A host of volunteers has offered to help council at the Katoomba animal shelter when it takes ownership from the RSPCA.
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The deal to transfer the title to council, at a nominal sum of $1, was ratified at council's March 26 meeting.
A number of speakers said they would be more than happy to once again volunteer.
Jan O'Leary, secretary of the Save Our Shelter (SOS) group, said the organisation was "overjoyed at the announcement" but also surprised that council would be running the shelter as well as a pound.
"Council doesn't have to go it alone," she said. "The community loves their shelter."
For many years people volunteered their time and many had been very generous financially.
"All of this was before head office took control of the shelter from the local branch. SOS is hearing they want their old shelter back, one in which the community has input... People are willing to help."
Another speaker, fellow SOS member Jane Thompson, acknowledged how much it would cost council to run the shelter, a large part of which would be to pay wages.
"The running costs can be greatly reduced with the use of volunteers. I suggest volunteers are essential to provide support. All quality shelters use volunteers."
She said volunteers could walk dogs, do maintenance work, administration or gardening among other duties. They would be particularly useful in fostering young animals to help them "survive, thrive and be adopted".
Speaker Judith Castle said the facility could provide much-needed boarding services or short-term stay for animals of people with sickness, disabilities or victims of domestic violence who found it difficult to take pets to refuges.
The mayor, Mark Greenhill, ensured the audience "we will be reaching out to you... The council and the community can come together and work this out. It will cost a lot of money and the work of volunteers will ameliorate that.
"The vision we have is a model for care... to do it better than it has been done before."
He pointed out that council has previously recognised animals as sentient beings and added: "That's going to be our guiding light."
Council later passed a confidential report which included the establishment of a fund or reserve to be set aside for the purpose of attracting donations for new capital investment in animal management facilities or other donor/sponsor driven programs aimed at animal welfare.
The report also said the CEO would be authorised to enter partnership arrangements with other councils for use of BMCC animal management facilities and services on a fee for service basis.
