received an email today from Suqi who wants to start an Yishun Kuching Project with the caregivers in her estate. This is the kind of community-activism we love to encourage! We want to keep inspiring pet owners towards better care and education for their pets, and the public towards getting involved in protecting the urban wildlife in their neighbourhoods. If we do change our name, it will reflect the main tenets of our work even more. Ultimately, the premise and action of loving the animals in our lives and neighbourhood will not change. Sayang Kuching Project perhaps?
A name change will definitely also take us forward in working with corporate sponsors. In my talks with potential corporate sponsors I propose changing our name to reflect the co-ownership with our corporate sponsor. Corporate sponsors look for mileage for their brand when it comes to their contributions towards social causes, creating win-win situations for both social and business causes. We do not mind being co-owned and re-branded by a corporate sponsor if we find the right fit with a pet business. Also, the possibility of removing 'Ubi' from our name may also help us score more viable corporate sponsorships because our brand will no longer seem geographically limited to the 50 blocks in the small estate of Kampung Ubi.
Which brings us back to the website sponsorship that Anderson offered us - when we do finalise our name change, our new domain will reflect it. We will migrate our current blog to the site with our new brand name. Stay tuned to find out where we will be moving - online - to!
Hence, the post title 'Newness' and my excitement in having the privilege to share this news with you. Am totally excited myself. While we have all been concerned because of Angels Pet Shop having forced to go, even in a crisis comes opportunity to grow. We started because of our crazy love for the animals around us, and we will only reach further to continue spreading this love.
