SAVES

Well one good thing came about as a result of SB 477 and HB 1242, we call it SAVES- Saving All Virginia's Exotic Species. We now have the site live, so please check it out.


www.wesaves.org

I think this is a great idea as a result of all the hard work you guys/gals put in!!

I to think this is a great idear, I don't understand how you are going to get a lot of membership, with it being invite only? How will that work?

smd58 wrote:

I to think this is a great idear, I don't understand how you are going to get a lot of membership, with it being invite only? How will that work?

We are still working on the membership part, we have a lot of bugs to work out yet.

What does this organization do that is different than existing organizations? Have you filed for exempt or non-profit status? Not looking to be critical, just trying to understand.

Don,
I'm going to try to answer that and I'm sure David will probably be able to answer it better, but this organization was formed mainly to get people together in the state of Virginia to fight HB1242 and SB477. While we were in Richmond lobbying against these bills, at just about every delegate or senators office we were asked "What group are you with?" and that is really what started our thought process of "We NEED a group to fight these bills". We are in the process of filing for 501C status, but of course that costs $$ and we need to get the funds together to make that happen, but are on our way. I hope that helps ya' understand a bit more about what we are trying to do and why this organization was formed!
Lori

Don wrote:

What does this organization do that is different than existing organizations? Have you filed for exempt or non-profit status? Not looking to be critical, just trying to understand.

We want to unite the exotic community in Virginia in the fight against legislation that would ban exotic animal ownership. Our goal is to partner with other organizations such as USARK and PIJAC when Virginia is facing legislation that would threaten our rights to own these animals. We learned with SB 477 and HB 1242 that legislators want to hear from their constituents here in Virginia. USARK and PIJAC are great, but both are out of state, and they are fighting legislation across the nation. We need people here in Virginia to fight alongside such organizations. One of the other problems we encountered was that many exotic owners knew nothing about these bills, and still don’t. We would like to be better prepared when future legislation comes up. We’ll be educating the public about the misconceptions of exotic animal ownership as well as be educating the public about the animals we keep. One thing that will make SAVES different is that it will be run by the Virginia exotic community. We would very much like feedback from stakeholders here in Virginia about what you would like to see from SAVES and how to make SAVES better. We are still working on putting officers in place and are looking at becoming a 501c3 non-profit. Hope this helps.

David

Looks like Lori posted before I finished typing.

I think the strongest message we gave at the general assembly was that we did not have a group, that 30 individuals thought enough about the legislation to show up. I just hate to see funds diverted from other organizations and the cause gets diluted.

In another thread you said that SAVE was going to be involved with drafting legislation that we can live with. That is like saying I'll let you kill some of us off to save a bigger group. I'm a little skeptical at his point and it seems a lot more work needs done before this thing is ripe.

Don,
I agree that 30 individuals we had made a stronger impacted than it would if we had 30 members from a group. Is lobbying going to be more effective as individuals, group, or both? These are things that will be discussed when we get SAVES up and going.

As far as funds being diverted from other organizations, we would never ask someone not to donate to one of the other organizations and donate to us instead. In fact we encourage people to donate to the other organizations. Seeing as SAVES will never have paid members or officers, we will be able to keep our overhead low.

Any drafted legislation by SAVES would be a last resort, and the type of drafted legislation would be what most responsible keepers are doing anyway, such as secure caging. We don’t support a ban on any exotics and will be relaying on the voice of stakeholders in Virginia as to what/if any legislation is appropriate. We realize SAVES needs work and are hoping to hear from people in the exotic community on what they would like to see from SAVES and how we can improve.