In the Spring 2000 issue, we'd decided to up the stakes, we wanted a plaque on one of their stable doors! Beyond adoption, there was also Hopefield's sponsorship scheme. You could sponsor animals for various amounts, from £150 for a goat, all the way up to £800 for a nice big horsey. And for that, you got a plaque on the door with your name on, which we thought would be rather nice. So the deal we published was that whatever amount of money our supporters sent in, I would personally make it up to the next sponsorship amount. Plus me and Sam would go and work there for a weekend and get all muddy. With pictures. For some unknown reason, though possibly 'work' and 'muddy' provide some clues, that latter part never happened. Initially, it didn't look like the former bit would either. The piece in the opposite column is reprinted from the New Year 2001 edition of the new UWU Newszine. Sorry it's a little fuzzy, but the print version of that one was damaged. There is a webified version on this website if you don't want to do your eyes any damage, which you can find HERE, just wanted to include the original reprint for period feel, you understand. It was actually the first issue done on a PC, rather than typewriter / cut 'n paste et al. It also turned out to be the last full newsletter we published, as things would turn out. Anyway, it did the trick, we did get the extra donations from our supporters and we did end up with a plaque. And this is the bit that our supporters from back in the day would never have known. As luck would have it, I still had the notes that were supposed to go into the next UWU Newszine, the May 2003 edition that never happened. So here, for the first time, you actually get to read it...

"Hopefield Animal Sanctuary – You may recall we were nagging frantically for donations to this most wondrous of worthy causes, and we didn’t do bad in the end. Think you all sent in a little over £70 in total, and, as promised, we  made it up to the next sponsorship price, which was £150. We had a lovely day at the sanctuary last August, met up with Paula & Ernie and made them pose for one of those naff cheque presentation pictures you see in local newspapers. They didn’t want to, but I explained all of you would think I’d run away and spent all the money on marzipan otherwise. So here’s the proof, that’s me giving the cheque to Paula, so there! Fancy thinking I’d be off down the 

Obviously posed naff cheque presentation picture with Paula & me

*Reprinted from the New Year 2001 edition of the UWU Newszine

sweetie shop with charity money, shame on you. I mean, do I look like I spend time in sweetie shops? So anyway, in spite of there being a horsey there called Magic, we decided to sponsor Buster , coz he was a goat and they are much cheaper to sponsor than horseys and all we could