FoSC Volunteer John Rhodes organises the hugely successful ‘Scruffs’ Dog show and now for the last 2 years, the Doggy Splash Day.
Splash Day is held at the end of the season before the pond is cleared for the winter months. Its sole aim is to raise funding for the Childrens Paddling Pool to reopen in the summer months since no other public funding is available. Over 200 dogs paid to come and splash in the pool and the weather was fine dry and warm. There was much excitement with dogs finding their inner Baywatch poses and being head over heels in love with their city beach. We hope this will be a regular fixture on the Calendar – and of course our furry friends insist we do it all over again next year.
Doggy Splash Day was a great success and raised £1379. 77 from selling cakes, jams, raffle, tombola and entrance money.
People were so generous that there are still items to sell which were donated to the tombola which did not get included. Over November and December John will be selling these at a Bric-a Brac / Bring and Buy stall in the grounds of the Rookery Cafe every morning from 9-12.
John has created Calendars and Christmas cards of the two events to sell on the stall as well. As always John is a shining example of how our volunteers are key to the Commons success at ensuring the community is well served by our beautiful space. We do need help though so these events will carry on. John would very much welcome any help to sell in the mornings so John can focus on pushing the target from the potential of collecting £1500 towards the £2000 mark.
The 2017 Scruffs Dog show was a record breaker with 185 dogs. The show was opened by the Mayor of Lambeth (Marcia Cameron) Who stayed to present some of the Rosettes. Esteemed Judges were the CEO from PAT DOGs Deborah Dow, Harry Kinnard from Battersea Dogs & Cats home [where many of the commons regular four legged friends originate from], and three judges from the local vets. [photos to follow soon]
There are still some souvenir programmes for sale at £2.00.
John wants to send a massive “thank you” to all the volunteers on the two days as without them the shows could not go on.
