Last night the Board of Directors of the Weyburn Therapeutic Animal Park held their first Annual General Meeting.

“We had a great meeting,” said president Sara Lawrence. “We have a great board in place, we still have great support from the community.”

She said they are excited for the year to come, as they have big plans in place for this year.

“We're looking to start attracting animals for lease, volunteers to join,” she explained. “We're looking to hold a lot of great fundraising events at the park, hoping to do birthday parties at the park, goat yoga in the park. Lots of things to just bring the community down to the park this year.”

Media Director Vince Sheldon said over the next few months they will begin putting calls out for volunteers.

“Of course, we would love our returning volunteers," said Sheldon. "We had such a great amount of volunteers last year. If there's anyone interested in being a volunteer this year, they can contact us through our Facebook page and we would love to have them come down and help us out and get involved with our community.”

Lawrence said they were joined for their meeting by some honoured guests.

“We are really excited that Don and Norma Sealy came out for the meeting,” said Lawrence. “It's always great to have their input and support since they are the founders of the park, so it's always nice to have them join our meetings.”

Don Sealy presented the board with two cheques received from local businesses.

Randy and Darcy McGillicky of McGillicky Oilfield have been longtime friends and supporters of Don and the Therapeutic Animal Park. They gave him a donation of $1,500 to present to the board for the upcoming season.

In addition to Crescent Point Energy’s annual employee donation program and company-wide volunteerism goals, the company invites its employees to nominate local non-profit organizations for additional funding at the end of each year. In 2018, WTAP was selected to receive a $2,000 donation after being nominated by Crescent Point employee Mike Chuckry. That cheque was also presented at last night's meeting.

Find out more on volunteering HERE.

Don Sealy (pictured at right), who retired last year from managing the WTAP for more than 30 years, was in attendance for the first AGM last night, along with his wife Norma (photo by Denis Conroy).