LIFESTYLE
by Gabby Kuehn | 2nd January 2022
Happy New Year
As we bid farewell to 2021 and embrace the New Year, we want to say a heartfelt thank you to our community of friends and supporters, wish you all a Happy New Year, and pause to reflect on our journey. I think we can all agree that it’s been a turbulent period since early 2020, a time of immense sadness for all those lost to this pandemic. It’s also presented a time for enormous gratitude to those from all walks of life who continue to work to improve and save the lives of all living beings.
The Adventure Continues
Despite many personal challenges, 2021 has be a year of listening and learning for myself and Vinnie (mostly me). Those who know me understand that I’m passionate, impulsive, focused, full of ideas, and more than a little impatient. Not always classic traits for executive of the year award! Earlier this year I reached out to a successful entrepreneur who I respect immensely for some advice. I finished the call feeing like I had just trekked through a rainforest, alone, in flipflops. He asked some tough questions; his advice was simple and invaluable.
We are incredibly proud of who we are and what we have achieved as a team. As we continue to grow and develop we have taken considerable time out to re-evaluate, focusing on the things we do best, things we enjoy, that make us and our followers happy. We are excited to introduce our new website; a work in progress that will be powered by you, our community. A space that embodies all things PAAW House.
2021 Highlights
We welcomed several new VIPPs and ambassadors including Gremlin, our first feline ambassador.
We launched the PAAWstival Charity Dog Awards enabling us to donate £19,100 to our charities, and give away £12,000 in prizes to our lucky winners and runners up.
We hosted our first live PAAWstival Event, albeit slightly scaled back due to COVID, which was a massive success thanks to those who embraced our vision.
We launched Pets Are Always Welcome Day which took place on August 28th. PAAWstival 2022 will take place on Pets Are Always Welcome Day 2022.
We are just about to launch our new website featuring NewsHound and a PetsNet revamp.
We were key supporters and advocates of Andrew Rosindell MP's ‘A Pet in Every Home’ campaign. I was invited to participate as a guest speaker on a Webinar on the topic, hosted by Andrew at Westminster.
We welcomed changes to the Model Tenancy Agreement strengthening our campaign to end no pet clauses in leasehold and tenancy agreements.
We/I was nominated for a Superdog Campaigner Award.
We sponsored the hugely successful Haute Dogs calendar for the second year.
Vinnie got a letter from Number 10 Downing Street!
Our campaign and PAAWstival 2021 event saw us featured in Take A Break Pets, The East London Advertiser, Landlord Zone, Team Dogs, Woman Magazine and various podcasts including A Dogs Life and Dog Bless You.
Our Goals for 2022
We look forward to a successful PAAWstival 2022 later this year.
We aspire to become the go-to website for like-minded pet parents and animal lovers.
We will continue to raise funds and awareness for our charities, with a series of exciting events and The PAAWstival Charity Dog Awards 2022.
We hope with your support and participation to become a household name on the London charity pet events calendar.
We look forward to seeing our PetsNet community grow and flourish, hoping you will join us in sharing the love of your favourite places, spaces, brands, and people.
We will persevere with our primary goal, to change the law relating to no pet clauses ensuring Pets Are Always Welcome.
We will continue to support all those who work to make the world a better place for animals.
We look forward to meeting many of you again over the coming year and making new friends and connections.
Vinnie on the other hand just wants retirement, a house by the beach and his very own Pets Are Always Welcome App!
None of our achievements or future aspirations would be possible without the team who work tirelessly behind the scenes to make PAAW House what it is. In addition to all their hard work, they are always there to reign me in when I want to right wrongs, or take over the world in a day, and to build me back up when I want to jump under the duvet and give up. Thanks Guys.
Best wishes for 2022 to all our PAAW House family and friends.
Gabby & Vinnie.