Volunteer of the Month - October 2022

Marion with her office assistant

This month we are celebrating Marian Dill-Jones. Marian is team lead for the Foster Interview team and also fosters kitties for VOKRA. We wanted to highlight the interview team as it is relatively new, having been created in 2020, and many are unfamiliar with its role. Marian has done a fantastic job leading it and making it what it is today!

Here is Marian's story in her own words:

How did you start volunteering with VOKRA?

One day, while teaching-on-call, I overheard a staff member having a strange conversation on the phone at lunch, talking about traps, cameras and night-time covert operations! This person turned out to be Janet Cox, a long time VOKRA trapper. She told me all about the organization and their need for fosters! I grew up with many cats and thought fostering might be a way to help out. My own kitties were long gone and I wasn’t looking to adopt again.

How long and in what capacity have you been volunteering?

I started fostering for VOKRA in Sept. 2019 and Diane Atkinson became my foster coordinator. So far I have fostered 7 kitties. After foster failing two of them, I started looking for other ways to help VOKRA. In the spring of 2020 I joined the Driving Team for a while and then got recruited to help with new foster Interview Team that same year, as the whole world decided they wanted to foster during Covid and VOKRA was inundated with applications! Since then I have become the Interview Team Lead and continue to help recruit lots of lovely new fosters, the backbone of VOKRA’s organization.

What is your favourite part of volunteering?

As a foster, I love working with the shy kitties and helping them feel more comfortable. In my role as an interviewer, I’ve enjoyed having great conversations with people from all walks of life and from all over the world. They all have the same goal as VOKRA, in wanting to help cats in need! I also have enjoyed working with a wonderful group of other interviewers and many other volunteers.

Do you have a favourite kitty you have met or a favourite story from your time with VOKRA?

My first fosters arrived in a kennel, very scared and shy. They stayed in my den for six weeks before nervously venturing out. Despite their very skittish and fearful natures, I fell in love with these two and worked hard to help them relax. After five months they went up for adoption and with great trepidation and sadness I let them go. The day they left, I knew it was a horrible mistake! After a lot of whining and tears, I decided it was time to move on and two more beautiful but complicated foster kitties arrived, Hazel and Olive. Dear Hazel had lots of health issues and while we were trying to figure out what was going on with her, I suddenly got an email from Diane telling me my first two fosters had been surrendered back! What did I want to do?! Well obviously they had to come home! However, now I had two other cats in my den! We had glass doors between this room and the living room. My husband had to install temporary panel boards up against these doors to keep them apart! We shared our living space with 4 cats for a while until new fosters were found for Hazel and Olive. Luckily my two returnees remembered where they were immediately and were very happy to be home! Hazel and Olive went on to be adopted later that year.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

My job as Interviewer and Team Lead has been very rewarding, but also quite the learning curve at the start. As interviewers we have to play a balancing act between judging character, providing good information and sometimes having to say no. Many thanks to Joanna Brownridge, the previous Team Lead and Ashra Kolhatkar, the Foster Coordinator Lead, for proving great support and putting up with all of my questions!

As a foster I have learned that cats rarely come as advertised! There are always adventures to be had and challenges to overcome, but that is all part of the job! Many thanks to Diane Atkinson for being a wonderfully supportive and calm foster coordinator!

Marian’s Foster Coordinator Diane Atkinson has this to say about her: "Marian started with VOKRA as a foster and I appreciated her calm demeanour and sense of humour! After she adopted her two kitties, we thought she was done fostering but I have since managed to talk her into short term fostering on two occasions, for kitties who had nowhere else to go! Thanks Marian!"

THANK YOU Marian for everything you do for VOKRA, the foster team, and the kitties!

As a volunteer-driven non-profit, we clearly couldn’t do what we do without our extremely dedicated and hardworking team of volunteers. Thank you to each and every one of you!

If you are interested in fostering for VOKRA apply here.